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that’s what I had said, but that’s not what I said,” he added as a qualifier to his apology.
Beck was eager to blame Breitbart News for his self-inflicted woes.
“That’s what Breitbart and Drudge and the paid-for Donald Trump media wants you to believe I said,” he continued.
Beck, however, did not deny the accuracy of the quotes about “real Christians” and Donald Trump attributed to him by numerous media outlets, including:
Instead of disputing the quotes attributed to him by these many media outlets, Beck offered this “trust me” defense, which specifically referenced the Breitbart article about his criticism of Southern Evangelicals:
Here’s what concerned me: What concerned me was the way this article attempts to characterize what I said and believe, that I had to step back and rewatch the videos and listen to my comments that I made at campaign rallies over the weekend and make sure that I hadn’t said what the article and the comments within the article imply.
Beck went on to explain his view of the specific mechanism all Christians, including those who support Trump, should follow before deciding the candidate for whom they will vote in the 2016 GOP Presidential contest:
I believe evangelicals and Christians and Jews and Muslims are in this together, that we all have access to God’s inspiration. That’s all I’m asking for: On this Easter weekend, that you would take the time and ask for God’s inspiration. Take the time to examine the principles and put them up to your Christian values and principles. Just side by side, the principles, God’s principles and the candidate’s principles, without excuses. Question with boldness. Realize where our country is. Realize what’s at risk in this election if we choose a candidate whose positions seem to be based on anger, hatred, greed. It’s easy to get caught up in a crowd carrying pitchforks and torches, but look at the records of these men. Listen to the words they use. Look how they live their lives. What they’ve built. How they’ve built it. And then ask yourself soberly, truly, and then seek God’s counsel. If having done that, you’re still confirmed in your choice to support Donald Trump, I can’t fault you for that, just like you can’t fault me for believing and supporting Ted Cruz.
Earlier in the article, Beck said, “I happen to believe that Ted Cruz actually was anointed for this time.”
That statement was made as he disputed a comment made to Breitbart News by Dr. Thomas Kidd, a leading academic expert on religion in America and Associate Director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University:
But then he [Dr.Kidd] says, ‘But God has not revealed Ted Cruz as the divinely anointed alternative either.’ To you, Dr. Kidd. To you. To you God hasn’t revealed Cruz as divinely anointed. I understand that. And I respect your opinion on it. But here’s mine: I have seen this man’s life. I have watched this man. I have prayed about this man. I have prayed about it by myself, out loud, in quiet, with my family, with my staff, and I happen to believe that Ted Cruz actually was anointed for this time. Would there not be someone that was in the pool that might have the right qualifications for God? Is he that disinterested in all of us? Or is it perhaps possible that just like in the Bible, people were raised from birth for a specific time? Are we that inconsequential, Dr. Kidd? Are we really not that important enough for him to raise someone up, at this critical juncture?
At least one radio talk show host is publicly asking if Beck’s outspoken support for Sen. Cruz has become a liability for the presidential campaign of the junior Senator from Texas.
During an interview on Friday, Tulsa, Oklahoma radio talk show host Pat Campbell, talking with Dr. Everett Piper, President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, on his program heard every week day on 1170 AM KFAQ, told his guest, “I’m of the belief, and I want to see if you’re in agreement with me on this, that Beck endorsing Cruz I think, actually is a negative,” adding:
I think Beck is just, I don’t know what it is, he’s too obsessed with Donald Trump and he’s almost blinded by that obsession. I think that having him go out in places like Utah and talking about, you know, how the white horse prophecy and all these other things out there, presenting Ted Cruz as some sort of savior. I’m not looking for a savior. I’ve already got a savior, thank you very much.
“I am looking for somebody to clean up this mess here, and I do believe that Ted Cruz is the best choice out there and I have since he announced he was going to run over a year ago. But the Beck thing, I think it’s actually more of a negative than a positive,” Campbell told Piper.
“What do you see?” Campbell asked of Piper.
“I am an evangelical Christian, therefore Glenn Beck’s theology and my theology do not agree,” Piper answered, adding:
There are many theological issues that Glenn Beck would take that I would challenge him on. If ever given the opportunity in a debate I would hopefully have a cordial and polite discussion with him on theological differences rather than theological syncretism. That aside, I agree with, I think, the premise of your point that you just made, and that is Beck, or Breitbart, or you or me, is a distraction. The issue here isn’t what Beck says or his endorsement. And in fact it may be a distraction because of Beck’s personality and his public persona. But I’m not going to allow Beck to become the issue when people ask me are evangelicals being faithful to the very Bible that they hold dear.
“That’s what I believe we should be doing as a church,” Piper elaborated later in the interview.
“Not getting distracted by endorsements by Glenn Beck or challenges by Breitbart or any other people of power or privilege out there that want to distract the discussion and distract the debate,” he concluded.
Other public figures who are supporting Ted Cruz may soon join KFAQ’s Campbell in questioning whether Glenn Beck’s endorsement is a negative or a positive for the Cruz campaign.Select Other Players Devan Ahart Scott Alexander Jimmy Allen Stetson Allie Yadier Alvarez Chris Anderson Cody Asche Pedro Baez Austin Barnes Matt Beaty Cody Bellinger Michael Boyle Adam Bray Joe Broussard Walker Buehler Brian Burgamy Alex Burgos Ezequiel Carrera Gerardo Carrillo Ralston Cash Deivy Castillo Daniel Castro JT Chargois Tony Cingrani Daniel Corcino Bobby Coyle Parker Curry Justin De Fratus Yadir Drake Omar Estevez Caleb Ferguson Josh Fields Dylan Floro David Freese Rocky Gale Yimi Garcia Kyle Garlick Robbie Garvey Angel German J.T. Ginn Erik Goeddel Cristian Gomez Tony Gonsolin Devaris Gordon Josiah Gray Mitch Hansen Louis Head Jake Henson Starling Heredia Alexander Hermeling Enrique Hernandez Rich Hill Paul Hoenecke Ben Holmes Kyle Hooper Jordan Jankowski Kenley Jansen Michael Johnson Matt Jones Jeremy Kehrt Joe Kelly James Kennedy Clayton Kershaw Tom Koehler Logan Landon CC Lee Gavin Lux Kenta Maeda Russell Martin Dustin May Adam McCreery Michael Medina Erick Meza Delvis Morales Ryan Moseley Dillon Moyer Max Muncy Spencer Navin Tyler Ogle Paulo Orlando Robinson Ortiz Joc Pederson Cameron Perkins Shane Peterson DJ Peters Jake Peter A.J. Pollock Kevin Quackenbush C.J. Retherford Carlos Rincon Edwin Rios Webster Rivas Andrew Robinson Rob Rogers Reinier Roibal Keibert Ruiz Hyun-Jin Ryu Ariel Sandoval Dennis Santana Josh Sborz Jaime Schultz Corey Seager Jordan Sheffield Tim Shibuya Yaisel Sierra Will Smith Josh Smoker Shea Spitzbarth Brock Stewart Ross Stripling Travis Taijeron Chris Taylor Josh Thole Andrew Toles Brandon Trinkwon Justin Turner Edwin Uceta Julio Urias A.J. Vanegas Luis Vasquez Alex Verdugo Mitchell White Shawn ZarragaIn an issue of Sports Illustrated earlier this month, Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly spoke to Dan Patrick about his career. In the interview, he shared his thoughts on Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, discussed his time in the USFL, and his New Year's Eve celebration.
In the spirit of celebration, Patrick asked Kelly if he had ever had a late night the night before a game that affected his play.
"No," said Kelly. "The only thing I ever had the night before a game was a glass of wine at dinner if we were on the road and we'd gone to an Italian restaurant. You have to remember I called the play. It was tough enough doing it with a straight head and six concussions, let alone trying to do it with a hangover. But I know there are players who have," he added with a laugh.
Patrick continued this line of questioning asking what Kelly had ever seen in a locker room, further asking if a player had ever thrown up. Kelly's answer, while disgusting, was pretty awesome.
"Well, I threw up before every game," said Kelly. "Everybody probably could have said I had a hangover."
Pressed to go on, Kelly added that it went all the way back to his childhood.
"Every game, including high school. Even basketball. The interesting thing about it was, we were so superstitious [in Buffalo] that my offensive line would not leave the locker room until I threw up. I shouldn't say I threw up every game. Probably 95 percent of the time. But the times I didn't think I needed to or it wasn't one of those games where I was so pumped up - like if we had [already] clinched - those games the offensive line wouldn't leave. So I went in there and pretended, just to keep those guys happy."
That, my friends, is the definition of a true leader and team player.
Expect to hear more from Kelly in the coming weeks. He is always a fixture on the Super Bowl media circuit.Amid the mired SFPD racist texting scandal, CBS SF has flagged new, utterly damning video of insensitive remarks from local police officers.
The two brief Instagram videos, taken at Happy Donuts at 24th and Church Streets, show two officers cracking jokes about shooting civilians while wearing body surveillance cameras, which they do not yet have.
They'd like to ensure that suspects pointing a gun at them are captured on video when they're shot, but not suspects putting their hands up. Perhaps they're laughing partially out of discomfort, but this is of course tasteless and disgusting. They gesture and pantomime shootings suspects in the chest and head.
A video posted by 🌟Estr3lla 'I' (@lastrella) on Sep 9, 2015 at 10:25pm PDT
A video posted by 🌟Estr3lla 'I' (@lastrella) on Sep 9, 2015 at 10:23pm PDT
The San Francisco police said today that the department has opened an investigation into the behavior of these officers after the videos went quickly viral.
Previous coverage of the SFPD racist text scandal.Muscles Around the Eyes
More than any other types, INFJs and INTJs exhibit a near constant, very noticeable squinting of the eyes. Specifically, the upper eyelids are left neutral – neither drooped and relaxed nor tight and widened. However, the muscles under the eye and extending slightly down the cheek are strongly engaged. This can be tested by closing your eyes gently, and then squeezing them closed, with minimal other facial movements. The muscles used when squeezing are the ones that INxJs have engaged most of the time. In the gif below, I demonstrate the transition between a neutral face and this squinting.
Additionally, and in contrast to INTJs, INFJs often – though not always – imbue their eyes with the warmth of an ‘implied smile’, an ‘implied frown’, or both. The smile is created by a very slight engagement of the cheek muscles, which results in an (often almost imperceptible) raising of the corners of the mouth along with a further narrowing of the eyes, albeit more focused on the outer corners, leading to the slight appearance of “crow’s feet” wrinkles. This is demonstrated in the gif below.
Likewise, the ‘implied frown’ is formed by a very slight engagement of the eyebrow muscles inward and upward, which creates a slight (again, often almost imperceptible) furrowing of the brow inwards and upwards, and also causes the upper eyelids to appear more ‘hooded’, drooping slightly toward the middle-to-outer edge of the eye. This is actually a unique combination of both ‘sadness’ (eyebrows together) and ‘surprise/fear’ (eyebrows up). This is demonstrated in isolation below.
And finally, the squint in conjunction with the slight smile and the slight frown gives a unique combination that is rarely seen in types other than the INFJ (hence why it is so hard for me to reproduce – please forgive the sloppy execution!):
Here are some close-ups on the eyes of actual INFJs. Can you spot the expressions mentioned?INDORE: A woman was awarded a sentence of four years and a fine of Rs 11,000 for levelling false rape charges against her landlord, after a dispute over the payment of rent due to which the landlord committed suicide.The sentence was awarded by Additional Session Judge Indira Singh to Chanchal Rathore (35) under Section 211 (levelling false allegations with an intention to cause hurt) and Section 182 of the Indian Penal Code (giving false information to a public servant) after a complaint by another woman judge.Chanchal had filed a complaint of rape against her landlord Roopkishore Agrawal (53) in the Palasia police station on December 26, 2012, but later turned hostile in front of Additional Session Judge Savita Dube while her statement was recorded in the matter on March 13 this year.Additional Public Prosecutor Hemant Mungi said that after Chanchal backtracked on her original statement, the court declared her hostile and then the woman judge Savita Dube herself filed a case against Chanchal in the court of fellow judge Indira Singh.The case was registered for filing a false report and recording false statements in the court, Mungi said.The woman judge also recorded her statement against Chanchal in the court of her fellow judge, after which she was awarded a four-years jail sentence and a fine of Rs 11,000.Chanchal's landlord Roopkishore Agrawal had to spend nearly two-and-a-half months in jail under judicial custody, after which he was released on bail on March 8, Mungi said.Since Agarwal was extremely upset due to Chanchal's false rape charge against him which damaged his reputation, he committed suicide after leaving a suicide note blaming her for his misery.A separate case under Section 306 (abetment to suicide) of the Indian Penal Code is also on against Chanchal Rathore in the matter, Mungi said.The British government has been asked to investigate whether the country’s major provider of telecommunications networks and services, BT, is aiding US drone strikes.
According to a complaint filed by the charity group Reprieve, BT has built a military internet cable connecting US air force facilities in Northamptonshire to a base for unmanned craft in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa.
The human rights group alleges that the $23 million (£13 million) fiber-optic circuit built by BT in 2012 was installed to facilitate air strikes in Yemen and Somalia by US Air Force drones.
Reprieve investigator Kevin Lo said: “Between this new evidence, and BT’s claim to work with ‘any government that pays the bills’, it’s now clear there are serious questions to be asked about BT’s possible support for US drone strikes. The government should reopen its investigation as soon as possible, and demand some answers on behalf of the strikes’ civilian victims.”
The fiber-optic cable runs from the Royal Air Force Station (RAF) Croughton in central UK to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, which houses the Pentagon’s most important base for drone operations outside Afghanistan.
BT, however, said the circuit is a general purpose system not specifically designed or adapted by BT for military purposes, including drone strikes.
Reprieve said that since the strikes take place in countries with which the US is not at war and have killed civilians, "they violate international and domestic law.”
There have been as many as 60 confirmed drone attacks in Yemen since 2012, with 385 killed, including 47 civilians and five children, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
BT’s contract is set to run until October 2017. The circuit apparently not only connects Djibouti to the UK, but also to Capodichino near Naples in Italy, where the US navy has its European and African command centres.
Reprieve is acting on behalf of two Yemeni men whose relatives were accidentally killed by drones.
The complaint also includes evidence of BT’s apparent complicity with intelligence agencies GCHQ and the NSA to engage in covert mass surveillance, “providing information that is used to target the victims of drone strikes.”
Reprieve is urging BT to follow Vodafone in publishing a transparency report, detailing the extent of its cooperation with government intelligence agencies around the world.The 20-year-old would-be assassin of Donald Trump is "broken" in prison, according to his mother.
Lynne Sandford told CNN that her son's attempt to grab a police officer’s gun at a Trump rally in Las Vegas in June shocked her.
"By nature, he was a very sweet, very sensitive, soppy, loving lad," she said.
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.
She insisted he had never been violent before.
Ms Sandford has been actively campaigning for her son to be brought back to the UK.
At the age of 14, he was admitted to a psychiatric facility for anorexia. He also suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, depression and anxiety.
"He’s in pieces," she said. "He’s broken. He’s bewildered. He begs me not to hang up on the phone when we do speak."
She said her son insisted on going to the US to be with his girlfriend, although his parents did not want him to go.
He was reportedly unemployed in the US and sleeping in his car. He practised shooting at a gun range and drove across the country to attend the Trump rally in Las Vegas, which he had allegedly been planning for a year.
"My heart just stopped. I couldn’t get my head around it, I couldn’t believe this was my Michael," she said.
He told police officers he wanted to “kill” the Republican nominee and that he had expected to die during the attempt.
Mr Sandford, from Dorking in Surrey, has been charged with being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and disrupting the orderly conduct of government business and official functions.
The 20-year-old has denied the charges and his mother said they are evidence the police did not believe he "seriously" wanted to attack Mr Trump, as he has not been charged with attempted murder.
"There’s no getting away from what he did. He did attempt to do a very bad, very wrong thing," said his mother, adding that she has not yet pushed her son for details about why he tried to grab the gun.
"But he’s not a bad person. That’s why we want to get him back to the UK. We want to get him psychiatric help, and we want him to see his family."
Mr Sandford is awaiting sentencing. He faces being behind bars for up to a decade and fined a maximum of £170,000.
He is due to stand trial on 22 August.
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 nowCharacters, who they are and the choices they make, drive a story. When Star Wars: The Force Awakens comes out this December, many longtime fans of the Star Wars saga will be drawn to the movie simply because of the characters they already know and love. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo are iconic characters that, along with other characters like Darth Vader, C3PO, R2D2, and Chewbacca, made the original Star Wars trilogy the powerful story it was.
As National Novel Writing Month approaches in November, some pre-planning can go a long way in helping you to draft a compelling story that intrigues you and the people you hope will read it. Part of that planning is creating characters that will drive the story the way Luke Skywalker drove the Star Wars trilogy.
The Art of Creating Characters
Many writers struggle with coming up with story lines or scene ideas, and that’s why creating characters at the outset is so important. Stephen King, in his book On Writing, talks about putting characters into a situation and seeing what they’ll do. This is great advice, but first you need to understand the characters in order to correctly tell us a story about what they would do in any given situation.
Creating character biographies is the key to understanding the characters of your story, and there are four main areas you want to consider when creating characters.
1. Background
What is the background of your character? Where did he or she come from? When you begin your story, your characters are the summation of all the experiences they’ve ever had. When you’re developing your characters, write out the things that have shaped them into who they are. What are some of their most significant experiences? The kind of family they grew up in and economic status have surely had some effect on them.
Cultural or ethnic background is also important to consider. When you’re creating characters, you want to know as much about them as possible. Most of what you discover you won’t use in your novel, but everything about the character will inform the decisions they make in your story.
Knowing your characters’ backgrounds can be helpful because you won’t be scrambling to shape the character as you’re writing. You already know where they’ve been and what experiences they’ve had that might shape the decisions they make in your story.
2. Beliefs and Values
Creating characters should feel like you’re creating real people. Real people have worldviews or specific beliefs they have about the world. They might believe that an all-knowing and all-loving God rules the world behind the scenes or that an impersonal God who is always angry is waiting to punish everyone who does bad. They might believe the universe came about by chance or that something call fate controls everyone’s destiny. They may not think about these things at all, but, when pressed, they’ll have some sort of answer for some of the most important questions of life. What do your characters believe?
Values are also important when creating characters. What do your characters consider to be important? Family might be important, or friends might come before family. Your characters might believe that divorce is awful, or they might think that marriage is something terrible to be tied down by. They may value self-sacrifice or value their own lives above others. Whatever values they hold will inform the decisions they make in your story.
3. Habits
What are the things that your characters do without thinking about it? What are the actions they just naturally take everyday? Maybe your character looks away when someone tries to meet their eyes. Maybe your character has a habit of telling lies when lies are obviously unnecessary. Your character might smoke or drink after sending the kids off to school.
Habits will give your characters a feeling of authenticity. Whatever habits they have, they will probably show up somewhere in your story. Chances are that your character’s main character flaw may show up in a negative habit, and this habit will have to be dealt with before the end of the story.
4. Motivations
If habits cover what your characters do naturally, motivations cover why they do the things they do. Maybe your character can’t look people in the eyes because his mother used to beat him when she was talking to him unless he looked down at the ground.
Motivations will often touch on how the experiences of your characters’ backgrounds shaped their habits and values. Motivations may not always be seen in your story, but you should know why your character is doing whatever he’s doing at any given moment in your story.
The Value of Creating Character Biographies
If you spend the time to define all that we’ve talked about above, you’ll know your characters better than anyone. And the great thing about genuinely knowing people is that you know what they would do in almost any given situation. Having detailed character biographies can be just the way to start generating ideas for what will happen in your story.
For example, if Carlos can’t look people in the eyes because of past abuse by his mother, but he believes that helping others is important, your story might take shape to include Carlos being forced into a situation where he has to save a woman’s life. After saving her, she tries to thank him, but he won’t look her in the eyes, and she begins to wonder about this mysterious man who seems brave and yet can’t look someone in the eye.
The story could go in a million different directions from there, but the point is that fully formed characters are ready to live out a story once they’re fully formed. You just have to create circumstances to put the characters in and record what happens.
Further Resources on Creating Characters
Author K.M. Weiland has a great resource for interviewing your characters and getting the answers to several of the questions I mentioned above. Just join her Helping Writers Become Authors Newsletter to get free copy of “Crafting Unforgettable Characters.”
Another great resource is a book from Writers Digest Books called Creating Characters: The Complete Guide to Populating Your Fiction. It’s packed full of essays by well-known authors on the strategies they use to create truly compelling characters for their stories.
Your Turn
Who is your favorite character in a novel or movie? What about that character makes him or her your favorite? Please share in the responses below.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider scrolling down and Recommending it here on Medium. Visit The Whisper Project for more writing tips. You can also sign up for my author newsletter here.Hi there, this is a new tutorial category in my blog. It’s Computer Vision. In this blog, I’d like to show you something cool. It’s how to perform Face Detection using your camera or Webcam. You’ll see how your application can detect faces from a captured image. Curious about it? Let’s take a look how to do that.
This what you need to follow this tutorial:
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. Or if you don’t have one, you can use 2008 version. Emgu CV (OpenCV in.NET). You can download the latest version in this link: www.emgu.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page and follow the installation instruction. Basic Knowledge of C# Programming. Familiar in WPF Development.
After you’ve got what you need, it’s time to rock!
Step 1
First thing you should do is installing Emgu CV. Your installation path should be like C:\Emgu\emgucv-windows-x86 2.2.1.1150. And you can see inside C:\Emgu\emgucv-windows-x86 2.2.1.1150\bin some DLLs and sample programs. You can see a simple face detection app Example.FaceDetection.exe and you’ll see something like the first picture in this post.
Step 2
Next, let’s open your Visual Studio and create a new WPF Project. Add some references and make sure it’ll look like the picture below:
Step 3
Now, copy code below to make our user experience. Put this code in your MainWindow.xaml file
<Window x:Class= "WpfFaceDetectionTest.MainWindow" xmlns= "//schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x= "//schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title= "MainWindow" Height= "600" Width= "800" Loaded= "Window_Loaded" > <Grid> <Image Name= "image1" Stretch= "Fill" /> </Grid> </Window>
Step 4
Next, let’s code it! Open your MainWindow.xaml.cs and add this code on top.
using System ; using System.Windows ; using System.Windows.Controls ; using System.Windows.Media.Imaging ; using System.Windows.Threading ; using Emgu.CV.Structure ; using Emgu.CV ; using System.Runtime.InteropServices ;
Step 5
Initialize two objects Capture and HaarCascade. Those are important class in this tutorial, so you have to make it. And we also need DispatcherTimer to capture the picture every millisecond.
private Capture capture ; private HaarCascade haarCascade ; DispatcherTimer timer ; public MainWindow () { InitializeComponent (); } private void Window_Loaded ( object sender, RoutedEventArgs e ) { capture = new Capture (); haarCascade = new HaarCascade ( @"haarcascade_frontalface_alt_tree.xml" ); timer = new DispatcherTimer (); timer. Tick += new EventHandler ( timer_Tick ); timer. Interval = new TimeSpan ( 0, 0, 0, 0, 1 ); timer. Start (); }
Step 6
This last part is the routine. What this code will do is capture image every millisecond, and then convert it to gray frame. After converted, faces will be detected. Each detected faces will be marked by black rectangular.
void timer_Tick ( object sender, EventArgs e ) { Image < Bgr, Byte > currentFrame = capture. QueryFrame (); if ( currentFrame!= null ) { Image < Gray, Byte > grayFrame = currentFrame. Convert < Gray, Byte >(); var detectedFaces = grayFrame. DetectHaarCascade ( haarCascade ) [0] ; foreach ( var face in detectedFaces ) currentFrame. Draw ( face. rect, new Bgr ( 0, double. MaxValue, 0 ), 3 ); image1. Source = ToBitmapSource ( currentFrame ); } }
Step 7
Finally, this additional code is needed to convert plain Bitmap class to BitmapSource so WPF can read it as an image and view it on image1.
[DllImport("gdi32")] private static extern int DeleteObject ( IntPtr o ); public static BitmapSource ToBitmapSource ( IImage image ) { using ( System. Drawing. Bitmap source = image. Bitmap ) { IntPtr ptr = source. GetHbitmap (); //obtain the Hbitmap BitmapSource bs = System. Windows. Interop. Imaging. CreateBitmapSourceFromHBitmap ( ptr, IntPtr. Zero, Int32Rect. Empty, System. Windows. Media. Imaging. BitmapSizeOptions. FromEmptyOptions ()); DeleteObject ( ptr ); //release the HBitmap return bs ; } }
Here is the result of our work:
Okay, I think that’s all I can do in this post. See you to my next post.
Note : If you can’t run your project, just build it and make sure all opencv_xxxx.dll files and haarcascade_frontalface_alt_tree.xml in the same directory with your executable file. You can find those files inside C:\Emgu\emgucv-windows-x86 2.2.1.1150\bin.
References
Emgu CV: OpenCV in.NET (C#, VB, C++ and more)
Fork or download the completed project on GitHub.
Further Reading
If you’re interested in Computer Vision topic, not just limited to face detection, I suggest to read the latest book written by Dr. Adrian Kaehler and Dr. Gary Rost Bradski: Learning OpenCV 3 (or the older Learning OpenCV book published in 2008, which is cheaper in price but using the old API).
Even though the code samples are written in C/C++, you can easily transform it into C# with Emgu CV wrapper.
Read more of my tutorials about.NET, Xamarin, and ASP.NETIntagra (Sildenafil Citrate)
sildenafil affects the response to sexual stimulation.
Product Description
What is Sildenafil Citrate?
Sildenafil Citrate is the most popular solutions prescribed for the treatment of erectile dysfunction in men. Sildenafil Citrate inhibits phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5), an enzyme that slows down the degradation of the enzyme which regulates blood flow in the penis, making it last longer than usual. If you’ve ever heard of Viagra, then you’ve heard of Sildenafil Citrate as this is the active ingredient in Viagra. Viagra is simply the brand name of Sildenafil Citrate in the market. The drug was initially intended for cardiovascular diseases but trials showed improved penile erections in participants. That was how Sildenafil Citrate as a treatment for erectile dysfunction was birthed.
Causes of erectile dysfunction
Erectile dysfunction can be caused different reasons. The chief cause in most men is vascular diseases with 35% of men falling under this category. Diabetes is next and accounts for 25% of reported erectile dysfunction cases. Nerve disorder, pelvic surgery, and medications and substance abuse make up the rest of the causes.
Uses of Sildenafil Citrate
Sildenafil Citrate is used to treat sexual disorders such as impotence and erectile dysfunction in men. The drug doesn’t work in isolation to create an erection for a man; rather it increases the flow of blood when stimulation is simultaneously ongoing. With this, men can have and maintain erections for a longer period during sexual intercourse.
Sildenafil Citrate also has other brands and uses. For example, Revatio which also contains Sildenafil Citrate is used to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension. As well, there are different brand and generic names as regards its use for male sexual disorders such as Viagra and Kamagra. It is not recommended for men to try and “double” the duration of their erections by combining two different erectile dysfunction drugs especially when both contains Sildenafil Citrate. Such actions have inherent risks and should be avoided.
Who should take Sildenafil Citrate?
Sildenafil doesn’t treat any sexual disorders in women. It is strictly to treat impotency and erectile dysfunction in men. It should be kept safely from the reach of children as well. Also, the drug only works to increase blood flow to the penis and not to boost or increase your libido as a man. No matter the dosage strength you use, pre-penetration stimulation has to happen. The drug doesn’t create an erection out of nothing.
Precautions before using Sildenafil Citrate
Ideally, you’ll require a prescription from a doctor before you can purchase Sildenafil Citrate. During your interaction with your doctor, it is imperative to discuss in details about your allergies. You have to inform your doctor, whether you’re allergic to the ingredients in the drug, or other known allergies not related to the drug. Even if there’s a very small chance you’re allergic to the inactive ingredients, your doctor should be aware.
After this, your medical history particularly your past six month is the next piece of important detail you have to reveal no matter how embarrassing it might seem. Examples should give details such as the causes of such ailments, the treatments prescribed, if they worked or not, if you experienced side effects etc. Conditions like cardiovascular diseases, liver and kidney disorders, penis conditions, eye issues and blood issues should be reported.
Sildenafil Citrate has been reported to cause dizziness in some men, and temporary vision challenges in others. Hence, avoid driving and any activity that requires your undiluted focus and alertness. Additionally, alcohol and the drug don’t combine well as research shows it amplifies the side effects of Sildenafil Citrate.
Sildenafil Citrate side effects
From the clinical trials, the most commonly reported side effects include impaired vision, nasal congestion and headaches. Cyanopsia, photophobia and dyspepsia were also commonly reported although to a lesser extent.
In very rare cases, a sudden hearing loss was reported in a post-marketing survey. Viagra can result in reduced blood supply to the optic nerve, resulting in sudden vision impairment. It is worth pointing out that this side effect occurred in patients who had a history of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, pre-existing eye problems and high cholesterol.
Side effects were also amplified in users who were HIV patients on protease inhibitors. These inhibitors are responsible for making the side effects more severe. It has been suggested that such patients should stick to 25mg dose of Sildenafil Citrate and take a pill every other 48 hours. Also, patients on alpha-blockers should ensure there’s ample gap between taking their alpha blockers and Sildenafil Citrate drugs. Recommended gap between both intakes is pegged at a minimum of 4 hours to avoid the risk of low blood pressure.
How to take Sildenafil Citrate?
Sildenafil Citrate occurs in three dosage strengths; Sildenafil Citrate100 mg, 50 mg and 25 mg. You can buy Sildenafil Citrate 100 mg or other dosage strengths as long as you have your prescription from a pharmacist or a doctor. The 50 mg dosage strength is the most prescribed and only in rare cases is the dose increased to 100 mg in a 24 hour period. Sticking to the given instructions will help you avoid Sildenafil Citrate side effects and help you enjoy the drug as you should. The drug should be used from anywhere between 30 hours and 2 hours before sexual intercourse is certain to occur.
You should avoid foods high in fat content like fries, burger and others. Fats inhibit the absorption and effect of the drugs in your body. You don’t want to get stranded in between your action. It is also advisable no to take natural Sildenafil Citrate with grape juice. Grape juice increases your chances of experiencing side effects.
Where can I buy Sildenafil Citrate?
Sildenafil Citrate is available in every registered pharmacy – online or physical stores. Online pharmacies are easily accessible making them the most popular sources to buy Sildenafil Citrate online. Another reason for this popularity is how cheap Sildenafil Citrate is. You will need to have a doctor’s prescription before the drug can be sold to you. However, buying online poses its own risks. There are fake online pharmacies scamming people out of their cash and giving them potentially dangerous products that contain nothing close to natural Sildenafil Citrate. On this note, always make sure you purchase from only FDA registered online pharmacies.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Sildenafil Citrate work?
Yes, it does help men manage their erectile dysfunction effectively. There are lots of Sildenafil Citratere views as you’ll see at the end of this post also attest to the potency of Sildenafil Citrate for erectile dysfunction.
Is Sildenafil Citrate safe?
Every drug potentially carries its own risks. That said, there’s nothing inside Sildenafil Citrate to put you at any major risks as most reported side effects are often headaches and dizziness. Ideally, when you use the drugs when needed and according to the prescribed dosage, your safety is mostly guaranteed.
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forces at the hands of the police in Miami at the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) summit. For many, by 2004 the anti-globalization movement was dead and gone as the anti-war movement swept away anarchist methods of network and affinity group organization and replaced it with Marxist-Leninist and liberal top-down, authoritarian leadership and stale mass marches that were largely symbolic.
For the most part, anarchists (with of course notable exception) did not attend the DNC protests in Boston in 2004 and instead looked towards the RNC in New York City as a possible showdown. By and large, this was not to be and hundreds of anarchists were arrested among many others. According to Crimethinc:
[When] anarchists fail to coordinate themselves will be coordinated by authoritarians, and so, while anarchist labor was central to the infrastructure that enabled them, the character of most of the actions planned for New York was non-confrontational, even liberal. At the last minute, the organizers of the main march finally accepted the conditions of the city, agreeing to march in circles rather than follow through on the desires of the rank-and-file who wanted to go to Central Park with or without a permit; likewise, though anarchists and militants swelled the numbers of many other actions, these were largely orchestrated to avoid actually challenging the activities of the Republicans or the occupation of the city.
In 2008, things were different. Anarchists made a deceive move to organize around both the DNC and RNC, and started organizing themselves over a year ahead of time. The organizing network, ‘Unconvential Action’ was formed, and produced printed materials, videos, conducted various speaking and training events, and formed local groups across the US. As CrimethInc. wrote:
For good or for ill, the protests at the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions constituted the most significant nationwide effort anarchists have undertaken to organize militant action in the US in several years. In short, the convention protests were not a stunning victory, but they set valuable precedents in coordination, strategy, and infrastructure. Perhaps the greatest danger is that, because they were not an unqualified success, they will have been forgotten by the time of the next mass mobilization.
We encourage people to read the CrimethInc. piece ‘Going It Alone‘ which offers an amazing appraisal of the conventions, but to be short and sweet, anarchists organized hard, long, and well for the conventions. They created new ways of communicating, they created infrastructure, and they also refused to be simply actors in a Leftist charade of protest. As CrimethInc. wrote:
In terms of specifically anarchist participation, many aspects of the mobilizations were unprecedented. Nationwide preparations began well over a year in advance, and the majority of participants showed up in organized affinity groups. Anarchists took the initiative to determine and coordinate their own strategies and tactics, and made breakthroughs in establishing solidarity with other groups—as exemplified by the historic St. Paul Principles. They also debuted communications structures that had not previously been applied at mass mobilizations, which have since been cited by the US military [PDF, 6.9 MB] and utilized during the riots in Greece. Just as the global indymedia network came out of the Seattle WTO demonstrations, the DNC/RNC mobilizations produced the Bash Back! network and plenty of other projects and momentum that continue to the time of this writing. Proportionate to the number of participants, the mobilizations were surprisingly successful.
Many of the networks, friendships, and crews that were formed out of the RNC went on to organize and be players on a local level back in their own localities. These groups formed the backbone of the ‘insurrectionary wave’ of groups that blended community building with insurrectionary tactcs, creating a flurry of projects, publications, social spaces, and other anarchist activities. Unconventional Action, the support network that had been building towards the DNC and RNC in 2008 also remained in place in many areas (or went on to evolve into something else), as did Bash Back!, which played a key role in anarchist movement in the years to come.
“Hmmm…step one, find a cop car, step two, apply hammer with up-most force. Dammit, still not getting it – this shit is written in fucking Klingon!!!”
But these mobilizations also came at a huge price. Both in terms of those those that were arrested and the resulting conspiracy trial of the RNC 8, and the arrest of two young men, known as the Texas 2, who were also entrapped and railroaded by Brandon Darby, a former organizer turned FBI informant. Moreover, the initial plan of the anti-RNC mobilization to blockade delegates from getting into the RNC was (in the end) not successful. From the CrimethInc. report:
The blockades failed to prevent delegates from reaching the convention. This may have been in part because of the last minute change in plans on the part of the RNC: it must have been easier to get half as many people into the convention center as originally planned. The small turnout from outside the anarchist camp was also a contributing factor: had thousands more protesters showed up, many would surely have reinforced the blockades.
Another essay stated:
The blockades were never enough for us, and judging them solely on their own terms, they were a failure. The delegates weren’t blocked and the convention occurred with little disruption. But to even accept the goal of shutting down the convention requires accepting the discourse of power the RNC itself represents. It is a gathering of figureheads, nothing more. It is not a strike against the heart of the system; at best it is a site where we can manifest social war. The overt objective of the mobilization was always a bit banal, and luckily most saw through this thin veneer and prepared for street conflict instead. Many would like to use the events of September 1st to gain credibility for or to invigorate their historical reenactivist societies, be it recreating the ‘60s or the anti-globalization protests. It’s time to bury the myths of Chicago and Seattle once and for all. The demonstration form is a suffocating cocoon from which we need to break free. We were not in St. Paul for the illusory goals some had swallowed wholesale. We don’t give a fuck about a summit, but we can use it as a springboard, parasitically sucking life and leaving behind anemic remains. We were there this time because we do not yet have the force to manifest such conflict outside of the context of mass mobilizations. One of our goals is to take all of the force directed against false epicenters of power and redirect it into social conflicts that have the actual potential to disrupt the flows of this system. We are abandoning the vapid discourse of protest towards a concrete offensive in the social war. We refuse to run in circles anymore.
Thus, in some ways similar to the recent anti-fascist mobilizations we have recently seen throughout the US, the “success” of the mobilization came at a high cost and ultimately, was worth more to the movement in what it produced in terms of organization, infrastructure, lessons learned, and crews formed, than in the physical ability to shut down the convention.
In 2012, protests again happened at the RNC and RNC, but were very lackluster. Fearing a repeat of the RNC in 2008, police doubled their efforts and also came down hard on the streets protests, arresting many. In the lead up to the RNC, the police also used their justification for military style build up on the threat of “outside agitators” and “anarchist extremists.” According to a report on the 2012 Conventions by the National Lawyers Guild:
The vilification of anarchists serves the dual purpose of justifying the government’s strategies of police and state repression of protesters as well as the further militarization of police departments. Many of the warnings in intelligence reports circulated prior to NSSEs include fabricated information accusing anarchists of plotting to destroy bridges, manufacture explosive devices, and throw urine, feces, and acid at police. These fabrications provide the rationale for the continuing existence of the massive and expensive police and security apparatus. Furthermore, after the September 11 attacks, the language used to describe the threat of violent protesters has often conflated activists with terrorists (e.g. Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act). Despite the government and media hype about the “anarchist threat,” protests at both the RNC and DNC saw none of the activities described in the FBI/DHS report. This section details the demonstrations that took place at each convention, with a focus on police response. This summary is based on media reports, interviews with activists, and the observations of NLG staff and volunteers who were on the ground in Tampa and Charlotte before and during the conventions.
The NLG report is interesting for another reason, because the wave of support and engagement that the Occupy Movement experienced before the 2012 conventions mirrored the post-Ferguson terrain of the 2016 DNC and RNC. The NLG writes:
Tampa and Charlotte both proved difficult locations for organizing robust protests at the conventions. In both cities, police and organizers predicted as many as 15,000 protesters, but actual participation was closer to 600 in Tampa and 800 in Charlotte. The widespread appeal of the Occupy movement that emerged in 2011 and its critique of contemporary electoral politics indicate that dissatisfaction with both parties is prevalent. However, the hot summer climates and politically conservative locations of both conventions (combined with the threat of Hurricane Isaac in Tampa) contributed to much smaller demonstrations than expected. As a result of Isaac, at least sixteen buses of RNC protesters traveling from other cities were cancelled. According to protesters, other reasons for the poor attendance were the heavily publicized law enforcement security plans at the conventions and the threat of arrest. Many activists admitted to being afraid to attend, knowing that an overwhelming police presence was guaranteed. Others spoke of the expense of being arrested far from home at a time when many are struggling financially. Organizers also spoke of fears of being arrested and charged with serious conspiracy or terrorism charges, which has occurred at previous conventions and summits. Overall, the combination of remote host cities with small activist networks and the intimidating security plans for the conventions resulted in many protesters not attending the demonstrations at all.
In short, for many people, despite the success and popularity of the Occupy Movement and anger at the established political system, the conventions just weren’t worth it for many people, nor were they a priority.
Rage Against the Repression Machine
As the NLG reports on the 2012 conventions, the build up of police and police infrastructure plays a large factor in people coming out to engage. However at the RNC this year, police, secruity, and military personel took things into a whole other level. As Unicorn Riot reported:
A trove of new documents exposes how Cleveland’s impending Republican National Convention will subject the public to a massive domestic military operation. Following decades of planning and millions of dollars spent, the RNC this July will amass into an unprecedented security state, constricting the constitutional rights of thousands of people. As the panopticon descends on Cleveland, military forces will begin staging security operations at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, while other federal forces begin staffing a “Multi Agency Communications Center” (MACC), located at the International Exposition Center (IX) near the Hopkins International Airport.
They go on to write:
NSSEs have regularly featured extreme abuses of human rights, combined with sophisticated messaging to bolster acceptance of authoritarian policies. At the 1999 WTO protests, FEMA operated a detention facility at Sand Point Naval Station. After the 2004 RNC, New York City paid out $18 million to settle lawsuits stemming from the mass detention of thousands of people inside Pier 57, which was contaminated with oil and asbestos. During the NATO Summit in Chicago in 2012, some anti-war protesters were taken to Homan Square, a notorious “black site” where people report being assaulted and tortured by local police and access to legal council was systematically denied.
In short, just as anarchists hope that convention protests prove to be ‘training grounds’ in which crews, organizations, and individuals can take lessons back with them to their respected regions – the police and security apparatus thinks the same thing.
Furthermore, Kris Hermes in the Huffington Post argued that even as attendance to protest events at the conventions goes down, money towards police operations only continues to grow:
Despite a relatively low turnout by protesters, the law enforcement apparatus in both cities was as robust as ever. Part of the excuse for the disproportionate police response is that each quadrennial political convention since the turn of the century has been designated a National Special Security Event (NSSE).
Breaking With Convention
In our analysis, it seems paramount that if anarchists are going to mobilize around conventions, first and foremost there needs to be support on the ground. People need a place to stay, infrastructure to plug into, and things like legal, medical, food, communications, and media support set up. Beyond that, there needs to be a national conversation about organizing around these conventions. People have to be mobilized. People have to plan, activate their bases of support, and get people out. To be blunt, we can’t just roll the dice and hope this happens, especially not in today’s repressive and far-Right climate.
Organizing a successful mobilization takes time, energy, money, and work. If people aren’t interested in taking on these roles, then we are better off staying home and working on that we already are doing. Or, we can opt instead to organize local actions in a decentralized matter. Demonstrations, free-way blockades, informational events, and autonomous actions in cities and towns across the US would have gone further than 50 militants on the streets being out flanked by police at every turn. But even still, this step forward takes more than just the imagination to conceive of it; it takes the human will to make it so and for these actions to resonate across the social terrain. Moreover, these lines of communication and organization have to be built and kept in place, just as they did in 2008.
Your tax dollars at work.
Regardless of what we do, the trajectory of the police and security apparatus will only continue. As Hermes writes:
We must continue to push back against characterizations of the police as restrained and reformed. If anything has become clear from the contemporary model of policing political protest, coined by social scientists as “strategic incapacitation,” it’s that the more our social movements gain momentum, adopt militant tactics, or appear to threaten the status quo, the more we can expect a repressive and violent response by the state.
Meaning, the police will continue to operate as a force that fights multiple civil wars within a variety of fixed territories, against enemies that are before them and ones that have yet to even materialize. This is a war that has no end; one that is not meant to be won, only contained. As anarchists, we struggle against this by choosing a side in this conflict and getting organized, but moreover, pushing for a world without the police and attacking Leftist notions that police can either be reformed or as an institution, be made to serve the people, or worse yet, a ‘revolutionary State.’
As for the fascists, as we have articulated much before, we not only have to smash the white nationalists off the streets but also out organize them. This means defeating them at every opportunity but also fighting for the heart and soul of the white working class against white supremacy, linking the class interests of the white poor with communities of color already in struggle. If we are not prepared to organize in the trailer parks and de-industrialized working class towns these groups hope to gain a foot hold in, we will never materialize a force that can defeat them.
On the bright side, the RNC again shows us a set of players, some serious, some not. We have our targets, let’s continue to do the work. But moreover, looking down not only the barrel of a gun from the police but also the state in waiting that is the fascist groups that seek to be an auxiliary to them, we also have to understand that now is the time to get ready, get trained, and get organized.
Some would still ask though, “Should we still organize around and against the conventions?” While we can’t give a definitive answer because material conditions are sure to change, we feel much the same as being asked if anarchists should engage in voting. To contend that anarchists could impact a national election by voting for a candidate contends that we are a large enough force to do so. If that is the case, then why wouldn’t we be doing something that puts our own politics front and center? The same goes for the conventions. If the goal of the convention protests is to help build and nurture a movement, then the question more over is not should we organize around the conventions, but above all: how do we build that movement?
Out of the Politics, Into the Fire
Anarchists have a horrible habit of understanding their weaknesses, yet feeling powerless to do anything about them. This mirrors the same feelings of powerlessness that pervades everyday life within capitalist civilization, from work, to politics, to personal relationships, to climate change, to mass media. In short, we want things, yet don’t often have agency over how to get them. We want to be powerful and be able to defend ourselves, we want to be organized amongst each other and to construct ourselves as a force, and we want our ideas and actions to resonate among the wider population and within social struggles.
In short this means having the ability to physically engage in self-defense and also be offensive, this means having above all relationships based around being organized and the will to carry out a strategy, and more over, the ability to nurture and create a base of support within a wide population.
Looking critically about the conventions is important because it shows us what we want and where we currently are weak. But in looking at what positive things we have gotten out of conventions in the past, we can then apply these lessons to where we want to go in the future. In short, these things appear to be:
Building up local crews, local capacity, and our ability to act, defend ourselves, and build a base of support: We have to build where we are. Where we live, where we work, and where we go to school. For some people this means joining the IWW and fighting at work, for some this means running a counter-information project, for some it means organizing in Black Lives Matter, and for others it means stopping a fracking development. The point is, we got to get in where we fit in. We got to grow from there and build that solid organized crew. But more over, we have to start thinking beyond just the local. We have to link up with others around us, regionally, then nationally. Beyond that, we have to build our base of support in the communities that we live in. We have to create a sea for our ideas and actions to swim in. Have regular meetings, reach out to the outside world, and get the world out about your activities to other comrades. Link up regionally: We have to begin to organize regionally. This means anarchists and other autonomous anti-capitalists beginning to come together in regional get-togethers to plan, organize, and carry out a strategy. It means groups in bigger towns supporting those in smaller ones with less resources, access to lawyers, or ability to make copies, design websites, or host events. Host regional convergences, have regular check-ins with other groups, and support each others endeavors. Begin to have a national and international conversation: The bookfair model has failed us. We can’t rely on the declining interest in the anarchist subculture to build the kind of force we need. We need to move away from bookfairs to having regional and international gatherings were we can start to have bigger and better conversations. Help plan conferences which have set aims and desires. Organize around regional and international struggles, building our capacity and developing a strategy. Begin to develop a praxis and strategy outside of the election cycle: Currently, there are anti-police occupations happening in multiple cities. If we are to push these occupations ourselves and help them expand into other areas, they will will require the creation of new methods of discussion and organization. Start from the local and build towards the regional. Start from the regional and build towards the national and international.
But above all, let’s not wait another four years to react. Let’s build it now, and let’s build it based around what is in front of us.
Support our work! Please donate:DES MOINES, IOWA — Bernie Sanders shut down a teenage girl who questioned the existence of manmade global warming on Thursday morning, to the delight of her classmates.
A girl who introduced herself as a a "17-year-old biracial female," said that "from looking at the evidence I've seen the last few years... I haven't seen any actual scientific evidence that global warming is actually happening."
"Thank you for your question. You're wrong," Sanders said with a chortle as the teen crowd at Theodore Roosevelt High School broke into applause.
.@BernieSanders to 17 year old denying climate change is real: "Thank you for your question. You're wrong." Big applause. — Cameron Joseph (@cam_joseph) January 28, 2016
Sanders then walked through his long record of support for climate change legislation in Congress and the consensus of the scientific community, which he described as "the most knowledgable people in the world," that global warming is real.
"What they say almost unanimously, overwhelmingly, is that A, climate change is real, and B, it is caused by human activity," he said before warming about its "catastrophic" effects.
"I appreciate your point of view but I absolutely believe that climate change is real, it is caused by human activity and we need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel," he said.
"I hear what you’re saying. I disagree with you and I think the scientific community is pretty clear on this issue," Sanders concluded to another round of applause from the teenaged audience.
Last year was the planet's hottest year on record, by far, a finding that scientists said was even more evidence of manmade global warming from burning fossil fuels.With the dog days of summer behind us (and fall too... after all, this is Houston), our canine companions certainly seem to have livelier gaits, keener senses and a generally renewed interest in the great outdoors.
While locales like the Boneyard and the West Alabama Ice House stand as fixtures for Houston hounds-about-town, September 2011 marked the addition of the city’s first dog-friendly patio at Ziggy’s Bar & Grill — now Gratifi Kitchen + Bar — after a successful lobbying effort by the grassroots organization Paws on Patios.
“For a meager $110 permanent permit — significantly more affordable than many other cities — [restaurants] can instantly attract new customers."
In the intervening year, dozen of more restaurants have opted for city permits that allow dogs on patios. In fact, according to Paws on Patios, 33 area establishments now welcome customers accompanied by canines, permitted they dine al fresco (click here and scroll down to see the full roster of approved restaurants).
The list includes a range of options, from the upscale Hugo’s to more casual venues like Natachee’s Supper ‘n Punch and Barnaby’s Cafe.
Paws on Patios founder Pat Walsh sees much room for wider adoption of the city’s dog-friendly permit, especially when Houston is compared to other Texas towns such as Dallas and Austin.
“If dog owners would like to see their favorite bar or restaurant get the dog-friendly permit, they should talk to the restaurant,” Walsh says.
“For a meager $110 permanent (not annual) permit — significantly more affordable than many other cities — they can instantly attract new customers. It's a great way to increase revenue and make Houston a more dog-friendly and walking-friendly place.”
For more information on the city permit and on Paws on Patios, visit the organization's Facebook page page.At 5:54 in the morning, Pacific Standard Time, and eight hours into the anticipated 11 hour, 40 minute flight, a "Mayday" call from the pilot was heard reporting the aircraft's position, and that the plane had a serious fire in engine #2. He further said that "...we may have to put it in."
The United States Coast Guard conducted a five-day search for the missing DC-4, and the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Kearsarge, its aircraft, and three other surface vessels searched a 100-mile wide corridor of ocean, but no traces of either the aircraft or its occupants were ever found.
Coast Guard Lt. Robert Finan said search vessels and planes had picked up the mysterious signals race shortly after the plane went down.
"Everyone we've got out there looking has heard the signals," said Finan. "But they're too weak for us to get bearings from. We think there's an excellent chance the signal is coming from the emergency type transmitter the plane had aboard."Last year Melbourne's Crown Casino combined with FOX Sports and ESL Australia to shine a spotlight on the Australian Counter-Strike: Global Offensive scene. Early next month, Crown will be dipping their feet into the esports pool once more with Call of Duty.
Photo: ESL Australia
It's a very similar format to last year's CSGO Crown Invitational; it's even being held in the same hall. 4 Australian teams will battle it out for the chance to take on two foreign juggernauts, in the form of Millennium and Optic Gaming from the United States. Millennium's presence should also add a little flavour: while the organisation is based in France, three of its four Call of Duty players are from the United Kingdom.
Crown is stumping up $70,000 over the course of the event, which runs across April 9 and 10. The interesting element, however, is that the four Australian teams will be selected from the Challenger Division.
For those unaware, the Challenger Division is essentially the second tier in the Call of Duty World League heirachy. Much like League of Legends, teams can be demoted into Challenger or promoted afterwards; there are no promotions or relegations during the season, however.
Crown aren't doing this from the bottom of their heart, however. The cheapest tickets for a single day cost just over $56 with fees and charges included, while passes for the entire weekend are available for over $100. Two-day passes for a seat in the stalls — that's just up the front — are still available, although some of those will cost $275.20.
If that seemed exorbitant to watch a bit of Call of Duty live — while being charged nearly a tenner for a schooner — consider the VIP packages: $509.70 at the time of writing. That gets you allocated booth seating, a meet and greet with the teams, a game with the professionals and entry for both days.
Nevertheless, Crown's continuing involvement with the local esports scene will undoubtedly be welcomed. It's also a good spotlight for the Australian Call of Duty scene, which has consistently performed better on the world stage over the last few years than representatives in other prominent esports disciplines.
The exact breakdown of the prize pool wasn't available at the time of writing, although I've reached out to the local organisers for comment. There's also no word of whether this event will be televised on FOX Sports like last year's Crown Invitational was, although the program schedule for FOX Sports across April 9 and 10 will become public info as of next week.CLOSE Sports Illustrated's Andy Staples answers a Twitter question about Hugh Freeze's involvement in the Laremy Tunsil controversy. Time_Sports
Sep 26, 2015; Oxford, MS, USA; Mississippi Rebels head coach Hugh Freeze during the game against the Vanderbilt Commodores at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports (Photo: Justin Ford, Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports)
OXFORD - Ole Miss appears to be making progress in its search into former offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil’s comment last week that he received money from a coach while in school, an investigation that coach Hugh Freeze said Thursday morning he wasn’t a part of.
“I know nothing,” Freeze said. “I’m not involved in the fact-finding process. I was shocked like everyone else (last Thursday night) living it out in real time but confident that our administration is going to find the facts and then give us a new report on it.
“I’ll be very quick to come out and defend us when it’s something that we know the facts on. I don’t at this present time. I know our administration is working, and I’m told they made a lot of progress, that they’re collecting everything so they know exactly what the facts are before we run out and make any type of response.
“I’m trying to be patient, like I said in my opening statement. That’s difficult for me sometimes because you want to respond. But there’s great wisdom in being patient and making sure you get the facts, and we’re still in that process. Our administration will continue to work with all the parties to reach a conclusion as soon as possible, which we’re hopeful that’s coming quickly.”
RELATED: Report: Tunsil lawyers, agent suspect financial adviser in Draft day posts
Tunsil told reporters, “I’d have to say yeah,” when asked whether he had received money from a coach. Screenshots of an alleged conversation between Tunsil and assistant athletic director of football operations John Miller had been released earlier that night with Tunsil asking Miller for money to pay for rent and a $305 electric and water bill for his mother last year.
Ole Miss released a statement later that night saying it would “aggressively investigate and fully cooperate with the NCAA and the SEC,” as it said it does “whenever an allegation is brought to our attention or a potential violation is self-discovered.”
STAY INFORMED: Sign up for The Clarion-Ledger’s Ole Miss newsletter.
Steve Farese, Tunsil’s attorney in a lawsuit filed by Tunsil’s stepfather, told SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio on Sunday that he thought Tunsil’s assertion had already been discussed with the NCAA. Freeze couldn’t confirm whether that was true.
It’s unclear whether Tunsil’s comment will have any impact on the NCAA investigation into Ole Miss’ football, women’s basketball and men’s and women’s track and field teams. The investigation finished in January when the school received a notice of allegations, but the NCAA could issue an amended notice of allegations if further alleged violations are found.
Ole Miss had been scheduled to submit its response to the notice of allegations on April 29, but, athletic director Ross Bjork said, a third party requested a 30-day delay, the first and only allowed in the process. The new response would be due around May 23.
“I think (whether Tunsil’s comment impacts the NCAA process) depends on what the facts reveal,” Freeze said. “(Bjork and I) haven’t even discussed the next step. You get the facts first and then you’ll know a lot more after that what they are.
“But the facts are always more important than the speed or our public response, which is difficult for me sometimes because I want to respond.”
Contact Daniel Paulling at [email protected]. Follow @DanielPaulling on Twitter.Life as a criminal in Eve Online includes a ton of time spent trying to convince people of things. Often these things are entirely false or against their best interest. To that end, having a couple tools to use for these sorts of situations would not go amiss, so I’d like to offer you some information that has been of use to me.
Firstly, I’d like to talk to you about the steps of the selling process. If you’ve ever had a sales job where anybody gave a shit about your level of success then you’ve probably seen this before, but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t framed in the context of internet spaceships.
Approach
Whether you’re looking for a wormhole corp to steal from or a quick safari or starting a Ponzi scheme, you’ve got to find your mark and break the ice. The key pitfall here is approaching someone from an angle where they expect attack. If you convo someone from Jita local trying to sell a ship they’ll smell a scam a mile away. If, however, you happen to start talking to someone in a system where you’re both mining together wonder if a corpmate (even a corpmate in the NPC corp) would be willing to help you get rid of this ship or haul something in exchange for a small fee then you’re much more likely to bypass that natural defense.
Once you’ve determined who you’re going to mess with and what angle you’re going to come in from, it becomes super to make the effort to make a bit of a connection. Some people are weird lizard-brain robots who don’t care for pleasantries in the face of pursuing the almighty isk, but most people are put at ease by a friendly guy. I’m lucky in this respect in that I’m friendly and fairly confident, and I’ve long since learned that I can’t give my confidence in social situations to other people, so I’ll leave that bit to you.
There is one thing that I will say on the subject, though. Some people have trouble being friendly to people they intend to betray. The reason for this is that they immediately view that person as their enemy and that’s the context under which they decide that it’s okay to betray this person and have trouble being friendly to someone they view as an enemy. That view is somewhat incorrect. These people are not your enemy, merely your opponent. They are human beings, just like everyone else, and probably perfectly fine human beings on the surface (although I’m sure you’ll find out how they are under stress shortly). Unless they are immediately and obviously abhorrent you can certainly be friendly and interested in their lives and crack some jokes with them or find out their opinion on something.
This causes the interesting conflict where the truly terrible human beings are the hardest to scam in my experience simply because I can’t tolerate them long enough to complete the deal. I wish it weren’t so, as those are the people I’d most like to scam.
Needs discovery
In sales the process of needs discovery would be to determine what someone is in the market for, what size of TV they were looking to buy, what their price range is, what they intend to do with the TV (video games vs. movies) and so on. When you’re clearly in a selling position these sorts of questions can be fairly straightforward.
When sizing up a target, the end goal dictates how straightforward you can be with your questioning. If you’re recruiting someone in order to kill them, asking what they’re looking for in a corporation is well within the usual recruiting practice, but if you’re looking to trade some overpriced deadspace modules they you need to find out what your target is interested in. If they’re in the market for some bling for their mission-running legion then it’s going to be nearly impossible to sell them shield tanking mods.
Needs discovery is something that you can go back to several times in this process if required. You may find that the target is ripe for something entirely divorced from the scam you set out to run. If you find yourself in this position it’s helpful to have experience with a couple other scams or possibly be able to hand a target off to someone more suited to their… ‘needs’. (Remember, if someone drops a prospect in your lap, they deserve a very healthy cut of the take.)
Presentation
The presentation is the part of the process in which you detail what you’d like to offer the target. As you’ve already done your needs discovery, you get to tailor this specifically to the target. In the real world you’re limited by what products you have to sell and have to hope to match up the customer with the product and make it seem appealing, but for scamming in eve online your product is lies, which makes it especially easy to alter to suit.
There are three distinct parts of the presentation: the product itself, the features, and the benefits. They aren’t typically presented separately, so it can be a little tough to distinguish the three parts of the presentation if you’re not looking for it. The product itself is the thing you’re trying to sell. That would be telling your target of the space-guild you’d like him to join or the investment fund he might consider. The features of the product are the properties it possesses. Your space-guild has regular Orca-supported mining ops, for instance, or your investment fund has a return of X% over Y period of time. It’s important to present these, but you need to tie them in with the real meat of the presentation, which is the benefits these features carry.
The benefits are the way in which the features enhance the targets life. Some features don’t require any framing beyond their existence to convey their value as benefits, but most do. If you’re selling an overpriced deadspace mod it becomes poignant to tell them the difference in performance in running missions or whatever they intend to do if they have this mod. If you’re trying to get them to invest in something, the benefit isn’t the money but the freedom to do what they want or the benefit of whatever they mean to buy with the money. People don’t buy sports cars over kias because they’re fast or good looking, they buy them because they enjoy high performance driving or they feel they’ll get prestige from owning one.
Addressing Concerns
This is the part where the target decides something about what you’ve told him isn’t to his liking. This can happen at any point and this whole process is not in a strictly linear step-by-step process. Your best response here is to know what concerns are going to be common going into the endeavour and have prepared responses for them. I suggest writing them down or, wherever possible, making alleviation of the common concerns part of the product itself.
It’s key here to not get argumentative or look desperate. If either of these thing happen, you’ve already lost your target and at that point you’re just wasting your own time.
If you get caught with a concern you haven’t thought of, it’s okay to work with the target to overcome it. It’s not the best method but at least that way you don’t lose the mark. The phrasing you might use could be something like ‘shit, I didn’t think of that. I wonder how I can fix that.’ Asking the rhetorical question invites the target in to help you solve it, which at the very least lets you learn more about why he has that objection.
Closing the sale
This is the part where you pull the trigger. There’s actually not much to say on the subject except my personal request that you don’t be a dick simply because you pulled one over on someone. This isn’t Xbox live. On the other hand, if you geniunely dislike the other person, then this is a good opportunity to make them as sad as possible. The same goes if there’s some higher purpose than simply taking their money. If they’re a key part of an enemy organization and you’re hoping to demoralize them, than this is the time to do it.
Also, keep in mind
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rendering world, cars are for decoration. Trucks don’t exist and there is no traffic backed up at the lights. In fact, there are no traffic lights or overhead wires. Who wouldn’t want that?
11. Celebrating on Opening Day
Renderings show the finished building on opening day. They don’t show the building under construction, nor after ten years of use. A phased project wouldn’t be shown incomplete, as that would raise doubts about its success.
On opening day, everything is clean and tidy. If an interior view is shown, the graphic stagers have selected a few choice pieces of furniture to complement the building design. The exterior views suggest that the building will always look brand new.
12. Preventing Movement
The oblique two-point-perspective renderings of Nova Centre resemble eighteenth-century Italian stage sets, facing the audience. Meanwhile, the other sides of the building – the back stage – remain hidden. What’s going on back there? Unlike proscenium stages, city blocks are always in-the-round. As mobile creatures, we want to walk around on our own and explore a building from different sides, including its inside and its backside. We want to understand how it would fit into the city and how it would appear from near and far. Digital models, walk-through animations, and even Google Street View permit movement, but a perspective pins us down to one spot.
A cleverly chosen perspective viewpoint can also hide a contentious part of a project – especially a large or tall building mass – by keeping it in the background, where it appears smaller and can be camouflaged by its surroundings.
13. Masking Other Senses
Images are apprehended by our most distant sense, sight. When we look at a photorealistic rendering, we believe we’re there, but this is only a very limited understanding. When we encounter a building in the flesh, we use more of our senses and muscles. In a rendering there are no materials to touch or tap. There are no surfaces to climb. There are no wind tunnels or wind chill. There are no cold shadows. There is no traffic noise or wind noise. Drawings can’t convey these phenomena, so we have to rely on skepticism and memory to fill the gaps.
14. Hiding the Numbers
When surrounded by colourful renderings, we’re less liable to look at the black and white architectural line drawings of the building’s plans, sections, and elevations. They include important information, but decoding them requires some architectural education. As a member of the public, you can be forgiven for skipping over them. When faced with seductive renderings, it’s hard to focus instead on non-visual, quantitative, and temporal things: for example,
How long would construction take?
How would the local area be affected during construction?
Has an independent wind study been done to measure its impact at street level?
Is there really a demand for this building?
Would other buildings lose tenants when this new building becomes available?
How much would the property tax for nearby buildings increase?
Would this prompt less affluent residents and businesses to move to the suburbs?
Which by-laws is this development breaking?
How much profit is the developer making from the extra development rights?
Is the city getting anything in return, such as affordable housing or public amenities?
What are we giving up so that this can be built?
Now It’s Your Turn!
Now that you’ve learned some tricks of the trade, see how many you can spot in these renderings of other proposed or approved buildings in Halifax.
Above is the nine-storey Mythos Developments proposal for North and Oxford. If you answered “cropping the view,” you’d be right. This building could be anywhere in the world. Who would guess it’s in Halifax and surrounded by two-storey houses? If you answered “preventing movement,” you’d also be right. The opposite side of the building faces the residential neighbourhood on Seaforth Street, but you wouldn’t know that from the developer’s presentation, which includes just this one rendering.
Above is the Southwest Properties 16-storey Pavilion building at South Park and Sackville (formerly the CBC and YMCA sites). Here you could have scored points with many different answers, including “cropping the view” and “altering the view” (removing all of the neighbouring buildings and presenting the building as a freestanding pavilion in a park); “manipulating the lighting” (is that sunlight coming from the north?); and especially “manipulating the materials” (making the upper two-thirds of the building seem as transparent and weightless as the clouds in the sky).
This is part of the Westwood Developments proposal for the city block bounded by Spring Garden, Queen, Doyle, and Brunswick Streets. The landscaped roof garden in Westwood’s latest slideshow looks voluptuous – but you weren’t fooled, were you? If you guessed “creating an impossible viewpoint,” you were right. This bird’s-eye view would be seen only by birds. From all other nearby buildings – including the civic living room at the top of the Library – this roof would be hidden, as it’s at a higher level. There is no access to the roof and no railing around the edge, so no one who lives in the building would see it, either.
If you guessed “over-populating the rendering,” you’d also be right. Those swooping earth berms, subtle colour variations, and other mini-golf features on the roof wouldn’t really exist. According to the roof plan in the developer’s same presentation, the roof has just a flat green mat of sedum. This layer of vegetation (shown below) would be practical, but its flat green graphics wouldn’t help seduce the public into buying the building.
Above is Dino Capital’s project for Wellington Street, with Gorsebrook Park on the left. If you guessed “cropping the view” or “altering the view,” you’d be right again. This rendering shows the two existing towers next door (in blue), but doesn’t show that the rest of Wellington Street consists mainly of two-storey houses.
If you guessed “celebrating on opening day,” score bonus points! Amidst the many renderings and drawings in the 28-page presentation of this project, only one drawing – a plan – indicates that the developer wants to build the project in two phases, as a financial safety net. If the second phase is never built, Wellington Street would be left with a half-completed building with a blank south wall and a blank parking garage roof. The developer chose not to show Phase 1 in the renderings, but an observant local citizen decided to do so, using Photoshop to remove the cosmetics.
What About Ethics?
Isn’t it unethical for Big Developa to try to fool the public? Unfortunately, we’ve come to expect this sales paradigm: a seller, a buyer, a product, and a sales pitch that promotes certain features while hiding – or even lying about – the rest. The primary motivation, of course, is profit. If we accept this paradigm as the way things are done, our only recourse is to adopt a defensive position: “Buyer beware.”
Big Pharma – at least, in the States – uses the same sales paradigm but has to convince two buyers: the patient and the doctor. Fortunately, the doctor is bound ethically by the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, so this provides some resistance. Consumer groups – think Consumer Reports – provide an extra layer of protection.
Unfortunately, there is no ethical gatekeeper to protect the public from Big Developa. The architect (or architectural renderer) who was hired by the developer to produce the renderings is complicit. The only gatekeeper left is city hall, which is expected to apply municipal by-laws and collective wisdom. If the by-laws are set aside and wisdom is in short supply, the public is no longer protected. As a last resort, citizens’ groups can raise a red flag, but they risk harassment and lawsuits from Big Developa.
It doesn’t have to be this way. History includes other paradigms for developing a city. In our case, city hall can respect the by-laws and use its collective wisdom to define and protect the public good. Developers can avoid the sales paradigm by placing public good before private profit. Architects who work for developers can uphold their obligation to professional ethics by representing projects in a comprehensive way that avoids graphic deception.
Steve Parcell / 8 April 2016 / last modified 11 April 2016
AdvertisementsFriends
Correct Ranking of Seasons: 5, 4, 2, 3, 1, 6, 8, 7, 9, 10
Jesus Christ, there were ten seasons of Friends. Okay! Season five is the best because it’s Chandler and Monica trying to keep their relationship under wraps, which improbably stayed funny over the course of fourteen episodes and STILL managed to pay it off with the best episode of the series (“The One Where Everybody Finds Out”). Season four has the trivia contest episode, so that’s your runner up, no arguments. Season two was really the only time Ross/Rachel was truly great (Rachel’s drunk “closure” phone call), plus Monica + Richard was a great extended storyline. Ross and Rachel on a break in season three was fun until it wasn’t. Season one finds its bearings way quicker than most TV shows do, actually. Season six … you know, happened. Season eight taught a post-9/11 America how to laugh again. Season seven had Tag and Rachel’s worst-ever hairstyle. Season nine was the one where they cast Aisha Tyler as the pivotal character See, We Do So Have Black People. You don’t remember anything from season ten except the finale, and stop pretending like you do. —JR
Gilmore Girls
Correct Ranking of Seasons: 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7
Fact one: Jess (the season three boyfriend) is better than Dean (the seasons one and two boyfriend). Fact two: season four, Rory's first at college, is very underrated partially because it mostly lacks Rory boy drama and features both Chris Eigeman and the eventual Luke/Lorelai union. Seasons one and two are heady shots of the best-remembered and very lovable la-la-la Stars Hollow experience. Season five is the best the show did with Luke and Lorelai together, but it's still not quite right. Season six is flawed. Season seven is an unspeakable nightmare that I'm still waiting on Doctor Who to fix. —DS
Lost
Correct Ranking of Seasons: 5, 1, 4, 3, 2, 6
Season five remains a sci-fi masterpiece that actually got complicated time travel retcon plotting right and makes your heart hurt when the Incident happens to rip it all apart. Sawyer and Juliet living in the '70s is what matters. Season one is why we all fell in love. Season four is when we all fell back in love (frozen donkey wheel). Season three starts on the worst foot, then tries to win us over and succeeds by the end ("WE HAVE TO GO BACK"). Season two is a bit of a slog with the numbers and the hatch and whatnot, but Desmond. Let's all admit that we wish season six had gone very differently. —DS
Seinfeld
Correct Ranking of Seasons: 5, 4, 7, 3, 6, 2, 8, 9, 1
The best seasons of Seinfeld spiral out from the middle, and that’s just all there is to it. The biggest debate is season four vs. season five. Four has the stronger throughline, with Jerry and George writing their pilot, all the way up to its premiere. But four also starts out with that godawful two-parter where they go to L.A. and Kramer gets caught up in some noir murder subplot; no one in good conscience could rank that as anyone’s best. Certainly not above a season that gave us “The Hamptons.” Quibbling over seasons 2, 3, 6, and 7 is allowable, but basically: seven has George’s engagement to Susan, two is still getting on its feet, and three and six are basically equally fantastic. Season eight of Seinfeld is probably better than the very best season that 90% of all sitcoms have managed to produce, and it’s the third-worst of these nine seasons. Don’t fuck with Seinfeld, seriously. Everybody remembers how bad the final season was, but have you tried watching any of the five first-season episodes lately? Unbearable. —JRSix areas of recent ecological research—extinction dynamics, island biogeography, metapopulation theory, natural disturbance ecology, top-down regulation by large carnivores, and landscape-scale ecological restoration—are the foundation for all informed protected area design.
They are brought together in the idea and scientific approach of rewilding, developed by Michael Soulè in the mid-1990s.
Three major scientific arguments constitute the rewilding argument and justify the emphasis on large predators.
First, the structure, resilience, and diversity of ecosystems is often maintained by “top-down” ecological (trophic) interactions that are initiated by top predators.
Second, wide-ranging predators usually require large cores of protected landscape for foraging, seasonal movements, and other needs; they justify bigness.
Third, connectivity is also required because core reserves are typically not large enough in most regions; they must be linked to insure long-term viability of wide-ranging species.…In short, the rewilding argument posits that large predators are often instrumental in maintaining the integrity of ecosystems. In turn, the large predators require extensive space and connectivity.Whether we like to admit it or not (and we do like to admit it), our love for Disney songs is nothing short of obsessive. We may or may not have a playlist for the drive to Disneyland, which may or may not be perfectly timed out. Is your Disney lyrics knowledge as extensive as ours? Find out:
1 ♫ But we're talking kings and successions. Even you _____♫ Should be ready to fear Can’t be caught unawares Know that greatness is near Think that I should be there 2 ♫This quote engagement is a flex arrangement. And by the way _____♫ I don’t see no ring He may be her thing She makes him sing He could be her king 3 ♫ But he was mean and he was _____ and unrefined ♫ crass foul gross coarse 4 ♫ But despite my evil look, and my temper, and my hook I’ve always yearned to _____ ♫ Make a love connection Be the president Be a concert pianist Be surrounded by enormous piles of money 5 ♫ I’ll tell you a tale of the bottomless blue and it’s hey to the _____ heave-ho! ♫ starboard high seas port stern 6 ♫ Every turn a surprise! _____ ♫ Every second gets better You will not need your sweater Good odds if you’re a bettor Every moment red letter 7 ♫ Cause I’m a gamblin’ Boogie Man _____ ♫ And no, I don’t play fair Although I don’t play fair You bet I won’t play fair You better play your fair 8 ♫ When we’re through, you can’t fail, like a _____ soft and pale ♫ jasmine petal orchid water lily lotus blossom 9 ♫ By the waters sweet and clean, where the mighty _____ lives. ♫ bull trout sturgeon salmon bluefin 10 ♫ This _____, this inhuman beast. She ought to be locked up and never released! ♫ cold cat vampire bat buzzing gnat pure evil brat 1 of 10 You got {%result value%} Disney lyrics correct. You may need to give these songs another listen, but as far as studying goes, that should be a pretty fun assignment. Share on Facebook Share on Pinterest Share on Twitter Take this quiz again! You got {%result value%} Disney lyrics correct. You know your Disney lyrics, but you still don’t have a perfect score. Take the quiz again to prove your Disney music super-fandom. Share on Facebook Share on Pinterest Share on Twitter Take this quiz again! You got a perfect score! You are a Disney lyric pro! Is your name Alan Menken? Just wondering. Share on Facebook Share on Pinterest Share on Twitter Take this quiz again!
Music and lyrics for “Be Prepared” were written by Tim Rice and Elton John.
Music and lyrics for “Fixer Upper” were written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.
Music and lyrics for “Something There” and “Fathoms Below” were written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.
Music and lyrics for “I’ve Got a Dream” were written by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater.
Music and lyrics for “A Whole New World” were written by Alan Menken and Tim Rice.
Music and lyrics for “Oogie Boogie’s Song” were written by Danny Elfman.
Music and lyrics for “Honor to Us All” were written by Matthew Wilder and David Zippel.
Music and lyrics for “Steady As the Beating Drum” were written by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz.
Music and lyrics for “Cruella de Vil” were written by Mel Leven.
Posted 3 years AgoWhen Statistics Canada languages expert Jean-Pierre Corbeil sat down to look over the new language data from the 2011 census, he did a double take.
The numbers did not make sense. This is bizarre, he thought. Patterns of linguistic change established over decades appeared to have suddenly shifted.
What he was seeing is the first knock-on effect of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to replace the mandatory long-form census with a voluntary survey. The impact is still hard to judge, but what's clear is that the new numbers are less reliable as a barometer of change.
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For example, the new data suggest the number of Canadians who speak neither English nor French at home grew by just 100,000 between 2006 and 2011. During that period, Canada welcomed more than 1.2 million immigrants, the vast majority of whom spoke languages other than English or French. At the same time, the number of "new bilinguals," people who said they speak English or French as well as another language at home, grew by more than a million, twice as much as in the previous census period. It is also surprising that the proportion of Canadians whose mother tongue is English held steady, since it had been in consistent decline, Mr. Corbeil said.
"When I looked at the data at first I said, "Whoops, there is something bizarre with this data," Mr. Corbeil said. "I have to admit that, yes, the trend is not the same and that's why we warn users to be cautious when looking at these trends."
Doug Norris, chief demographer at Environics Analytics, had a similar reaction. "My first thought was, 'What the heck is going on?'" Mr. Norris said.
"You've got all these people saying they speak multiple languages, multiple mother tongues plus English, so it really makes it very confusing. You can't do any sensible trend analysis as far as I can see."
The unusual results may stem from the controversial killing of the long-form census, which traditionally contained the language questions. In 2011, the language questions were put in the short form, which is still mandatory, after a failed legal challenge of the changes by the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities of Canada. The federation had argued that data crucial to the enforcement of the Official Language Act would be less reliable in a voluntary survey.
The wording of the questions was identical to that of years past, but residents answered them in a different context, which appears to have had a major impact on the results. In the long form, the language questions were preceded by questions about place of birth, citizenship and immigrant status. Not this time. The long form had asked Canadians which non-official languages they speak, but that question was not in the 2011 short form. It may be that the jump in the number of households that reported speaking English or French and another language – the new bilinguals – was a response to that change in context, said Réjean Lachappelle, former director of the demography division at StatsCan.
Statscan will be looking more closely at these results and producing a methodological report to explain the unusual outcome in the coming months.
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"We don't know why, we don't know what's happening, but chances are it's due also to changes in the questionnaire," Mr. Corbeil said. "Context is very important in the census. If we had questions on immigrant status and place of birth, that could have held peoples' mind focused on the information we wanted to collect. …We suspect that this might have had an influence on people's response pattern."
Canada gathers detailed language information in part to ensure an appropriate level of federal services in each region for French or English minorities. Commissioner of Official Languages Graham Fraser said he is satisfied that, with a 98 percent response rate to the short form, the numbers that are crucial to his office are accurate. What the results mean for other linguistic groups is less clear. They may overstate the extent to which some immigrants use English or French at home. Or they may reflect a new, more linguistically complex country where families move fluidly from one language to another.
Either way, the method of gathering the new data makes it difficult to assess where Canada is going in comparison to where it has been. Experts say these questions will only grow more complicated as results from the voluntary survey start to roll in next year.by Brett Stevens on November 19, 2017
Very few understand the nature of Leftist hatred. While they are fond of accusing others of their own dysfunction, Leftists tend to use this preemptive counter-attack to disable their opposition. They want to hide how much of their thinking is propelled by a finely-refined hatred for anything which has standards of any kind.
You may recall that Leftism starts with a core philosophy, egalitarianism, and all of its other ideas are offshoots of that. Socialism, for example, is economic equality; feminism is sexual equality. Looking past the confusing surface, what equality does is to tell the individual that they cannot have their privileges reduced for having a lower quality of actions.
In the realm of equality, the different grades — good, bad, and mediocre — are made equal with a single category added for what we might call “ultra-bad,” which is crimes against the individual like murder, rape and denying egalitarianism. The latter explains why for the Left, doing the ultra-bad is fine as long as it is done to non-Leftists.
Through its basis in individualism, the quest for equality expands to include a desire to destroy all standards, because those set hard lines for what is good, and therefore, create situations where the individual can fail. Leftists are motivated by an impulse to destroy because they hate life for allowing them to fail in the first place, but they hate standards even more.
The Leftist crusade against standards begins with religion, which must perish because it has a clear idea of what is good other than “me first” plus token acts of altruism, as the Left enjoys. It then extends to culture and customs, revealing its initial goal of removing social rank like class or caste, and finally, aims to obliterate biological inequality like family, intelligence and race.
That latter category presents problems when confronting ethnic groups who wish to avoid self-destructing because such groups without exception will exclude others from their territories, which then creates a problem for the Left because this allows for culture, and culture is a set of values and standards. If Leftists fail to live up to those, they can find themselves becoming less equal.
Normally, the Left plays ethnic groups against one another. Whoever is in power must fall, because having someone in power means that we have an example of someone who is better than the rest of us, and not a smarmy sycophant like Obama or the Clintons, or even someone who acts out what the average Leftist only daydreams, like Stalin or Mao. The Left targets whatever group is in power.
In America and Europe, this explains the Leftist fetish and fixation on destroying people of European descent. They want immigration and open borders for this reason. They praise ethnic uniformity for minority groups while demanding the majority drop any hopes of the same. Once the majority is gone, they will demand the same for smaller groups.
We can see this through the Leftist polar reversal on the question of Israel. When the Holocaust was still a recent memory, it could be used against the European majority, but now the Left has an even more marginalized group — starving African Muslims — to use against Europe. Like the Soviets before them, the Left first accepted Jews but now has turned on them.
This reveals how fundamental principles clash. For the Left, nationalism must always be bad because it affirms culture, race and tribe, and through that, creates… standards. Since those are the enemy of the Left, nationalist must die even if it occurs within a protected group:
The Alt-right are also not instigating much of the conflict marring town squares and college campuses today. No, this is most often the work of progressive activists and groups, like the Antifa movement, who engage in confrontation and seek to suppress speech. And the epidemic of campus anti-Semitism is largely attributable to liberal BDS advocates, leftist faculty stooges, and Islamists – not neo-Nazis or white supremacists, who unlike progressives don’t have a symbiotic relationship with American academia. …The acceptability of anti-Jewish bigotry was painfully obvious when party extremists burned Israeli flags outside the 2016 Democratic National Convention without censure from party leadership, which instead attempted to draw them back into the fold. …And despite being labelled “Jewish,†the original Anti-Fascist Committee was largely a Soviet propaganda tool. It was not really established to fight fascism or save Jews from the Holocaust; and it was disbanded (and its chairman assassinated) when its members criticized Russian anti-Semitism and sought to aid Jewish refugees after the war.
Ideology exists outside of this world; it is an abstraction, argued for without proof of a working model, based on logic contorted to deliver what humans want to hear. We might see all of Leftism as merely advertising run amok, and be correct, because its appeal is a promise that it will abolish reality with one simple choice, instead of the many gradual acts of improvement required.
Consider a beer commercial from back when those were legal. Some average dudes are goofing around on the beach and suddenly all these girls, musicians and fascinating people show up, just because those average dudes bought the right brand of beer. Fantasy meets symbolism. To actually achieve that result, those average humans would have to hit the gym, learn how to be interesting, maybe play an instrument well, or something of that nature, but through the magic transformative power of a product, they are suddenly just as important as the people who can actually do those things.
Since ideology is a symbolic magical transformation floating on the horizon, chased forever by humans because futility is easier than self-discipline, it becomes like the white whale in Moby-Dick or the one ring in Lord of the Rings, an object of obsession that humans chase to their own self-destruction.
With ideology, everything else — the world and all that is in it, including other people — becomes a means to the end of realizing that ideology, even though it can never be realized because it will become a standard and then self-destruct, which history suggests is the consistent result of Leftists gaining power.
In that light, we can see how the Left will treat Jews and Israel. While they can be used as a weapon in the jihad for True Equality In Our Time, they are favored. Once that changes, the mood shifts toward their destruction. This is how the Left treats any group in its path, and current pet minorities of the Left should know to anticipate and fear that backlash.
Tags: anti-semitism, antifa, ideology, israel, jews
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Buy Photo The Shreveport Mudbugs will return to action in 2016. (Photo: File/Robert Ruiz/The Times)Buy Photo
Dust off the skates, fire up the Zamboni, grab your plastic crustaceans and get ready to let them fly.
Mudbugs hockey is back.
Tommy Scott, the owner of the Mudbugs franchise when it ceased operations in 2011, has signed a 12-year lease (plus a pair of five-year options) with the State Fair of Louisiana for use of the Hirsch Coliseum.
The building will feature an ice rink available for public skating in early November. In the fall of 2016, the Shreveport Mudbugs will return to play at their original home as part of the NAHL, the only USA Hockey-sanctioned Tier II Junior league.
To become Mudbugs-ready, the Hirsch will undergo a roughly-$1.5 million upgrade. The money used will be 100 percent private. Mudbugs ownership consists of five groups, including three local investors. Scott will serve as the managing partner.
Buy Photo The Mudbugs will return to their original home, Hirsch Coliseum, after about $1.5 million in upgrades. (Photo: File/The Times)
Thursday’s announcement comes four long years after the ice melted following a Central Hockey League championship.
“It hasn’t hit me yet,” Scott told The Times. “I’ve been so cautious about everything for years because we’ve had so many ups and downs; we’ve had so many, ‘OK, well, today is the day. OK, it’s not the day.’ That happened last week, in fact.
“It was more like a dream. Now it’s starting to come true. But it’s time to keep going.”
Buy Photo Tommy Scott, owner, Shreveport Mudbugs (Photo: Val Horvath/The Times)
Scott hopes the Hirsch will boast ice for public skating (about $12, including skate rental) during the second week of the State Fair of Louisiana. The ice, available seven days a week until late March, will also host junior hockey, figure skating, birthday parties and rec hockey.
The temporary ice sheet used for public skating will be replace by a permanent system in 2016.
The Shreveport Mudbugs will begin play in the fall of 2016. Scott Muscutt, an original Mudbug player and longtime head coach of the professional team, will move into the role of general manager and director of operations.
"This is the best day in 10 years," Muscutt said.
Buy Photo Former Mudbugs player and head coach Scott Muscutt will serve as the team's general manager. (Photo: The Times)
A head coach for the franchise will be named at a later date.
The NAHL features student-athletes ages 16-20 with aspirations of playing college and/or professional hockey and boasts a 60-game regular season (30 home games).
The NAHL will celebrate its 40th anniversary season this fall and features 22 teams in 10 states. Many of the Southern locations are familiar to Mudbugs fans: Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Lone Star (North Richland Hills, Texas), Topeka and Wichita Falls.
“Shreveport fits well within the current NAHL Southern footprint,” said Mark Frankenfeld, the commissioner and president of the NAHL. “One of the things a market needs to succeed is a passionate and dedicated fan base and history has shown that Shreveport has both and would be able to support an NAHL team. We have had some great success stories with our teams in the Southern United States that were formerly professional hockey markets that have since thrived during their time in the NAHL. We as a league are riding a wave of momentum that has seen us set league-wide attendance records and NCAA commitment records the past four seasons.”
Buy Photo The Mudbugs were known to boast some of the most loyal fans in minor league hockey. (Photo: File/The Times)
The Mudbugs, then a member of the Western Professional Hockey League (WPHL) played their first three seasons in the Hirsch before the then-CenturyTel Center was built.
"Welcome back to the Mudbugs," Shreveport mayor Ollie Tyler said at Thursday's news conference.
With the renovations to the Hirsch, the seating capacity will be trimmed from 7,000 to about 4,000 and the Mudbugs will boast a personal season license (PSL) option, ice-level suites and season tickets as cheap at $10 per game.
“This will be affordable family entertainment, but you’re going to get a lot, too,” Scott said.
In addition to the suites, renovations to the Hirsch will include new bathrooms, revamped concessions and new seats.
The rink will be dubbed "George's Pond at Hirsch Coliseum," in memory of former Junior Mudbugs player George Cloutier.
Ticket packages are currently available at GeauxBugs.com.
“There is still a lot more work to do,” Scott said. “We have to celebrate a little bit, but we can’t sit back. We’re going to have ice in here in three weeks. Plus, you have to build a (hockey team), too, with the scouting and the marketing, selling the tickets and the sponsorships.”
Twitter: @RoyLangIII
FOR TICKET INFORMATION
Visit: geauxbugs.com
Call: 1-844-4MUDBUGSIn opening the floodgates for corporate money in election campaigns, the Supreme Court did not simply engage in a brazen power grab. It did so in an opinion stunning in its intellectual dishonesty.
Many of those commenting on the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission have focused on the power-grab part. I agree with them. It was unnecessary for the court to go so far when there were several less-radical grounds available. It was audacious to seize the opportunity to overrule precedents when the parties had not pressed this issue and the lower courts had not considered it. It was the height of activism to usurp the judgments of Congress and state legislatures about how best to prevent corruption of the political process.
"If it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more," a wise judge once wrote. That was Chief Justice John G. Roberts -- back when -- and dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens rightly turned that line against him.
As bad as the court's activism, though, was its shoddy scholarship.
First, the majority flung about dark warnings of "censorship" and "banned" speech as if upholding the existing rules would leave corporations and labor unions with no voice in the political process. Untrue. Under federal election law before the Supreme Court demolished it, corporations and labor unions were free to say whatever they wanted about political candidates whenever they wanted to say it. They simply were not permitted to use unlimited general treasury funds to do so. Instead, they were required to use money raised by their political action committees from employees and members. This is hardly banning speech.
Second, in the face of logic and history, the majority acted as if there could be no constitutional distinction between a corporation and a human being. Untrue. The Supreme Court has long held that corporations are considered "persons" under the Constitution and are therefore entitled to its protections. For more than a century, Congress has barred corporations from making direct contributions to political candidates, with no suggestion that it must treat corporate persons the same as real ones; that prohibition stands, at least for now. The "conceit" of corporate personhood, as Stevens called it, does not mandate absolute equivalence. That corporations enjoy free-speech protections does not mean they enjoy every protection afforded an actual person. Is a corporation entitled to vote? To run for office?
Third, misreading its precedents and cherry-picking quotations, the majority acted as if the chief case it overturned was an outlier. In that 1990 case, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a six-member majority came to the unsurprising conclusion that a state law prohibiting corporations from making unlimited independent expenditures from their general funds was constitutional. The court dismissed this ruling as "a significant departure from ancient First Amendment principles." Again, untrue.
In a 1982 case, the court -- in a unanimous opinion by then-Justice William Rehnquist -- noted that Congress, in writing campaign finance law, was entitled to "considerable deference" in taking into account "the particular legal and economic attributes of corporations and labor organizations" and had made "a permissible assessment of the dangers posed by those entities to the electoral process." Four years later, even as it carved out an exception for nonprofit corporations, the court reaffirmed "the need to restrict the influence of political war chests funneled through the corporate form."
The Citizens United majority relied heavily on a 1978 case overturning a Massachusetts law that prohibited corporations from spending their own money to defeat certain referendums. But that decision specifically noted that "a corporation's right to speak on issues of general public interest implies no comparable right in the quite different context of participation in a political campaign for election to public office."
Fourth, the majority bizarrely invoked the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" defense. Under the Austin ruling, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy argued, lawmakers unhappy with being lampooned in the movie "could have done more than discourage its distribution -- they could have banned the film." Beyond untrue. There is no scenario under which works of art about fictional lawmakers could be limited by campaign finance laws.
That the majority would stoop to this claim underscores the weakness of its case -- and the audacity of the result it has inflicted on the political process.
[email protected] new poll shows US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders leads his rival Hillary Clinton by one point before the primary elections in the US State of California.
According to a survey conducted by the Los Angeles Times and the University of Southern California (USC), among the 1,500 registered voters contacted from 16 to 31 May, 44 percent of Democrats said they would support Sanders and 43 percent said they would back Clinton in the state’s primary which will be held on Tuesday.
The poll confirms that the Vermont senator enjoys the support of younger voters by huge margins in advance of Tuesday’s primary even among Latinos and Asians, many of whom come from a large pool of voters who have registered for the first time in the weeks before the election.
“His base of support is young voters, low-propensity voters and [nonpartisan] voters. Not only does he have to turn them out by election day, but he has to educate all those nonpartisan voters to request a Democratic ballot,” said Dan Schnur, the poll director.
“That’s not to say he can’t pull it off, but this may be the biggest voter mobilization challenge California has seen in many, many years,” he added.
US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a Women for Hillary organizing event on June 3, 2016, at West Los Angeles College in Culver City, California. (AFP photo)
California with 546 Democratic delegates up for grabs is considered as the most influential state and since Sanders needs 837 extra delegates to become the Democratic nominee, he is going to need
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ground it on the thorough market research, thought-out design presentation and deep analysis of the target audience. No wonder: the stuff like note-apps, alarms, to-do lists, calculators, calendars and the like surround users in their everyday life, help in common situations and sometimes add color to the routine. Designers working on diverse projects at Tubik Studio have checked that well and now would like to present you the case telling the design story of the brand new alarm app for iOS called Toonie Alarm.
Task:
Full-cycle UI/UX design for the simple and engaging alarm app for iPhones.
Process:
The design process for this case was different from typical ones in the studio as before it we had worked more on outsource projects which means that creating initial product concept and setting the task was done mainly by the client’s side. The process for Toonie Alarm took the other direction and gave us what it was set for: the feeling of full product creation process from the very first steps. We had to set the idea and test it competitive potential, establish its USP and marketing plan, branding and usability foundation and all the other stuff like this.
Initially the idea behind the app was to create a simple alarm clock with attractive design and consistent element of motivation and support for such a basic and often far-from-pleasant process as waking up. The basic brand image was set as fun, cute, bright and cheerful, and marketing research supported this concept with the analysis of competition and ideas on adding original features to the app.
User research and analysis enabled the team to form the USP for the product on the basis of the following set of key features:
All the features of the app free for everyone
Simple, clear and intuitive navigation
Bright and pretty interface
Huge set of beautiful stickers
Achievements and rewards for waking up
Eye-pleasing interactive animation
Animated time picker
Instant sharing achievement with friends.
Let’s look over the details of UI created by designers.
Cute Mascot
In one of our previous articles we have already mentioned the great role of mascots in branding and UI design. As for Toonie Alarm, the idea of applying the mascot was set almost instantly as mascot is not only a sort of communicator between interface and user, but also a great representative of the brand able to enhance its recognizability. Moreover, it has a great impact on easy establishing the voice and tone of the product, creating the feeling of natural communication and supporting the mood. That was the point when Toonie was born to be a funny cheerful bird, whose mission is to make the world brighter and help users to interact with the alarm. It informs users about news, rewards, errors and just adds some fun and color to everyday life.
App Tutorial
App tutorial is an important part of the interface which helps users to get informed on the basic interactions. In Toonie Alarm it consists of three screens that tell the user about the functionality of the app. Small concise copy blocks are supported by smooth and pleasant animation of transitions to create the feeling of integrity and cheerful mascot featured as the consistent element and the center of the screen graphic composition.
Home Screen
The home screen shows the alarms which user already set for particular time and days and the tab with funny stickers already collected for waking up. Active alarms toggles feature the animated sun. Left swipe opens active options for the particular alarm.
Stickers Screen
Various stickers become the reward for waking up at the particular period. Moreover, waking up several times at this time, users can level up their stickers and enrich their collection. All the stickers can be shared to social networks to mark users’ achievements.
Time Picker
Another prominent feature of the app is the animated time picker. The app has simple navigation and nice motion makes it even more intuitive. Picking time for the alarm, users can enjoy animated march of night and day.
Animated Stickers
Animated stickers make interaction even more lively and enjoyable and also enhance user experience making the interface attractive and playful.
Logo Style
Logo design keeps style of lettering associated with fun and entertainment and creating harmonic link to the fonts typical for cute cartoons.
Product Video
To catch more details and see the interactions with the app in real, welcome to review the video guide on Toonie Alarm.
You can also review the presentation of Toonie Alarm design on Behance or check full pack of the details via Toonie Press Kit.
Originally written for Tubik Blog
Welcome to see the designs by Tubik Studio on Dribbble and Behance
Welcome to download Toonie Alarm via App StoreADVERTISEMENT
Roy Moore is many things: an ignorer of laws, a stupendous bigot, a right-wing reactionary — and very probably, a soon-to-be United States senator.
On Tuesday, Alabama held a Republican primary to permanently fill the Senate seat left open when Jeff Sessions became attorney general. Moore easily defeated Luther Strange (who was temporarily appointed senator when Sessions departed), despite endorsements of Strange from the Republican congressional leadership and President Trump. Now Moore goes up against Democrat Doug Jones, a noted U.S. attorney who successfully prosecuted Eric Rudolph and the 1963 Birmingham church bombers.
Moore is many things, as I'll explain in more detail below. But what he is most of all is the apotheosis of pure grievance-based white identity politics.
Let's recap Moore's career highlights. In 1999, he became chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court. He didn't last long. In 2003, he flagrantly disobeyed a federal court order to remove a monument displaying the Ten Commandments in his courthouse, and was removed from office by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary in a unanimous vote.
He was elected chief justice again in 2012, and was suspended from office again in 2016 by the same panel, when he flagrantly disobeyed a federal court order to stop instructing Alabama's probate judges to stop issuing same-sex marriage licenses. This time, the suspension was only until the end of his term in 2019, but since he would be barred from running again due to age, it effectively banned him from the court forever.
So much for law-and-order Republicans. Moore is literally a repeat lawbreaker.
He's also a right-wing lunatic. Moore has suggested that 9/11 and mass shootings are God's punishment for Americans turning away from Christianity. In 2005 he said that homosexuality should be illegal, and refused to say in an interview whether or not he would support the death penalty for such a law. Of course, he also wants to ban gays from the military and cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
Moore is stupendously bigoted, particularly against Muslims. He's a committed birther, espousing the racist conspiracy theory that President Obama was not born in the United States as late as December of last year. In 2015 his foundation and his wife shared a video declaring that Obama is a Muslim. He wrote a column in 2006 arguing that the House of Representatives should not seat Keith Ellison because he is a Muslim. He holds the crank view that certain communities in America are under Sharia law — though he was unable to name any in an interview with Vox's Jeff Stein.
He's basically a white, Christian version of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: a loony, ferociously reactionary religious zealot, who believes that America should be run along the lines of his own particular brand of evangelical fundamentalism.
But what he does not believe is also telling. He seems to have little interest in the quasi-populist ideas that President Trump ran on during the 2016 campaign. He supports the usual hard-right mixture of a flat tax, balanced budget, and large increases in military spending, and wants an immediate repeal of ObamaCare. (To be fair, he does express opposition to "free trade" agreements, though he doesn't specify which ones.)
Alabama is the fourth-poorest state in the country, and has the sixth-lowest median income. Enacting Moore's budget ideas would mean huge tax hikes on the poor and middle class coupled to huge cuts in domestic programs that Alabamans depend on more than almost any other Americans (and would almost certainly touch off an endless bone-crushing recession). The CBO estimated that a clean repeal of ObamaCare would throw 32 million people off their insurance by 2026, and it's a certainty that Alabamans would get a large helping of that misery.
All this makes Moore a nearly perfect embodiment of how the conservative movement channels white identity grievances into support for policies that benefit no one but the extremely wealthy. His political appeal is entirely based on countering perceived threats to the social status and identity of white conservatives, and not at all on policies that might improve their lives. His voters are whipped into a constant frenzy by Fox News and the rest of the right-wing propaganda machine — as Alex Pareene writes, "fed apocalyptic paranoia about threats to their liberty, racial hysteria about the generalized menace posed by various groups of brown people, and hysterical lies about the criminal misdeeds of various Democratic politicians." The fact that Roy Moore is a complete nutcase whose policy ideas would turn Alabama into a smoking crater probably can't penetrate this propaganda fog.
Still, as Matt Yglesias argues, Doug Jones is a strong candidate and Democrats should give the Senate election in December their best try — even if it is in a deep-red state. But should Moore win, just remember what this represents: a call to make America a safe space for white conservative snowflakes.Voting With The Wallet, & Quiet In An Election Year With A Nissan LEAF
November 15th, 2015 by Cynthia Shahan
The quiet changes things.
My relationships with daily life, the natural world, and motion are more peaceful in the 2015 Nissan LEAF. Time feels less hastened — more measured in sublimity. On my way out of the driveway, I pass by a snake basking in the Florida sun. With no sound from the LEAF to disturb him, she or he raises her/his head and politely acknowledges me. She or he seems to like me as I slow down and then come back forward to take a photo. The baby black snake and I gaze at each other. I leave, he or she keeps basking. The small black snake likes LEAF’s quiet movement, and perhaps for this reason, the snake finds me benign and trusts that I am not his or her predator.
A bit later in the day, my most frequent charging spot is full. As there are so few EV spaces in a wide open large garage that allows for, one ceases to wonder about the game of the non-electric ticketed automobile taking an EV’s charging spot. It is simply bad form.
Nearby, there are many other choices. There is an EV plug-in spot at the local marina that is friend to many pedestrians, bicyclists, and artists as well. I delight as a bicyclist whizzes by lit up in large, circular, neon green, glowing lights coming from the spokes of the wheels and a wearing a neon belt.
This once-quiet Gulf city has a progressive niche, and I have options for charging. A few evenings ago, I hijacked my friend the sushi chef from his kitchen, whisking him for a jaunt in the LEAF. He fell in love with the EV and is serious about becoming a LEAF owner as well.
Mira Bai reminds me of something that was identified in an excellent presentation at the EV Summit in Cocoa Beach: “If every electric car owner gets just one person to lease or buy one, that is a huge change.”
My friend the sushi chef was already interested in EVs as a progressive means of transport. He knew that Sweden was attempting to be the first emissions-free country — and he knew why. All he needed to replace or add to his motorcycle was the fresh LEAF experience to move him closer to a buy.
Voting by going electric, or 100% pedestrian, bicyclist, and/or mass transit is a vote for purer air, and quieter cities. The LEAF’s “ECO” button, ever ready on the steering wheel, increases mileage around town for me by 10 miles or more a charge.
The car is so simple. All I do is get in LEAF and push the start button while pressing on the brake. LEAF silently comes alive, not bothering Ms Snake. LEAF makes soft jingles — quietly musical as the dash lights up inside. I slip the gear into reverse with my foot on the brake and check behind me — both out of the windows and with the back cameras on the dash. As LEAF glides quietly past Ms Snake, I press the ECO button and soft green dots appear.
Imagine how much quieter cities will be when there are only electric cars, pedestrians, and bicycles.
Check in again soon for the next part of our long-term Nissan LEAF newbie review. Here’s part 1, part 2, and part 3.
Related Stories:
Gasmobile Buyer’s Remorse A New Thing Thanks To Electric Cars
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Nissan LEAF Talker vs Doer Video
Image Credits: Cynthia Shahan | CleanTechnica | EV ObsessionAn interesting raiding-strategy game has soft launched, called MonstroCity – Monster City Rampage. The idea is that you’re a mad scientist, building up your city to give you the resources to create giant monsters. You then send those giant monsters to attack other cities, destroying their buildings and stealing their resources for your own personal gain. It’s a mad-scientist-eat-mad-scientist world out there, folks. And you’re gonna have to get weird to be the best mad scientist out there.
The raiding-strategy genre is certainly full of games, but this one looks quite cool. The monster creation and city-wrecking gives it a unique feel among the genre. The game is available in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. If you want to check it out and you’re not in those countries, read our guide on how to download soft launch games. And do visit the game’s forum thread, where the developers are hanging out, and offering up some global promo codes.
Canadian iTunes Link: MonstroCity – Monster City Rampage!Urgent:
Who Is Your Choice for the GOP's 2016 Nominee?
Urgent:
Who Is Your Choice for the GOP's 2016 Nominee?
Voters currently have so strong a preference for the Republican Party that if midterm elections were held today the results would signal the strongest gains for the GOP in two decades, a new poll has found. According to the new USA Today/ Pew Research Center Poll conducted April 23-27 of 1,501 people, including 1,162 registered voters, 47 percent said they are inclined to support the Republican candidate over the Democrat in their congressional district in 2014, compared to 43 percent who would choose a Democrat.That result is so massive that it suggests 2014 could be a major "wave" election more sweeping than the election of 2010 that saw the tea party movement's rise to dominance."That 4-percentage point edge may seem small, but it's notable because Democrats traditionally fare better among registered voters than they do among those who actually cast ballots, especially in low-turnout midterms," USA Today noted."The friendly landscape, if it holds, could help the GOP bolster its majority in the House and gain the six seats needed to claim control of the Senate."The trend over the last six months in the polling data has shown that Democrats have lost ground, Pew said. Specifically, in October, Democrats had a 6-point lead (49 percent to 43 percent) in midterm voting preferences.The GOP's lead in the generic congressional ballot is the largest at this point in the midterm cycle for Republicans in the past 20 years, including before the partisan "wave" elections in 1994 and 2010.In 1994, when the GOP went on to gain back control of both the House and the Senate, it had a 2-point advantage in the spring of the election year. In 2010, when Republicans would win back the House, the parties were even in their support among voters at this time during the election cycle.Voter opinions on a number of key issues appear to be hurting the Democrats, according to the survey, including dissatisfaction with the direction of the country, downbeat views about the economy, skepticism about the Affordable Care Act, and the president's low job approval rating."Perhaps the most disturbing sign for Democrats: By 43 percent to 39 percent, Americans say following the economic policies of Republican congressional leaders would do more to strengthen the economy over the next few years than following the policies of the Obama administration," USA Today said.Meanwhile, the survey also found that 65 percent of Americans, compared to 30 percent, say they want the president elected in 2016 to pursue different policies and programs than the Obama administration, rather than similar ones.Nevertheless, the survey found that while Democrats face a number of possible disadvantages in the fall, their party's congressional leaders are viewed less negatively than GOP leaders. Just 23 percent of the public approves of the way Republican leaders in Congress are handling their jobs, compared to 68 percent who disapprove.For Democratic leaders, 32 percent of those surveyed approve of the job they are doing, compared to 60 percent who disapprove."Despite weak job ratings for Republican leaders, the public is divided over whether their economic policies or Obama's would do more to strengthen the economy over the next few years," Pew said."About four in 10 (43 percent) think Republican leaders' policies would do more for the economy while about the same share (39 percent) says Obama's policies would be more effective."Brie Code and Anita Sarkeesian to keynote European Women In Games Conference Seventh iteration of two-day summit will be held in London this September
The organisers behind the European Women In Games Conference have announced two keynote speakers for this year's event.
The headline speakers will be notable writer and programmer Brie Code and famed critic Anita Sarkeesian. This will be the first UK speaking appearance for both of them.
Code is currently CEO and creative director of Tru Luv Media - and regular columnist for GamesIndustry.biz. You can Code is currently CEO and creative director of Tru Luv Media - and regular columnist forGamesIndustry.biz. You can read her latest articles here
Meanwhile, Sarkeesian is best known for her work at Feminist Frequency, including the Tropes vs Women in Video Games series that dissects how female characters are represented in the biggest titles. We spoke to Sarkeesian recently on The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast - you can Meanwhile, Sarkeesian is best known for her work at Feminist Frequency, including the Tropes vs Women in Video Games series that dissects how female characters are represented in the biggest titles. We spoke to Sarkeesian recently on The GamesIndustry.biz Podcast - you can listen to what she had to say right here
The seventh European Women In Games Conference will be held in the East London Arts and Music Academy on September 5th and 6th. This is the first year the even will be spread over two days, and will encompass speaker presentations, panel discussions, workshops and the latest entrant in the European Women In Games Hall of Fame.
Marie-Claire Isaaman, CEO of Women in Games, said in a statement: "We welcome Anita and Brie to speak in the UK for the first time. At the forefront of commenting on the need for change, we look forward to hearing their thought provoking stories. Women in Games is committed to realising a gender balanced games industry and reimagining and enhancing the educational pipeline is crucial to achieving this. So, I'm delighted that East London Arts and Music - a progressive educator with such a strong commitment to diversity - is hosting our annual conference this year."Not to be confused with McLaren MP4-12C
The McLaren MP4/12 was the car with which the McLaren Formula One team contested the 1997 Formula One season. It was driven by Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard.
Externally the car was an evolution of the previous year's MP4/11, with engines supplied by Mercedes-Benz for the third year of the Anglo-German alliance. Testing was carried out with the cars painted in the traditional McLaren orange, before a striking new silver livery was launched to celebrate the team's new sponsorship deal with West. This replaced the team's 23-year association with Marlboro, marking the first time that the team had a main sponsor other than Marlboro since 1973.
The car proved extremely promising and could have won at least seven races during the course of the season, but reliability proved troublesome, in particular that of the engine. The FO110E engine was replaced with FO110F engine from the French Grand Prix, but the trouble happened frequently to either engine. This proved frustrating, especially after Coulthard won the first race of the season in Australia, McLaren's first win since losing Ayrton Senna. The situation was exacerbated by Häkkinen retiring from three further races whilst in the lead - all from engine failures - including at the Nürburgring, where the team lost a comfortable one-two finish when both cars retired with identical failures within a lap of each other. Coulthard also lost a certain victory – at Montreal, with a clutch problem after a precautionary pitstop just a few laps before the race prematurely ended. However, Coulthard did manage to win at Monza.
Second brake pedal [ edit ]
During the season, F1 Racing photographer Darren Heath noticed that the rear brakes of the McLarens were glowing red in an acceleration zone of the track. The magazine discovered through photos of the inside of the cockpit, that McLaren had installed a second brake pedal, selectable by the driver to act on one of the rear wheels. This allowed the driver to eliminate understeer and reduce wheelspin when exiting slow corners, dubbed "brake steer". Ferrari's protestations to the FIA led to the system being banned the following season at the 1998 Brazilian Grand Prix.[1]
The team finally claimed the reward of a one-two finish at the season finale after the collision between Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve, although it was a contentious finish with many nodding to the fact that Patrick Head of Williams and Ron Dennis of McLaren had negotiations where Villeneuve would give up the lead if the McLarens made sure to steer clear from the troubled Williams. Regardless, this was Häkkinen's first win in F1 and was much celebrated by the F1 world which had been tipping him to win since he first outqualified Senna at Portugal in 1993. The win set him up with a good base to start his 1998 campaign, which he was able to win after a season-long battle with Michael Schumacher.
The team eventually finished fourth in the Constructors' Championship, with 63 points.
McLaren later designed a roadcar that shared a similar designation to the MP4/12: the McLaren MP4-12C, which also featured the "brake steer" system.
Complete Formula One results [ edit ]
(key) (results in bold indicate pole position)
Year Team Engine Tyres Drivers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Points WCC 1997 McLaren Mercedes V10 G AUS BRA ARG SMR MON ESP CAN FRA GBR GER HUN BEL ITA AUT LUX JPN EUR 63 4th Mika Häkkinen 3 4 5 6 Ret 7 Ret Ret Ret 3 Ret DSQ 9 Ret Ret 4 1 David Coulthard 1 10 Ret Ret Ret 6 7 7 4 Ret Ret Ret 1 2 Ret 10 2
References [ edit ]After the Washington Post beat the Senate Judiciary Committee to memos from the White House to the CIA endorsing interrogation practices, Chairman Patrick Leahy hasn’t been pulling punches.
Today, Leahy issued a subpoena to Attorney Gen. Michael Mukasey demanding that he provide testimony and related documents to the committee about “legal analysis and advice from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) related to the Bush administration’s terrorism policies, including detention and interrogation policies and practices.” The deadline for the testimony and documents is November 18. The committee voted on issuing the subpoena in a September 25 business meeting.
“This administration’s stonewalling leaves this Committee without basic facts that are essential to carrying out its oversight responsibilities,” Leahy said in his letter to Mukasey.
“There is no legitimate argument for withholding the requested materials from this Committee. The Executive Branch should not obstruct Congress from conducting its constitutional oversight and lawmaking duties by making sweeping assertions of secrecy and privilege.”
Leahy and the Bush administration have been embroiled in an ongoing tussle over access to administration documents. As Leahy explains in today’s letter, in August he wrote to White House counsel Fred Fielding requesting the documents, and was rebuffed. Fielding referred Leahy to DOJ, which continued to stonewall. As a result, the committee voted to authorize the subpoena, which was issued to Mukasey today.For the second time this week, dozens of schools confirmed receiving bomb threats via robocalls, according to officials. At least one school said it received a threat from a live person.Bomb threats were confirmed at 32 schools, including Andover High School, Arlington High School, Arlington Catholic High School, Acton-Boxborough High School, Beverly High School, Billerica Memorial High School, Brookline High School, Danvers High School, Littleton High School, Marblehead High School, Melrose High School, Needham High School, Newton South High School, North Andover High School, Peabody High School, the Page Hilltop School in Ayer, Shawsheen Tech in Billerica, Tewksbury High School, Tyngsborough High School, Weston High School and Woburn Memorial High School.Arlington police tweeted that the "building was swept by officials and students are returning to school for business as usual.""Administration is working with police and fire officials to address a bomb threat at the school this morning," Shawsheen Tech tweeted. "Threat has been deemed not credible, and the school day has not been interrupted. Thank you, @BillericaPD for professional support."Lynn English High School received a threat from a live person at 7:36 a.m. saying there was a bomb filled with dynamite that it would go off in a half hour. The school was evacuated and searched, and students were let back in at 8:10 a.m.Other towns also confirmed sweeping the schools but not finding anything. Some schools evacuated students briefly, while others opted to place the school on lockdown while the property was searched.According to State Police spokesman David Procopio said the investigation is being led by the FBI with assistance from the Massachusetts State Police and the Office of the State Fire Marshal.Procopio said investigators believe Thursday's incidents, like previous spates of robocall school threats, are being delivered to targeted destinations through an online network or networks via numerous routers.On Monday, more than a dozen schools received similar robocalls. Nothing was found in sweeps of the schools and no injuries were reported.Get the WCVB News App
For the second time this week, dozens of schools confirmed receiving bomb threats via robocalls, according to officials. At least one school said it received a threat from a live person.
Bomb threats were confirmed at 32 schools, including Andover High School, Arlington High School, Arlington Catholic High School, Acton-Boxborough High School, Beverly High School, Billerica Memorial High School, Brookline High School, Danvers High School, Littleton High School, Marblehead High School, Melrose High School, Needham High School, Newton South High School, North Andover High School, Peabody High School, the Page Hilltop School in Ayer, Shawsheen Tech in Billerica, Tewksbury High School, Tyngsborough High School, Weston High School and Woburn Memorial High School.
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Arlington police tweeted that the "building was swept by officials and students are returning to school for business as usual."
"Administration is working with police and fire officials to address a bomb threat at the school this morning," Shawsheen Tech tweeted. "Threat has been deemed not credible, and the school day has not been interrupted. Thank you, @BillericaPD for professional support."
Lynn English High School received a threat from a live person at 7:36 a.m. saying there was a bomb filled with dynamite that it would go off in a half hour. The school was evacuated and searched, and students were let back in at 8:10 a.m.
Other towns also confirmed sweeping the schools but not finding anything. Some schools evacuated students briefly, while others opted to place the school on lockdown while the property was searched.
According to State Police spokesman David Procopio said the investigation is being led by the FBI with assistance from the Massachusetts State Police and the Office of the State Fire Marshal.
Procopio said investigators believe Thursday's incidents, like previous spates of robocall school threats, are being delivered to targeted destinations through an online network or networks via numerous routers.
On Monday, more than a dozen schools received similar robocalls. Nothing was found in sweeps of the schools and no injuries were reported.
AlertMe1975 studio album by David Cassidy
The Higher They Climb or The Higher They Climb the Harder They Fall is an album by David Cassidy. It was his fifth solo release and the first of three albums on RCA Records. It was released in 1975 and was produced by Cassidy and Bruce Johnston.
The title of the album alludes to David Cassidy's one-time dominance of the pop charts as a teen-idol (see The Partridge Family) and the eventual drop of his superstar status. The album only reached the charts in the UK, where it peaked at number 22.
The album features the track "Darlin'", a song from Bruce Johnston's band, The Beach Boys. Cassidy's version reached #16 on the UK charts. It was a #1 hit in South Africa and was the 6th best selling single of the year in that country. Johnston also recruited Beach Boys singer, Carl Wilson; however, Wilson's vocals appeared on the Johnston-penned song, "I Write the Songs". "I Write the Songs" was a #11 hit in the UK for Cassidy and was later recorded by Barry Manilow, who made it a hit in the U.S.
Some tracks from this collection are compiled onto the 1996 release When I'm a Rock 'n' Roll Star.
The album also includes some of David Cassidy's own songwriting, including "When I'm a Rock 'N' Roll Star".
Track listing [ edit ]Walls can accumulate a lot of dirt over the years, whether the walls are coloured or wallpapered. However, dirt can show up even behind wallpapers after a number of years. If you had a lot of kids in the home, especially, simple walls revealed while moving out can possibly expose spots in some of the areas. The mold may have gathered as well in places like the bathroom or bedroom walls. A lot of these things may not be obvious when you first move out and only become revealed once furniture and items off the walls are shifted. Wall Cleaning Melbourne can reduce the need and cost of clean artwork everywhere, which may be valuable to the new entrepreneurs.
Top 5 Advantages of Choosing a Personal Washing Service
Cleaning Done on the Routine You Want
Hiring expert cleaners allow you to set the schedule you want to have your home washed regularly. You won’t have to hold back around to “get around” to doing these tasks yourself. Just tell the cleaners what you want to be done, and it will be taken care of, quickly and properly.
Professional Cleaners Have the Experience To Do It Right
One of the greatest benefits of having expert Wall Cleaning Melbourne taking care of your residence their ability to use the best items and techniques to get the job done right. You don’t have to purchase a wide assortment that may or may not do a good job. Professional cleaners know what works and will provide the right items for your home’s needs.
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If you want more time to invest with family, having expert cleaners for your residence will allow you to enjoy experiences and create new remembrances. If you want a while for your own actions, having expert Wall Cleaning Melbourne will totally release sufficient time you need to invest on interests, sessions, academic actions or helping out.
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Professional Wall Cleaning Melbourne will ensure that your home dazzling clean, weekly, regardless of the alternative actions that are going on in your lifetime. Your home will be washed continually and will be ready for company, unscheduled visitors or other spur-of-the-moment actions, regardless of how active all of you are.
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If you are like most families today, keeping up with the requirements of work and kids keep you tired. Professional cleaners will allow you to get a little more relaxed so get ready to appreciate your efforts and effort off with loved ones, instead of spending your energy on house cleaning tasks.
The more easily you are making the job for them, the better it will be. If you want them to focus on their work, call them up on a weekday, when your kids are at school. You can take a day off from work to handle the entire thing. That will be your best option.
Conclusion:
Using a contracted Wall Cleaning Melbourne helps home entrepreneurs handle their time better while guaranteeing that their houses are without any excess dirt or waste.For young men today, the obstacles continue to increase for anyone who wants to enter a relationship. Attention whoring is at an all time high, women are addicted to their smart phones, and corporations are conspiring to redirect women’s attention away from love and toward a career.
While writers have reviewed the ways a man can identify whether an accusation is false, this article will discuss the reasons underlying why a woman would falsely accuse a man of rape. Among false accusations of any crime, it appears to be among the highest. For instance, we rarely hear of a person being falsely accused of theft, murder, or arson. Yet the rape card is pulled with regularity. Let’s explore why.
Accusation Is A Weapon Of Power
The first reason is that it is used as a weapon. In the infamous mattress girl case at Columbia University, it slowly became clear that Emma Sulkowicz falsely accused Paul Nungesser of rape. Why did she do this? It seems that she felt abandoned by him. Nungesser made the rookie mistake of hooking up with a mentally unstable girl and thinking, hey, it’s college, we can hook up and move on. But this is not what happened.
A key message she sent to Nungesser after the alleged “rape” shines a light on her motives to use a false accusation as a weapon: “I feel like we need to have some real time where we can talk about life and thingz because we still haven’t really had a paul-emma chill sesh since summmmerrrr.”
For Sulkowicz, she decided to take her revenge by accusing him of rape in order to show him that he should never have neglected her. Today, if a girl feels that a man in any way has mistreated her, revenge is merely a phone call away. If a female student decides one morning that she is mad at a former sexual partner, she can simply have him removed by going to the campus authorities and claiming rape.
This is likely what happened to the basketball captain who was recently expelled under mysterious circumstances purportedly connected to a sexual assault at Yale. He hooked up with a girl, she got mad, and decided to accuse him of rape to remove him from campus. And even if a campus review board decides that the male student is innocent, he now has the stigma of “rapist” attached to him for the rest of his student life. In that case, it may be in his best interest to leave campus anyway. It’s win-win for the female accuser.
Accusations Give A Girl Instant Attention
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Girls today crave attention at unprecedented levels. Being a victim fulfills that desire. In the era of social media and topless selfies by female celebrity icons, it is getting harder for a girl to generate the amount of attention she feels she deserves. To that end, one way to reliably receive positive attention, accolades, and praise like “hero,” “courageous,” and “role model” is to claim victimhood status.
While being a female gives a girl a small amount of claim to victimhood status, claiming to be a “rape survivor” bumps her up to the next level. Once a girl claims that she has been raped, all of her friends and family will give her their full attention, campus administrators must listen to her very word, and anything she posts on social media will instantly garner 1000 “likes.” I hesitate to even write this because it may give some female readers bad ideas to achieve mini-celebrity status and get a full page spread in Rolling Stone magazine.
Falsely Accusing A Man Of Rape Instantly Boosts A Woman’s Social Status
In the current political climate, the more “oppressed” and “underprivileged” a person is, the more status they are conferred. For many privileged middle class girls, they are acutely aware that they occupy a tenuous position among the oppressed classes. Many privileged girls are jealous that racial minorities and transsexuals are receiving more attention than them.
If a girl wants to leap forward in the Victimhood Olympics and gain social points, she can falsely accuse a man of rape. Nobody is higher status on a college campus than a rape survivor. As soon as a girl claims that she has been raped, every word from her mouth must be treated as though it came from God himself. Nothing she says can be questioned, and everything she says must be treated with awe and reverence.
Avoid Being Called A Slut
This is the standard regret angle of false rape accusations. Many girls drink too much, hook up with a guy, and regret their actions the next morning. Because we can’t expect girls to be held accountable for their actions, especially on a college campus where it is well known that 1 in 4 women are assaulted every second, girls must be afforded the option to signal to the world that they are not sluts.
In these cases, girls are able to have all the fun of parting, drinking, and hooking up with none of the social repercussions or guilt. What seems more appealing to a girl: Getting drunk, hooking up, and being called a slut, or getting drunk, saying she was raped, and then being called a hero?
Moreover, while our degenerate culture has done its best to scrub the guilt of being a slut from the minds of girls, they still feel this innate guilt when sleeping around. They then reconcile their guilt and desires by projecting it onto a man and claiming that he forced her to do something she did not want to do.
In sum, multiple incentives exist for girls to use the tool of a false rape accusation. First, they can use it as a weapon to ruin a man’s life if they feel he deserves it. Second,
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would cost an average person about $147 per year, and would spare drivers about $450 in vehicle repairs.
The MPC presented its plan to industry groups in recent weeks, said Matt Hart, executive director of the Illinois Trucking Association. A 50 percent increase in registration fees would cost trucking companies thousands of dollars per truck, Hart said.
“I’m here in Springfield today trying to make sure we do invest in roads,” Hart said. “We would not oppose raising the fuel tax, but we want to make sure the money goes to concrete and asphalt and bridges.”Thrifty Sydney public transport users exploiting a ticketing loophole to score cheap weekly travel have been warned that the jig is up.
Transport Minister Andrew Constance has announced a crackdown on commuters "Opal running" between light rail stops and train stations to manipulate the ticketing system and costing up to $2 million in lost revenue.
Opal fare rules allow users to travel for free for the rest of the week after clocking up eight paid journeys.
As a result, vast numbers of commuters have been running, riding or skating back and forth between stations to "max out" their Opal cards with cheap trips to reap significant savings.
“What people are doing is tapping on, tapping off, attracting the eight journeys, and then travelling the rest of the week for free on longer trips," Mr Constance said.
He said the scam was seeing some 60,000 Opal transfers recorded at stations in and around Pyrmont on Mondays, which plummeted to just 100 by Friday.
The clear disparity in usage frequency appears to have been what first alerted Opal management to the rampant exploitation.
In a bid to stamp out the practice, the number of transfers needed to make a journey has jumped from three up to seven from today, making it much harder for users to fill up their cards.
The ruse, which had taken energetic card holders just 90 minutes to pull off, will now take up to six hours.
"We're going to clamp down on that loophole and we're going to stop people from doing it," Mr Constance said.
"It's a practice which is unacceptable, and as a result we're going to see people stopped from engaging in this behaviour on our network."
Mr Constance said funds lost via this loophole was money lost on improving services for travellers paying their fair fare.
He advised regular ticket holders "playing fair" that the changes will not disadvantage them.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2019Dude from Fox just stands there for a bit, playing with his phone and looking rather sheepish. He then takes the mic, and says he "understands" why folks don't think Fox has any credibility.
UPDATE: I'm not posting a transcript. Here's a summary.
Dems say the pledge, and love America.
Chair calls out TV crew that just walker in, they're from Fox News. Ruth Brian is the Producer, Steve Brown is the reporter.
Chair says FNC donated $1 mil to Republican Governors Association. Why should we trust FNC to cover our GOTV effort fairly?
FNC dude mumbles
Chair asks if he wants the microphone. "This is my meeting, no one invited you...now you're here....Your news organization sir, isn't credible. [clapping]
Chair accuses FNC guy of framing questions/coverage about Michell Obama's visit to Wisconsin as showing enthusiasm gap, and being full of crap.
FNC guy takes the microphone. He's not attempting to catch something that isn't permitted. Says Milwaukee is a critical area, they're interested in WI-Sen and WI-Gov.
Chair: Do you understand why Dems think FNC is biased, not fair to Dems?
FNC: I believe in personal responsibility, I'm not responsible for everyone else at Fox. He understands why Dems feel that way, he's dealt with it before. If you don't want us here, we'll leave.
Chair lets guy stay. Leads "Fired up, Ready to Go!" cheer to end it.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Sep. 3, 2015, 4:37 AM GMT / Updated Sep. 3, 2015, 1:16 PM GMT By Alex Seitz-Wald, Frank Thorp V and Kristen Welker
A former Hillary Clinton staffer who helped set up the former secretary of state’s private email server has vowed to invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions after a congressional committee subpoenaed him, MSNBC confirmed late Wednesday.
Bryan Pagliano, who worked for Clinton during her 2008 presidential campaign and at the State Department, has been identified in digital records as the person who set up her email server in 2009.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi, which is investigating Clinton’s emails, subpoenaed Pagliano last month to testify. But his lawyer said Monday that the IT specialist would refuse to answer questions, asserting his constitutional right against self-incrimination, The Washington Post first reported Wednesday.
"While we understand that Mr. Pagliano’s response to this subpoena may be controversial in the current political environment, we hope that the members of the Select Committee will respect our client’s right,” attorney Mark MacDougall wrote in a letter obtained by MSNBC to Benghazi Committee Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy.
Read More at MSNBC: Clinton IT Staffer Plans to Plead the Fifth
The letter cites the fact the FBI is already investigating the security of Clinton’s email server, and notes that Pagliano had been contacted in the past week by two separate Senate committees also looking into the matter.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican representing Iowa, said in a statement that "Mr. Pagliano’s legal counsel told the committee yesterday that he would plead the 5th to any and all questions if he were compelled to testify."
A Clinton campaign aide said in a statement to NBC News Wednesday the candidate has encouraged aides to answer any questions.
"We have been confident from the beginning that Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email was allowed and that she did not send or receive anything marked classified, facts confirmed by the State Department and the Inspector General," the statement said. "She has made every effort to answer questions and be as helpful as possible, and has encouraged her aides, current and former, to do the same, including Bryan Pagliano."
Clinton is scheduled to testify before the House committee in October, her campaign said. The Republican-led committee is investigating the deaths of four Americans killed in the 2012 attacks in Libya.
Pagliano was IT director for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before serving as special advisor to the Department of State under Clinton from May 2009 through February 2013, according to his LinkedIn page.
"Bryan is an utter professional and a wonderful young man who does not live in the public eye and understandably may not wish to be drawn into a political spectacle," the Clinton campaign aide went on.
"So his decision is both understandable and yet also disappointing to us, because we believe he has every reason to be transparent about his IT assistance," the aide said.TOKYO (Reuters) - In the weeks after the Fukushima nuclear plant was destroyed by a triple meltdown in March 2011, the plant’s owner turned to three of Japan’s largest construction companies for a quick fix to store radiated water that was pooling in the disaster zone.
The result was a rush order for steel tanks supplied by Taisei Corp, Shimizu Corp and Hazama Ando that were relatively cheap and could be put together quickly, according to the utility and three people involved in the project.
The tanks, which stand as tall as a three-storey building, were shipped in pieces and bolted together as makeshift repository for the cascade of water being pumped through the reactors of Fukushima every day to keep fuel in the melted cores from overheating.
The bolted tanks were sealed with resin and designed to last until about 2016 - long enough to buy time for Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, to work out a more permanent solution. But at least one of the tanks has already failed, leaking 300 tons of highly radioactive water that may have seeped into a drainage ditch and into the Pacific Ocean.
The discovery of the leak - which Tepco said on Friday was the fifth from the same type of tank - prompted Japan’s first declaration of a nuclear incident since a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami triggered reactor meltdowns and hydrogen explosions that spewed radiation around Fukushima in 2011.
It has also focused attention on the uncomfortable end-game for the radiated water collecting at Fukushima.
Some 330,000 tons of contaminated water - enough to fill more than 130 Olympic swimming pools - has been pumped into storage pits and above-ground tanks at the crippled facility.
The sheer scale of the build-up has prompted some experts and officials to warn that in order to focus on containing the most toxic waste, less contaminated water will have to be dumped into the sea.
“Think about it in simple terms. If you don’t release the water, there’s nowhere to store it. So we also think it may have to be released,” said Shinichi Nakayama, deputy director of the Nuclear Safety Research Center at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and a member of a regulatory panel on Fukushima’s problems.
Before the latest leak, Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan’s minister of trade and industry, and Shunichi Tanaka, the top nuclear regulator, both indicated support for releasing water with low levels of radiation from Fukushima. No one has given any timeframe for such a move.
NOT BUILT TO LAST
Officials say the immediate priority is to figure out why the bolted storage tank failed less than two years since it was installed. They are also looking at adjusting plans for the more than 400,000 tons of additional water storage Tepco plans to build by 2016.
When Tepco commissioned the first bolted tanks the advantage was the relative speed with which contractors could finish the job just a few hundred meters from the wrecked reactor building. “These could be quickly built,” said Masayuki Ono, a manager at Topco’s nuclear division.
Tepco spokeswoman Mayumi Yoshida said a joint venture of Taisei, Shimzu and Hazama Ando won the first contract to build storage tanks at Fukushima in April 2011. She declined to say whether the contractors built the tank that began to leak. Tepco has not identified the cause of the leak, and has consistently declined to give details on the value of contracts it has awarded or winning bidders, citing a need to protect “corporate secrets”. The Fukushima decommissioning is projected to cost at least $11 billion and take at least 30 years to complete.
A left-behind beach ball drifts at the empty Yotsukura municipal beach in Iwaki, about 40 km (25 miles) south of the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Fukushima prefecture August 23, 2013. REUTERS/Issei Kato
Taisei, which built the structure around Japan’s newest reactor at Tomari in Hokkaido in 2009, was heavily involved in the construction of the Fukushima tanks, according to three people involved, who asked not to be named. Workers and engineers at Fukushima have been put on an “emergency” footing to work on the storage tanks this week, they said.
Shimizu, which also has experience in building nuclear plants in Japan, had technology needed to build the bolted tanks and brought in experts, one of the sources said.
Taisei said it could not comment on individual client projects. Shimizu and Hazama Ando declined to comment.
There are 350 of the bolted-style tanks in place at Fukushima, and another 710 welded tanks, a more expensive design that takes longer to assemble. Nuclear Regulation Authority Commissioner Toyoshi Fuketa said on Friday that regulators also needed to examine the environmental risks posed by any failures of those tanks, especially in cases where they have been lined up directly on the ground rather than a concrete foundation.
Tepco plans to more than double the current storage capacity by 2016, but doesn’t have a plan beyond that point. The math is daunting. The utility has to find space for an additional 400 tons of radioactive water each day because of the need to keep the reactors cool for the next seven years.
CONTROVERSIAL
A radiation filtering machine known as ALPS was supplied by Toshiba Corp to scrub the water clean of most radioactive elements, including cesium and strontium. The system, which remains in testing and under review by nuclear regulators, would leave treated water with tritium, a radioactive element typically discharged in the coolant water of reactors and considered one of the least dangerous radioactive elements.
Japanese officials have indicated support for releasing water containing tritium into the sea to make room to store more dangerous radioactive materials. But that seems certain to be controversial at a time when Japanese utilities are applying to restart nuclear stations that have been idled and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is on a drive to sell nuclear technology to countries like India and Vietnam.
The World Nuclear Association, an international organization that promotes nuclear power, endorses a limited discharge at Fukushima. “Tepco has been prevented from discharging any treated water due to political opposition,” the organization said in response to questions from Reuters. “Permitting sea release of treated water would alleviate the much larger problem of a demand for massive volumes of water storage.”
Tepco’s already shaky credibility with regulators and the Japanese public has been further damaged by recent events.
After months of denials, Tepco admitted in July that radioactive groundwater is reaching the sea. The government estimates 300 tons of radiated water are leaking every day.
Kajima Corp, a construction and civil engineering company, has proposed freezing the ground around the Fukushima reactor to create a 1.4-kilometer ring of frozen earth intended to stop groundwater from seeping into the wrecked reactor buildings. Contractors will prepare a report assessing the feasibility of that project by December.
Yuzo Onishi, a Kansai University professor who heads the government panel that endorsed the strategy in May, said it was the only option to block water in a tight space without cutting through tangled piping underneath the plant buildings.
“The opinion among the groundwater specialists is that Tepco has no idea what it’s doing,” he said. “We have asked them to bring in specialists on the ground.”
Slideshow (7 Images)
Seawater sampling beyond the port surrounding the plant has not yet shown a rise in cesium or strontium levels, suggesting the contamination remains contained. But that has not relieved pressure on the local fishing industry, which has had to scrap plans to resume test fishing next month because of the recent leaks at the plant.
After months of discussion, a union representing Fukushima fishermen has moved closer to endorsing a Tepco plan to divert water away from the reactor complex and pump it directly into the sea. But the industry remains staunchly against any attempt by the utility to dump radiated water into the Pacific.
“We have to go back to the drawing board to figure out what to do next. Right now we can’t see the future. There is so much uncertainty,” said Takayuki Yanai, a trustee of a local fishing union.Venezuela’s is dealing with runaway inflation. Things have gotten so bad, that the government no longer even publishes inflation data. But to get a sense of where the economy is headed, one need only look at their announcement to start printing 20,000 bolivar notes in December. Currently, the largest note is worth only 100 bolivars.
Because the bolivar’s value has plummeted, the country is experiencing large scale shortages of basics, like food and medicine, and the only way to get the inflation under control may be to dollarize. In other words, the left-wing government of Nicolas Maduro would adopt the greenback as its official currency in order to stave off more inflation. This seems unlikely, given Maduro’s stridently anti-American rhetoric, but it might be the only way to stat digging Venezuela’s economy out of the hole.ISIS controlled fully the city of Raqqa on 01/12/2014 after fierce battles with the FSA and mock battles with Jabhat AL Nusra and Harakat Ahrar AL Sham who withdrew from the city.
ISIS soon began to impose special laws and arbitrary provisions, with intimidating people in the field of executions and arrests, sometimes imposing taxes and closing shops 5 times during the prayers, imposing customs fees and other times, preventing goods from leaving or entering into and from the city only if a levy is paid.
Civilians did not escape from their decisions as the Hisba patrols (the police) are looking for smokers and those who violate the laws set by ISIS. The khansa patrol battalions looking for women violating the ISIS dress code, in and out, and prevent mixing all over the city.
Although under all the blackness of the city life, there is another kind of life, a life of taboo full of vitality and rush under the name of “love.”
In the hearts of these raqqawi young men and women, there is still a hope, a glimmer of light as long as some young lovers meet each other in secret, and in spite of all restrictions by the Hisba patrols and Khansa battalions. Their love makes them find the trick to solve their problems and meet each other in an atmosphere of love, even for some minutes.
Raqqa slaughtered silently Team met 2 young lovers as a true example of survival. They are Mahmoud 26 and Zeina 23, and we asked them some questions.
1. How long have you been in love?
Mahmoud and Zeina smiled. Mahmoud said: “We have been in love for about two and a half years, we went to the university together and used to meet at the university coffee shop or one of the city’s cafes and sometimes in public parks. Before the occupation by ISIS, we did not face any problems, we were able to meet in the place of our choice.
2. What has changed for you after the occupation of the city by ISIS?
Everything has changed. We could see each any place we want. Today, meeting Zeina is a semi-suicide because Hisba patrols are everywhere, especially in the parks. If we are arrested, we will face tough sanctions by ISIS. If you are caught in the parks with one of the girls, you are asked to prove the identity of the girl. And if she is not your sister or your wife, the Hisba will arrest you and the Khansa will arrest the girl who will be lashed.
3. So how do you agree to meet now?
Zeina said: “this is another kind of a complex issue. I contact Mahmoud across the What’s up or Facebook and we both agree on a specific place that is away from the Hisba and Khansa patrols, and I give him details that will help him to identify me, for instance, I will carry a red bag with some inscriptions (or with books?), as in Raqqa all women wear the niqab and it is difficult to distinguish between them.
4. How do you communicate, because talking to each other is dangerous as you say?
Mahmoud said: “at the beginning hearing the voice Zeina and seeing her even with the niqab few seconds were enough, but it is no longer bearable. I thought of another trick that will allow me to see her. I talked with my father who owns women’s clothing shop to help him in his work. I suggested to him to take the morning shift and he takes the evening one.” Zeina and Mahmoud laughed, and she added : “Yes and this is how I go from time to time to the shop to buy some accessories, which allows me to talk to him few minutes and sometimes I can remove the veil. That topic remains very serious. On one occasion, the shop was empty and we were talking to each other when one member of ISIS irrupted but did not pay attention to us, even though we were very scared at that moment.
Have you ever thought of what will happen to both you if you get arrested?
Zeina says: “yes. We think about it a lot, and we know the seriousness of the situation, but our feelings toward each other make us stronger and we cannot stay far from each other though everything has to be adventurous.”
Do you reassure one another during the bombing of the city?
Mahmoud says, “of course. In the case of the bombing of the city after, I check on my family directly. I try to contact Zeina through Facebook if she is okay. Sometimes I get very concerned when I do not receive a quick reply.
7. What are your expectations for the future? Do you intend to remain in today situation?
Mahmoud says: “I think I’m tired of this situation and I intend to talk seriously and honestly to my parents in order to marry Zeina. If this happened, we would not live in the city of Raqqa. The situation is no longer bearable and we intend to move to and live in Turkey.
Many among Raqqa’s young men and women have similar stories despite the full control of ISIS over the city, and its attempt to sow grief and hatred among the people. Zeina and Mahmoud’s case is only one among hundreds of love stories taking place in the city.
Everyone is waiting for salvation and as they say: “ death and love intensify in time of war”
Facebook Messenger Twitter Google+ Viber WhatsApp Email PrintWed 10 June 2009 | tags: design frameworks rest
This post is the third part of continuing series of articles on REST. The first one was Why REST? and the next one was REST is the DBMS of the internet with hopefully some more to follow in the coming weeks.
Struts, Django, Ruby on Rails. We've worked with these and many other similar frameworks. Some time back I started thinking of what would a completely new ground up REST / Resource oriented framework would look like (ground up to ensure it had no legacy design to deal with). Would such frameworks be similar to the ones dominantly used today? What about the ecosystem that surrounds and interacts with them (client libraries)? And finally what about the implications on the fine grained object model (assuming there is one) and its relationship with the resource model? This post deals with some of the thoughts.
There are some specifics the post does not address and is agnostic about :
Language : I shall be avoiding language issues as much as possible. Wherever I do bring in code constructs these may be assumed to be in Java (or pseudo-Java)
Convention or Configuration : I think both are valid choices in their appropriate contexts, and I don't specifically emphasise one over the other in this post
The frameworks mentioned above are not the only ones out there. There are many, and some actually are very REST specific eg. Apache CXF JAX-RS or Restlet. It would certainly be interesting to contrast my thoughts with these, but for reasons of insufficiently detailed knowledge about them, I shall choose to skip it (better to not make any statements than making incorrect ones).
I shall be assuming a HTTP connector with GET, PUT, POST and DELETE as the constant set of operations. These four operations shall be collectively referred to as Resource Operations.
We shall first start with the server side characteristics, and the term ROF shall refer to a Resource Oriented (server side) Framework
A ROF will have a resource oriented interface : Certainly not a profound statement, but it was important to lay that down upfront. So what is a Resource Oriented Interface. Given a particular resource, a Resource Oriented Software will support or consume end points which allow you GET, PUT, POST or DELETE the resource. There is one reason why this particular constraint is relaxed just a little bit. Modern browsers do not support all the four methods easily eg DELETE and make it just slightly hard to use the PUT method. Hence these methods can also be invoked by using a URI segment containing the method name eg. delete.
A ROF will have an abstraction to represent a resource as an end point : Again, that seems to be pretty obvious. But there is a reason why I make it explicitly. In many situations we see controllers acting as end points. To the extent a controller acts as an abstraction for a resource end point which essentially only has the resource operations as public methods, it would fit this requirement. However if I was using an Order as a resource and if I introduced an approve method on the OrderController that would not be consistent with this requirement. That would need to be modelled as an OrderApproval resource which may on successful completion, effect a state change on the Order resource to the status 'approved'.
This is where a potential differences with conventional frameworks arise. If I was to think of it from an EJB like perspective, I would model a OrderController as a Session bean and a Order as an entity bean. In case of lightweight POJO based model, I would have an OrderController as the endpoint exposed by say using Struts and model the Order as a entity POJO and map it to the database using Hibernate. In other non java frameworks, I would have a class to represent an OrderController and another one to represent the order along ActiveRecord pattern. But I would argue this separation is not entirely necessary, since what we want is something that implements a single abstraction mapping onto a Resource which also support the primarily lifecycle methods or resource operations of GET, PUT, POST and DELETE. But there is an issue to be worked through here. These resource operations are actually class level and not object level methods. Thus if we have an abstraction to represent the resource instance, the class level methods cannot be defined in the same class except as class level (static) methods. This is a tricky problem, and I would submit the designer may make one of two choices (a) Implement the resource operations as class level methods on the Resource abstraction (ie. they will get or return the resource references as method parameters and not rely on the 'this' or'self' qualifier for getting access to the resource variables or (b) Implement the resource operations as methods on a separate one-to-one mapped class on the resource abstraction (eg. an OrderHome in case of an EJB like analogy)
Given consistent expectations of the Resource Operations these will actually be auto-magically implemented : Thats a bit of a turnaround from what I was just describing in the earlier paragraph. What I mean to suggest is that the class level methods I just referred to will be implemented within the framework. What the framework will allow are plugins to provide extended functionality at specific points. Thus a "public static Order Order.put(Order order)" method will be implicitly implemented by the framework. But before a put can be processed it needs to be validated. Thus the framework will allow the developer to plug in / override his own implementation for an Order.validate(Order order). There are multiple ways such plug-ins could be implemented. Depending upon the nature of abstraction, it could be an overridden method as I just described, or it could be a standalone method that is registered into the overall workflow (either through convention or configuration). The latter might be especially useful in case one wants to implement the functionality as stand alone methods or in case of functional programming languages. The plugin points provided could be framework specific. eg, One may want to validate a resource for consistency even at it is being read from the database. For the rest of the post I shall refer to these as plugins. In addition, framework will most certainly provide methods for for downstream handling of impact of PUT, POST or DELETE. This is covered in the next point. In case the framework chooses to not deal with persistence, it may choose to allow capabilities for integration with other persistence frameworks.
A ROF will provide capabilities to a developer to override or register methods to handle downstream impact of PUT, POST and DELETE : Before I get into the details of this, I encourage you to take a look at my earlier post REST is the DBMS of the internet in case you have not already done so. To summarise it quickly, I have drawn the analogy that a REST based system is like a DBMS where client applications can perform direct SQL such as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE (GET, PUT, POST, DELETE in case of HTTP/REST) on the Tables (Resources in case of REST), and the business logic is implemented as triggers. Thus the framework will need to allow the developer to define such triggers. Such methods will need to support ability to reject the request (in case of downstream validation failures), and update the resource state (to reflect the appropriate resource state after the completion of the downstream processing). It is also feasible to imagine scenarios where such methods are triggered asynchronously. Much of the logic of the traditional controllers which controlled interactions across multiple objects etc. is likely to now be shifted into these methods. I have no particularly good name for such methods. They could be referred to as triggers, event or message handlers, glue methods, extension points etc. For the rest of this post I shall refer to these methods specifically as 'handlers'.
Note that the actual invocations to select, insert, update, delete the resource are NOT to be programmed by the developer. These are automatically handled by the framework. The developer essentially fills in the necessary logic to the plugin methods (eg. Order.validate) or handlers (eg. Order.onCreate)
A ROF will provide a mechanism to describe or map a resource abstraction to to the actual programming constructs : There are a number of ways this could be achieved. XML, YAML, DSL, Annotation - take your pick. Also the actual class could be defined (as in case of a POJO) and the resource characteristics mapped onto it, or the class may manifest itself at runtime based on metaprogramming around the metadata. Sample possibilities here are Hibernate like Resource-to-Object-to-Relation mapping (using either Annotations or XML) or a a completely metaprogrammed ActiveResource. One important aspect that the framework will need to cover is the situations where a Resource is a composite of many or partial underlying business objects. eg. an Order resource instance could theoretically span one Order instance and many OrderItem instances. Thus a one to one relationship between a resource and underlying business objects (or datastructures) is not assumed. What is assumed is that the framework will allow such relationships to be described or introspected.
A ROF will allow resources to be mapped onto URI or URI segments : This is too obvious an requirement to be explained and is mentioned here only for completeness.
A ROF will allow foreign keys across resources which manifest themselves as URIs to be mapped onto the underlying business object references : Resources refer to each other through URIs. The underlying business objects refer to each other through object references. Given the resource descriptions and URI mappings, the framework should allow for a transparent referencing/dereferencing between such URIs and the object references.
A ROF will allow factory methods for locating or allow injection of other resources / business objects : Within the handler functions, developers will need references to the associated resources or business objects. I say resources or business objects, since the developer may choose to interact with these at a coarse grained (resource) or fine grained (business object) level. The framework should allow the necessary support for such activities.
A ROF may provide additional support for typical aspects of lifecycle (eg. validation) : While I mentioned validate as a possible plugin function. However given the omnipresence of validations, the framework may provide additional support for such activities. Thus the framework may choose to automatically implement such capabilities using the resource descriptions.
A ROF may provide capabilities for domain specific extension of resource capabilities : Certain domains have standardised mechanisms of working with resources. As an example most banking systems based on the four eyes principle require approval activities. While this particular aspect is much tougher than it seems, a ROF may choose to allow extension of such capabilities using template like functions or mix ins. As an example in this situation, once an Order resource is defined, an OrderApproval resource will be automatically made available as will the GET and PUT methods on it (POST and DELETE in this particular case may not be relevant), as will the necessary and appropriate handler functions on OrderApproval.
A ROF will provide capabilities for automatically generating the resource representation from the resource and vice-versa : Resources manifest themselves in multiple possible formats eg. XML, JSON etc. An ROF will allow such transformations between the representation and the resource/business object instance automatically.
A ROF will provide capabilities for assembling more complex representations using templates : In many situations, especially when the representations are being composed for manual (browser based) consumption, additional resources may need to be pulled into a view. A ROF will allow for such assembly of resources to be composed into a final view using templates.
A ROF will allow for introduction of appropriate additional URIs in views using templates : Thanks to HATEOAS (I've really avoided it thus far :) ), the framework will need to allow some mechanism of describing what are the additional context specific URIs to be included in the final representation. The template logic should allow the developer to specify such URIs.
A ROF should allow for the resource / media-type descriptions to be shipped in band with the resource representation : Since REST allows media types to be auto discovered and auto described, the framework should allow for the metadata for such media types to be also presented to the client. While I think it is essential that such in band information should be conveyed on demand, the framework may also optionally support upfront interrogation for media types and their details, which will require such information to be shipped out of band as well. I am not aware of any specific standards around such interrogation APIs so the framework could implement a custom API for the same. The actual metadata could be represented using any of the typical appropriate standards such as RDFa, XML Schema snippets etc.
A ROF should optionally allow support for auto generation of bindings for clients : I really really cringe as I write this. I cringe because to me the great attraction of REST is the simplicity and the ease of introducing incremental integration. The client binding generation (especially if it is statically generated) flies in the face of many accepted lightweight design scenarios. However I think there are likely to be some situation where availability of such client side bindings would be helpful. When possible (eg. with dynamically typed, metaprogramming capable languages like Python or Ruby), such bindings should be dynamic. In such cases the client can automatically introspect the server side media types and make available the necessary client side objects on the fly. In cases where statically typed languages such as Java or Scala are used, the client side may choose to expose everything as generic datastructures (e.g trees of name value pairs) or may allow for generation and compilation of client side bindings. I have no specific thoughts around the API support needed on the client side, except that quite obviously this would include support for the resource construction, resource operations etc. and that they would allow the client to interact with the server using the underlying language constructs rather having to work at a raw HTTP level.
In addition to the characteristics described above, I suspect frameworks will have many other optional characteristics such as support for monitoring, auditing / logging, transaction management, object pooling etc. etc. However these are unlikely to be particularly interesting when focusing on the framework aspects especially from a resource oriented perspective, which is indeed the focus of this post.
Update : InfoQ covered this blog post here : Design Characteristics Of Resource Oriented Server FrameworksFor more than 20 years, Americans have been pondering What To Do About Health Care. Everyone seems to agree on the major problems:
Health care is expensive;
health care is getting more expensive faster than nearly everything else;
expensive health care is hard for poor people to pay for;
and health insurance as it is currently set up isn't working to provide health care.
If we turn these around, it seems we share some basic assumptions, axioms, for what a health care solution should look like:
Everyone should be able to get health care;
the cost of health care should go down, or at least stop growing so fast;
people should be able to choose their own health care providers;
and we're unwilling to let someone bleed to death on the steps of the hospital because they don't have some form of insurance.
Our current system for providing and paying for health care is neither solving the problems, nor providing the positive results we would like, so for many years we have debated, modified, and argued over changes to the health care system to be imposed from the federal government in order to make things better.
Somehow, things have gotten worse instead.
When I started this health care and insurance series, I really wasn't aware that I was starting a series -- I just wanted to explain things that were pretty obviously not clear to people who weren't specialist wonks, and in particular to explain parts of the debate in which politicians were making promises that just weren't arithmetically possible.
Of course, part of the problem is that the politicians are very well aware that the average voter simply doesn't know enough, doesn't have the tools and the data, with which to evaluate their various schemes. Professor Jonathan Gruber of MIT accidentally gave the game away on tape when he said:
Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage, and basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.
What Gruber was really saying is simple: people don't understand what's going on, and we don't want them to understand, because if they did people wouldn't go for it.
So -- I realized in the middle of the night not long ago -- the real purpose of this series is to explain the pieces so that people can make their own decisions, and, I hope, see through the smokescreens that politicians erect to keep the general population out of the way.
The truth is, health care policy, funding, and regulations have a lot of knobs -- a lot of knobs -- and changing any of them can change the whole system in unexpected ways. But I really think, if we approach this in a systematic way, anyone can understand the basics and make their own choices.Hey, you! You, with the Starbucks pumpkin-spiced latte in your hand. That ridiculous concoction – with its fluffiness, lack of substance, and triviality – is the ultimate expression of white privilege. So shame on you.
I learned about the true meaning of the pumpkin-spiced latte in a scholarly paper, called The Perilous Whiteness of Pumpkins. It was peer-reviewed and published in a genuine academic journal. Lisa Jordan Powell, its lead author, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia. "Starbucks PSLs are products of coffee shop culture, with its gendered and racial codes," it warns. They make up just one part of the "pumpkin entertainment complex, whose multiple manifestations continue the entanglements of pumpkins, social capital, race, and place."
Ms. Powell (who did not respond to an offer to comment on her paper) is merely one of countless academics toiling in the fertile field of race and gender studies. I don't mean to pick on her in particular. Like everybody else, she must publish or perish. They churn out this stuff like Halloween candy. We pay for it.
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Vast tracts of the social sciences have gone insane. If you doubt it, I urge you to check out New Real Peer Review, a Twitter feed whose purpose is to expose the absurdity of what passes for scholarly research. It's run by a small team of anonymous academics who fear their careers will suffer if people know who they are. They have no shortage of material. Their greatest hit to date is a
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while having something to stream. I also didn't want my opponents to see what my deck was, since it had elements that weren't obvious to put into decks.
But aren't there situations in arena where you incorrectly value a card and thus never pick it, so you never get to find out how good it really is in constructed (or even arena)?
True enough; for example, I likely never would have thought of unleash the beasts + dragonhawk + timber wolf + etc. I counted a lot on the hearthstone illuminati to fill me in on this stuff and I'm fortunate to have encountered their circle. Also, I kept up with all the major tournaments and looked up their decklists.
These days constructed is gradually getting more of a focus as more tournaments popping up. what do you think is the key to getting good at constructed versus arena?
In arena you're always dealt a random list of cards to pull from and you're always up against a random list of cards. In constructed, a major skill, and maybe the defining skill, is keeping up with the "metagame" - what is strong and what is being used, and taking one step ahead and coming up with a deck and/or strategy and/or ways to use your currently existing cards to beat that style. That of course goes past the general concept of "play the best cards that are above average in strength which work well together"
So according to a friend of mine, "the first group of really good mtg players were these dudes at CMU who played with one another all the time because they were the first to realize if you had a constant group of people to playtest with you can get through bad ideas faster" You've obviously been in some sort of practice group. First of all, being that you're a MtG player, have you heard this story? Also, how important do you think this concept is, to have a group of people to practice and bounce ideas off of in constructed?
Yeah, I've heard of that story. Yeah, the concept is very important, it goes for any game really, be it Starcraft, League, MTG, or Hearthstone.
If I hadn't practiced with this group of people and bounced ideas off of them my decks would have likely looked drastically different and worse, especially as I had played arena a lot and wasn't as aware of certain deck strengths. Even that takes too much credit. Really, they set me on the right path. What I learned is that I was behind on good deck development. They caught me up to the forefront of the general good decks out there. I feel confident that I submitted decks that were on the forefront of good deck development, and that after I submitted them, the decks got even better but luckily that doesn't matter since everyone submitted decks from about two weeks ago which just shows how much complexity and innovation there is out there right now.Did I forget the lesson? Basically, there are people out there that are really good at constructed and have both built really strong decks and play near flawlessly. And the decks keep getting stronger. So if you thought I was PC with the last comment, it's through this practice that I realized that I am mortal. =O That's why I can't even state who I think will be hardest, I don't know if they've been through the hellish regimen that I've been through, but if they haven't, then blizzcon will be a breeze.A mixture of reasons.*Trump pauses for a few seconds, then begins typing*Arena is good practice in general since you get to be exposed to basically all the cards and see a lot of different situations, some of which might become the idea for a constructed deck. I also happen to find it more fun and I think it's more viewership friendly too incidentally.I value winning blizzcon a lot. It doesn't have a cash prize but I'm not going to take getting invited to blizzcon lightly and I put a lot of effort into it and will fight hard to win!...while still keeping my deck tech secret and while having something to stream.I also didn't want my opponents to see what my deck was, since it had elements that weren't obvious to put into decks.True enough; for example, I likely never would have thought of unleash the beasts + dragonhawk + timber wolf + etc. I counted a lot on the hearthstone illuminati to fill me in on this stuff and I'm fortunate to have encountered their circle. Also, I kept up with all the major tournaments and looked up their decklists.In arena you're always dealt a random list of cards to pull from and you're always up against a random list of cards. In constructed, a major skill, and maybe the defining skill, is keeping up with the "metagame" - what is strong and what is being used, and taking one step ahead and coming up with a deck and/or strategy and/or ways to use your currently existing cards to beat that style. That of course goes past the general concept of "play the best cards that are above average in strength which work well together"Yeah, I've heard of that story. Yeah, the concept is very important, it goes for any game really, be it Starcraft, League, MTG, or Hearthstone.If I hadn't practiced with this group of people and bounced ideas off of them my decks would have likely looked drastically different and worse, especially as I had played arena a lot and wasn't as aware of certain deck strengths. Even that takes too much credit. Really, they set me on the right path. On Random Questions I guess we should actually talk about the cards in this card game sometime...so i'll just shout out random ideas and questions. Feel free to answer them as in depth as you like. Most overrated class? You can give two answers if you'd like for both arena and constructed.
I don't have enough experience in constructed, but I will say that I think the field is wide open and there are a lot of possibilities for those classes thought of as "underpowered" (especially at blizzcon) to do well now/in the future. Keeping in mind the blizzcon representation is from what was thought about two weeks ago.
In arena I keep detailed stats and my winrates are all in a pretty tight band of win rate %. To be specific they're all +/- 4% of 75% winrate.
So i guess there's not going to be much of an answer for most underrated class, is there?
The basics of it is that I think arena is "close enough" and that there is no overpowered or underpowered class. In constructed there might be some classes that are overrated only because other classes are underrated. the game's young, lots of development is happening, so I keep a really open "anything is possible" answer.
You have 20 seconds for the next question, ready?
yea
You can make a deck to face any normal constructed deck. The catch? You can only include 30 copies of one card. What's your card?
crap.
*thirty seconds pass*
flame imp warlock
*twenty seconds more pass*
maybe a certain murloc is better.
Now that you've had time to think about your answer, can you rate it and analyze it?
Well, when you're going 2nd you'll be able to turn 1 double flame imp turn 2 double flame imp turn 3 tap imp
When you're 1st you'll be able to t1 imp t2 imp imp t3 tap imp
It's pretty strong I imagine
curi: soulfire might be the best choice
Kithros: Oh that would be amusing. Ice lance could work too
That seems fast and terrifying to me~ but I think I want to change my vote to murloc warleader. Though the murloc warleader deck gets destroyed by the flame imp deck. Probably some sort of 1 mana murloc. but anyways.
You get to combine cards from two classes into a constructed deck. Which classes would you combine and what would the concept be?
Off the top of my head, shaman-mage. A control deck utilizing the better class cards from those along with your standard array of neutrals. Not so exciting in imagination but basically I want to run stormforged axe, hex, and fire elemental in every deck since I'm a control player, and I might not specifically want to play shaman. So basically take those 3 cards and make a control deck better.
So i think you've been asked this before, but if you had to make a card that described yourself in the game, what would it be? Also, i'm going to judge your level of self-worth based on how overpowered this card is."
Legendary panda minion named "Trum Po". Card text is "You control the outcomes of all random effects that you control."
You have to specify a cost, stats, etc...
hmm. ok. a 5 mana 3/7.
How good do you think this card would actually be in constructed? Now you have to theorycraft it.
Off the top of my head, it wouldn't be very good. You'd play it with cards which have random effects which are already "okay/good" to make them "good/great".
Can we infer something about how you view yourself based on the fact that your own card that you designed isn't that great?
Nope!
Well, yes
But the psychology is too deep.
I leave it as an exercise to the reader.
Well, what current card in hearthstone best represents you?
Mind Control Mind Control
Ok for the next question, i will literally judge your value as a person based on the answer that you give. What is the best legendary in constructed?
sylvanas
A+. Ok so Trump, you wake up one day in front of a computer with no recollection of how you got there. Your vision is blurry. All you see is an arena screen on the first pick, but you can't see what class it is. What is the card that you hope to god appears there on the screen? (btw i know this is just a very convoluted way of asking you what's the best first pick in arena)
yea.
Ysera
Aren't you worried how you got there and why you don't have any memory? Good god, is drafting cards all you care about?
=O
What's the most difficult arena pick between three cards you've ever had to make? A Trump's choice, if you will.
I think I picked a bloodfen raptor over a chillwind yeti once. Because of curve. And that hurt but it was right. Generally the difficult arena picks are those where you pick a weaker card because of mana curve or you have three picks who you think are close in power level. Not much anecdote to give there for me. =P
At least you didn't have to pick one of your children over the other. though i guess according to the question where you lost your memories, card games is all you care about.
Sounds about right.
Do you ever suspect that you will be grievously injured by a children's card game?
*silence for a minute*
Oh god this question is turning out badly.
You don't get the reference. =(
curi: does it have to do with yu gi oh?
Ya
Curi: hehe. i know monk better than i know yugioh
you think I won't get a yugioh refrence?!
By the time it's taking you to answer this question, i don't think so
On a side note, this is my favorite
um...the answer to that, though, is "no." =P
I predict many people will be very dissapointed in you in the comments below. Anyways, the way we usually end interviews in sc2 is with shoutouts and sponsorplugs. Let's continue that tradition in Hearthstone. So plug and shout away!
Thanks Hearthstone Illuminati for giving me cutting edge decks for Blizzcon. Thanks Razer for the partnership. I will rock their warm jacket for Blizzcon and use their super accurate mouse to play cards to victory. Thanks KFC for making a delicious product. Thanks Trump viewers at twitch.tv/trumpsc for being a terrific audience. yay ~ I don't have enough experience in constructed, but I will say that I think the field is wide open and there are a lot of possibilities for those classes thought of as "underpowered" (especially at blizzcon) to do well now/in the future. Keeping in mind the blizzcon representation is from what was thought about two weeks ago.In arena I keep detailed stats and my winrates are all in a pretty tight band of win rate %. To be specific they're all +/- 4% of 75% winrate.The basics of it is that I think arena is "close enough" and that there is no overpowered or underpowered class. In constructed there might be some classes that are overrated only because other classes are underrated. the game's young, lots of development is happening, so I keep a really open "anything is possible" answer.yeacrap.*thirty seconds pass*flame imp warlock*twenty seconds more pass*maybe a certain murloc is better.Well, when you're going 2nd you'll be able to turn 1 double flame imp turn 2 double flame imp turn 3 tap impWhen you're 1st you'll be able to t1 imp t2 imp imp t3 tap impIt's pretty strong I imagineThat seems fast and terrifying to me~ but I think I want to change my vote to murloc warleader. Though the murloc warleader deck gets destroyed by the flame imp deck. Probably some sort of 1 mana murloc. but anyways.Off the top of my head, shaman-mage. A control deck utilizing the better class cards from those along with your standard array of neutrals. Not so exciting in imagination but basically I want to run stormforged axe, hex, and fire elemental in every deck since I'm a control player, and I might not specifically want to play shaman.So basically take those 3 cards and make a control deck better.Legendary panda minion named "Trum Po". Card text is "You control the outcomes of all random effects that you control."hmm. ok.a 5 mana 3/7.Off the top of my head, it wouldn't be very good. You'd play it with cards which have random effects which are already "okay/good" to make them "good/great".Nope!Well, yesBut the psychology is too deep.I leave it as an exercise to the reader.. The classical build up to a late game and then have a super card which wrecks them and wins the game for you control style. I also acknowledge thatmay be a bit imbalanced at the moment.sylvanasyea., I guess=OI think I picked a bloodfen raptor over a chillwind yeti once. Because of curve. And that hurt but it was right. Generally the difficult arena picks are those where you pick a weaker card because of mana curve or you have three picks who you think are close in power level. Not much anecdote to give there for me. =PSounds about right.*silence for a minute*you think I won't get a yugioh refrence?!On a side note, this is my favorite yugioh clip with reference to hearthstone.um...the answer to that, though, is "no." =PThanks Hearthstone Illuminati for giving me cutting edge decks for Blizzcon. Thanks Razer for the partnership. I will rock their warm jacket for Blizzcon and use their super accurate mouse to play cards to victory. Thanks KFC for making a delicious product. Thanks Trump viewers at twitch.tv/trumpsc for being a terrific audience. yay ~While the WWE Universe is glad to see The Great Khali back in action, WWE.com can’t help but notice that there’s something missing these days when it comes to The Punjabi Giant. Known the world over for his unmatched size and strength, Khali is one of the most unique Superstars in WWE history. However, he seems to be lacking a certain je ne sais quoi, and WWE.com knows exactly what, or more accurately, who, that is — Ranjin Singh. ( PHOTOS)
Khali’s older brother and once inseparable mouthpiece, Singh was always there to accompany the giant to the ring and act as the enormous Superstar’s much-needed translator. Singh was in turn entertaining, annoying, supportive and loud and, really, everything a Superstar could hope for in a manager. So WWE.com thinks it’s time that Khali brings back Ranjin Singh!
Debuting at Khali’s side in summer 2007, Ranjin was not immediately well received by the WWE Universe. But like a fine wine, Singh only got better with time and soon enough his introductory phrase, "The Great Khali says... " began to incite cheers rather than boos from the WWE Universe.
Despite being around for a relatively short period of time, Singh had his share of classic moments. He memorably arm wrestled (and lost to) Hornswoggle on SmackDown, was kidnapped and held hostage by The Big Red Monster Kane and he organized what was, according to Singh, "The Biggest Celebration in the History of the World" after Khali defeated Kane and Batista at The Great American Bash 2007 to become the World Heavyweight Champion.
Perhaps Singh’s most-loved contribution to Khali's career, however, was his narration in the wildly popular "Khali Kiss Cam." When that familiar, soulful music filled the arena, fans knew exactly what was coming. A camera would sweep through the WWE Universe and zero in on one lucky lady who would be invited inside the ring. Once there, it was time to pucker up for The Punjabi Playboy, who, as Singh reminded the WWE Universe on a weekly basis, was adored by women all over the world.
The "Khali Kiss Cam" became a beloved WWE tradition, eventually spawning special shows such as "The Music City Edition" in Nashville, where Khali and Singh donned cowboy hats, and a Halloween special that saw Khali make out with a genuine witch.
Another run with Singh by Khali’s side would help make a giant career even bigger. Ranjin’s skills behind the mic would once again provide the exclamation point to the explosive force that is the massive Superstar, and WWE.com thinks Khali could use a "driver" on The Road to WrestleMania.
Despite the high entertainment value of Khali’s relationship with his brother, all things must pass. On the May 27, 2011 episode of SmackDown, Jinder Mahal came between the brothers and drove a seemingly irrevocable spike in their relationship.
While that split also marked the end of Singh’s tenure in WWE, the time seems right for him to return. Great managers are hard to come by, and Ranjin’s unique skill set could certainly help Khali if the brothers decide to reunite.
So, WWE.com says... Bring back Ranjin Singh!In the strange circle of life, it all comes back to Haiti.
When Bill Clinton married Hillary Rodham in 1975, a friend gave them a trip to Haiti. Since that honeymoon vacation, the Caribbean island nation has held a life-long allure for the couple, a place they found at once desperate and enchanting, pulling at their emotions throughout his presidency and in her maiden year as secretary of state.
With the world's attention now trained on the devastated Haitian capital, rebuilding the country will be a central part of Bill and Hillary Clinton's lives going forward. And for the 42nd president, the catastrophe offers the opportunity to fulfill whatever unrealized ambitions he has for the long-suffering nation.
"This is a personal thing for us," Bill Clinton said in a interview Thursday. He said he and his wife have "always felt a special responsibility" for Haiti and its 9 million people. "She has the same memories I do. She has the same concerns I do. We love the place."
On that first trip in December 1975, Clinton said he and his wife watched as a wreath was placed at the national monument to celebrate Haitian Independence Day. They toured the old hotel where the writer Ernest Hemingway once stayed and visited a voodoo high priest dressed in all white. They sat in a lonely pew of the Port-au-Prince National Cathedral, which lies in ruin following Tuesday's earthquake.
"We just became fascinated with the country," Bill Clinton said by telephone from his charitable foundation's office in New York. "We followed all its ups and downs."
The Clintons' enthrallment has lasted for more than 30 years. They decorated their homes with Haitian art. They flew back again and again. Hillary Clinton once said that theirs was a "Haiti-obsessed family." At a dinner in Rwanda with African leaders in 2008, Bill Clinton talked more about Haiti than Rwanda.
When the Clintons learned that sites in Port-au-Prince they had visited as tourists were destroyed in the earthquake and locals they had come to know were injured or unaccounted for, Bill Clinton said he was "personally emotionally affected." His wife, he said, became "physically sick."
The Clintons are at the center of the global relief effort. Bill Clinton is the U.N. special envoy to Haiti and, together with former president George W. Bush, is leading America's humanitarian and long-term recovery efforts in Haiti. Hillary Clinton is among the top officials responsible for the nation's work aiding Haiti and its paralyzed government, and plans to fly there Saturday. "The two agencies in the world that can run these things are the United States and the United Nations, and the Clintons sit atop this package," said former senator Tim Wirth, president of the U.N. Foundation.
Three months into her term last spring, Hillary Clinton addressed the Haiti Donors Conference in Washington, where she spoke of her family's "deep commitment to Haiti and the people of Haiti." She told of visiting the Haitian town of Pignon as first lady, meeting a country doctor who ran a health, women's literacy and micro-credit center to help his countrymen gain a foothold in the global economy.
"For some of us, Haiti is a neighbor and, for others of us, it is a place of historic and cultural ties," Clinton said. "But for all of us, it is now a test of resolve and commitment."
* * *Mark Skaife and Russell Ingall will join an all-star line-up of Bathurst legends for BMW’s factory assault on February’s 12 Hour.
The former touring car adversaries are set to pair up for the first time in SRM Team BMW’s second entry that will also feature Tony Longhurst.
The trio boasts a combined 10 wins in the Bathurst 1000 touring car event, including Skaife and Longhurst’s victory together in 2001.
In a deal put together by Longhurst, the BMW M6 GT3 will be backed by Castrol and Vodafone, marking a return to the sport for the telecommunications firm after a four-year absence.
Confirmation of the driver line-up follows BMW’s recent announcement that Steven Richards’ factory-backed team would run two cars in the GT3 enduro.
The full line-up for the lead car is yet to be announced, but will be spearheaded by four-time Bathurst 1000 winner Richards.
“It’s a very exciting project,” said Skaife, who has not raced at Bathurst since the 2011 Bathurst 1000, where he finished second in a Vodafone-backed Triple Eight Holden.
“It’s one of those things that came out of nowhere, really.
“Who would have thought I’d have a teammate like Russell Ingall at some stage? And to be re-joining Tony Longhurst after winning in 2001 is fantastic.”
Skaife and Ingall had a spirited rivalry in Supercars, which most famously included a clash at Eastern Creek in 2003 that resulted in heavy sanctions for both drivers.
While the duo frequently needle each other as colleagues on Fox Sports’ Supercars television coverage, both stress that they are serious about finding success in the 12 Hour.
“Make no mistake, we are taking this seriously,” said Ingall, who after retiring from full-time Supercars driving at the end of 2014 continues as an enduro driver with Nissan.
“We’re going there to try and win the race.
“I’m looking forward to getting to Bathurst and having a big swing at it.”
After a spell on the sidelines, Longhurst has ramped up his racing activities in recent months, including a Carrera Cup appearance at Bathurst last weekend.
Crashing out of the meeting in qualifying, Longhurst is planning for plenty of pre-event miles in the BMW in order to avoid a repeat scenario.
“For the next four months, we have to plan to be very comfortable in the car and make no mistakes,” said Longhurst, whose touring car career began in BMWs in the mid-1980s.
“Twelve hours around Mount Panorama is a huge ask, (but) we’ve got a trick team.
“We’re very, very fortunate to have Mark and Russell on board, and Steve and this team.
“We’ve got the cream of the crop. We’ve got the right people around us, no egos, it’s nice and calm.”
SRM Team BMW has run a single BMW M6 for Richards and Max Twigg during this year’s Australian GT and Endurance Championships.
The car has shown strong form on the open, flowing circuits but has struggled to match its more nimble rivals on the street layouts.
Although admitting that it will take time for the veterans to adapt to the GT3 machinery, Richards has high expectations for the trio at Bathurst.
“We’re very lucky that we’ve been able to put this group together, and that BMW Group Australia are so keen to be back in motorsport and take on this challenge,” he said.
“This is a very serious campaign. We have expectations of those guys running on the lead lap all day, and at the end of the day seeing where they pop up.
“With the right driver in the right car at the right time, it can make all the difference at the 12 Hour.”President of Blue Note Records, Bruce Lundvall, poses for a picture in his office in New York City on March 26, 2009.
Among his Grammy-winning signings: Norah Jones, Herbie Hancock and Bobby McFerrin.
Bruce Lundvall, the former CEO of Blue Note Records and a key figure in jazz music, has died. He was 79 years old.
Lundvall had been living in a senior assisted living center in New Jersey for complications related to his battle with Parkinson's, according to biographer Dan Ouellette, who wrote the book Bruce Lundvall: Playing by Ear, and tells Billboard that during a brief hospitalization, Lundvall underwent surgery but never regained consciousness. He passed on May 19.
Watch Soulful Singer Tess Henley Collab With Don Was in Exclusive In-Studio Video & Interview
Lundvall, a beloved figure in the industry, is credited with signing such Grammy Award winning musicians as Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Natalie Cole and Norah Jones, among many others.
Reads a statement from Blue Note issued on May 19:
Born in Englewood, New Jersey in 1935, Bruce was a lifelong jazz lover whose passion for the music was ignited by Clifford Brown, Charlie Parker & the other beboppers he heard as an underage teenager at clubs along West 52nd Street in New York City in the 1950s.
A self-described "failed saxophone player," Bruce took an entry level marketing job at Columbia Records in 1960 and over the following two decades rose to lead the North American division of the label, signing artists including Dexter Gordon, Herbie Hancock, Stan Getz, Wynton Marsalis & Willie Nelson. After launching the Elektra/Musician label in 1982, he received the offer of a lifetime in 1984 when EMI approached him about reviving Blue Note Records which had been dormant for several years. He jumped at the chance, partnering with producer Michael Cuscuna to bring back the label's earlier stars like Jimmy Smith, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson & Jackie McLean, and signing new artists including Dianne Reeves, Cassandra Wilson, Michel Petrucciani, John Scofield, Charlie Hunter and Medeski Martin & Wood.
Wayne Shorter on Miles Davis, Kanye West, & the Music of the Future
Under Bruce’s stewardship Blue Note established itself as the most-respected and longest-running jazz label in the world. He presided over a prosperous nearly-30-year period of the label's history, reaching commercial heights with artists including Bobby McFerrin, Us3, Norah Jones, Al Green and Amos Lee, while recording some of the most important jazz artists of our time including Joe Lovano, Greg Osby, Jason Moran, Robert Glasper, Ambrose Akinmusire, Don Pullen, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Terence Blanchard, Jacky Terrasson, and many others.
Indeed, Lundvall's leadership at the then-EMI-owned label brought a then unknown singer, Jones, to his office. Her debut album, Come Away With Me, would end up selling more than 11 million copies and win eight Grammy Awards.
Lundvall stepped down as president of Blue Note in 2010, eventually taking the title of Chairman Emeritus. Don Was was named president of the label in 2012. “Bruce was a one-of-a-kind, larger-than-life human being,” says Was. “His Joie de Vivre was equaled only by his love for music, impeccable taste and kind heart. He will be sorely missed by all of us who loved and admired him but his spirit will live forever in the music of Blue Note Records.”
Recording Academy president Neil Portnow commented: "Bruce Lundvall discovered, signed, promoted and guided the careers of some of the most respected artists in the world. In addition to his keen ear and knack for recognizing superstar talent, Bruce was an extraordinarily kind and compassionate man, making him one of the music industry’s most notable and respected figures. Our music community has lost an influential, trailblazing and dynamic friend and his passion for music will forever live on. Our deepest condolences go out to his family, friends, and to all who have had the pleasure and good fortune of having known or worked with him."
Lundvall is survived by his wife Kay; three sons: Tor, Kurt and his wife Blythe, and Eric and his wife Johanna; as well as two grandchildren: Rayna and Kerstin. A private family service will be followed by a forthcoming public service, details will be announced shortly. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that a donation be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly listed Lundvall's age as 75. He was born on Sept. 13, 1935.Life History Theory posits a trade-off between mating and parenting effort, which may explain some of the observed variance in human fathers’ parenting behavior. The current study tested this hypothesis by measuring aspects of reproductive biology related to mating effort, as well as paternal nurturing behavior and the brain activity related to it. Both testosterone levels and testes volume were negatively correlated with paternal caregiving. In response to viewing pictures of one’s own child, brain activity in a key component of the reward and motivation system predicted paternal caregiving and was negatively related to testes volume. These results suggest that the biology of human males reflects a trade-off between mating effort and parenting effort.
Abstract
Despite the well-documented benefits afforded the children of invested fathers in modern Western societies, some fathers choose not to invest in their children. Why do some men make this choice? Life History Theory offers an explanation for variation in parental investment by positing a trade-off between mating and parenting effort, which may explain some of the observed variance in human fathers’ parenting behavior. We tested this hypothesis by measuring aspects of reproductive biology related to mating effort, as well as paternal nurturing behavior and the brain activity related to it. Both plasma testosterone levels and testes volume were independently inversely correlated with paternal caregiving. In response to viewing pictures of one’s own child, activity in the ventral tegmental area—a key component of the mesolimbic dopamine reward and motivation system—predicted paternal caregiving and was negatively related to testes volume. Our results suggest that the biology of human males reflects a trade-off between mating effort and parenting effort, as indexed by testicular size and nurturing-related brain function, respectively.A report says more than half of American companies are having trouble finding enough skilled workers to hire, especially in the manufacturing industry. - Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
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Kai Ryssdal: OK, wrap your head around this one if you can. A couple of weeks ago the OECD -- that's the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- issued a report that said more than half of American companies are having trouble finding enough skilled workers to hire. That's with 8.2 percent unemployment. We're doing worse than Germany, China, England and Canada.
And get this: the skills gap -- as it's known -- has actually grown in the past five years, in spite of more people looking for work and ever-more Americans walking around with college degrees and trade school certificates.
What gives? Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman reports.
Mitchell Hartman: Where you hear about the skills gap most is in high-end manufacturing.
Darlene Miller: This is one of our CNC multi-axis lathes.
The kind of factory where the floors are squeaky-clean and the machines are run by computer.
Miller: We have job openings. The people are not trained for the jobs that are open today.
That’s Darlene Miller, who runs Permac Industries. It’s an aerospace and medical-device manufacturer outside Minneapolis.
In Reading, Pa., Elaine McDevitt’s Rose Corporation is about the same size -- 50 employees. They make precision machine parts.
Elaine McDevitt: Ten years ago, it was a lot easier to find welders with a lot of skill. Not just a welder that said he was a welder, but welders that could do the type of welding we need. People are coming out of school not with the math skills that they used to.
Gardner Carrick at the Manufacturing Institute has the numbers on this for 2011.
Gardner Carrick: Over 80 percent of manufacturers were having a moderate or serious shortage of skilled production workers. Over 600,000 jobs were open in manufacturing because companies were unable to find qualified applicants.
Really? With so many Americans looking for work? Many of them middle-aged -- presumably they got a decent education back when such a thing was possible.
Peter Cappelli: I think a lot of employers are just being irrational about this.
Management professor Peter Cappelli at the Wharton School is what I call the ‘big skeptic’ on the so-called ‘skills gap.’
Cappelli: If employers really are willing to leave a position open for months and months while they keep searching, rather than spend a week or so training somebody, or, just give them a week or so of ramp-up time, they’re doing something wrong.
Basically, Cappelli thinks employers are just being cheap. He says this is something they learned from the downsizing of the 1980s. It was so easy to snap up laid-off workers somebody else had already trained. So then companies downsized their own training programs to save money.
Meanwhile, they’ve steadily raised the bar on job applicants -- demanding ever-more credentials and work experience -- then complain they can’t find good help.
Cappelli: This is sort of like saying, 'My pants don't fit anymore. The problem, I believe, is that the fabric is shrinking.' Carrick: It's a clever analogy, but I think that in some regards, it misses the point.
Again, Gardner Carrick of the Manufacturing Institute.
Carrick: Nobody expects a hospital to take someone just out of high school or just out of college and train them to be a nurse or a doctor. Why is it that manufacturing are the ones that are expected to do all the training of their workers on their own?
It should be easy enough to check whether the amount of time and money companies spend training their workers has fallen. Except, no one tracks this comprehensively.
The best estimate comes from the American Society for Training and Development. It finds spending-per-employee has been essentially flat for a decade, even as the skills required by new technology in the workplace have gone up.
So let's go back to the employers we started with, the ones with job openings they can't fill for skilled workers they can't find. Darlene Miller at Permac Industries says she's committed to training. But new hires need machinist experience and advanced math, first.
Miller: We need people who can come in and be value-added the day they start.
And she's guilty of the sin Peter Cappelli talked about: holding out. She searched two years for a machinist to run a new shift at the plant -- she says it was worth the wait to avoid costly mistakes.
Elaine McDevitt in Reading, Pa., wishes she could do more to train people up.
McDevitt: Now, the marketplace is so competitive, the margins are just so tight. So maybe when we say we can’t find experienced people, it’s because we don’t have the monetary resources to put into training from scratch like we used to.
And which employees do companies provide with the most skills-enhancement? According to the training organization’s data, it’s not production workers, or customer service reps or new employees. It’s supervisors, managers and executives.
I’m Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
“I think the best compliment I can give is not to say how much your programs have taught me (a ton), but how much Marketplace has motivated me to go out and teach myself.” – Michael in Arlington, VA As a nonprofit news organization, what matters to us is the same thing that matters to you: being a source for trustworthy, independent news that makes people smarter about business and the economy. So if Marketplace has helped you understand the economy better, make more informed financial decisions or just encouraged you to think differently, we’re asking you to give a little something back. Become a Marketplace Investor today – in whatever amount is right for you – and keep public service journalism strong. We’re grateful for your support. BEFORE YOU GOPlease support us by disabling your ad blocker on our site.
Penn graduate students move closer to unionizing with GET-UP group
Penn spokesperson Stephen MacCarthy said in an email, "As a matter of practice we don't comment on individual rankings, all of which use slightly different metrics." Credit: Julio Sosa
A group of Penn graduate students made their unionization movement public on Thursday night, with an online statement.
The group is called GET-
|
Chicago.
Since last New Year’s Day, more than 700 people have been murdered and more than 4,000 people shot. The death toll is so high that it’s driving up the murder rate for America’s biggest cities.
This week on 60 Minutes, correspondent Bill Whitaker and a team of producers — Guy Campanile, Andy Bast, and Michael Radutzky — tell the story of that violence. The situation on the city’s South Side is so dangerous that some cops advised Campanile to wear a bulletproof vest when filming at night.
He refused.
“It bothered me that I had to wear body armor in an American city,” Campanile tells 60 Minutes Overtime’s Ann Silvio in the video above. “We’re not talking about a third-world country. We’re not talking about some war zone in the Middle East. We’re talking about Chicago, Illinois.”
Fifty-nine gangs are at war over territory and drugs in Chicago’s west and south sides. Makeshift memorials of balloons and teddy bears mark the spots where residents, often children, were caught in the crossfire.
The violence is so pervasive that Father Michael Pfleger, a priest with the largest Catholic congregation on the South Side, isn’t waiting for a savior — he’s taking it upon himself to find murderers by offering rewards for information leading to an arrest.
“When a child is shot and killed in this city—in the South Side in particular—and there’s no idea of who may have done it, I put a $5,000 bounty on the head,” Pfleger tells Whitaker. “We’ve given out about 24 rewards over the last 10 years. I have 12 out right now.”
60 Minutes producer Guy Campanile talks with Fr. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Church on the South Side CBS News
Correspondent Bill Whitaker describes Fr. Pfleger as “a force of nature.” He is the pastor of St. Sabina Church, where he has served the community as a spiritual guide — and activist — for 41 years. But the violence in the last year is remarkable, even by South Side standards.
“I’ve never seen there to be a combination of anger, distrust, and a feeling like communities have been abandoned,” Pfleger tells Whitaker on the broadcast.
Flora White feels that abandonment.
“They forget this part of Chicago,” she says. “The part of Chicago where you can’t go to a store. The part of Chicago where you can’t get out of your car and say ‘hi’ to an old friend. The part of Chicago that, if you’re walking down the streets taking your kids to school, and you get gunned down.”
In July, White’s son, Jonathan Mills, was on his way to practice with a former basketball coach when he was shot dead. Investigators say he had stopped to talk to friends outside a corner store, when he was killed by a gang member angry the men were on his turf.
As White told her story to Whitaker at the site of her son’s shooting, the 60 Minutes crew observed drug deals taking place a few yards away in broad daylight. During hours of filming there, the producers never saw any police presence in the area.
Business is good for companies that deal with murder. This man cleans up blood from gunshot sites CBS News
Data that 60 Minutes obtained from inside the police department reveals statistics that may help explain why. As killings rose over the last year, police activity fell. In August 2015, police stopped and questioned 49,257 people. A year later, that number was down 80%. Arrests had fallen by a third.
The crisis inside Chicago’s police department began in 2014 with the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Police had claimed he was lunging toward an officer with a knife, but dashboard video shows that he was moving away when a white police officer shot him 16 times. When a judge finally ordered the video released a year later, many people in the community were outraged.
Within six weeks of the shooting scandal, investigative stops fell by nearly 35,000 as violence surged.
During one reporting trip to Chicago, 60 Minutes associate producer Andy Bast found a man whose business is cleaning up blood from gunshot sites, including the backseat of resident Ashake Banks’ car. Banks was attending a prayer vigil for a 14-year-old who had been shot, when a local drug dealer showed up and opened fire, hitting an 8-year-old girl. Banks told 60 Minutes she picked up the girl, laid her in the backseat, and drove her to the hospital.
Ashake Banks drove an 8-year-old girl to the hospital this summer when she was shot attending a prayer vigil for a 14-year-old. Banks’ daughter, Heaven, was shot and killed in 2012. CBS News
That’s because Banks knew the risk of waiting for an ambulance. When her own daughter, Heaven, was shot a few years ago, she died in Banks’ arms while waiting for help to arrive.
Listening to her story, producer Andy Bast was struck by how violence had repeatedly come to Banks’ doorstep.
“I stepped back and I said, this woman has had three shooting victims directly connected to her life, and they were all children,” Bast says. “How can that pass as normal?”
The video above was produced by Ann Silvio and Lisa Orlando. It was edited by Lisa Orlando.
Photo of Heaven Sutton courtesy of Ashake BanksA MAN who agreed to store a Glock pistol to help pay off a drug debt to a criminal gang watched the hit RTE crime series Love/Hate to learn how to strip and clean the gun, Limerick Circuit Court has heard.
A MAN who agreed to store a Glock pistol to help pay off a drug debt to a criminal gang watched the hit RTE crime series Love/Hate to learn how to strip and clean the gun, Limerick Circuit Court has heard.
Sammy O’Flaherty, 39, pleaded guilty to possession of the gun and to 16 rounds of ammunition at his flat on Henry Street on October 27, 2012.
He further pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis and cocaine for sale and supply on the same date.
His brother Peter O’Flaherty, 35, of College Avenue, Moyross, pleaded guilty to the same weapons charges although it was accepted by the prosecution that his role was much the lesser and he was acting out of “a misguided sense of loyalty” to his older brother.
Det Garda David Baynham was monitoring Sammy O’Flaherty’s address for suspected drug activity when the accused and another man stepped out to go to the off-licence.
Gardai had intercepted Mr O’Flaherty with €25 worth of cannabis on his person and then obtained a warrant to search his flat.
Peter O’Flaherty and an unnamed fourth man were in the flat when gardai arrived. Cocaine and cannabis were on the coffee table in front of the two men, who were sitting on the couch watching a laptop. Beside the laptop was a Love/Hate boxset.
Gardai had then found the Glock pistol in a drawer under the TV.
In his Garda interview, Sammy O’Flaherty had admitted watching Love/Hate and videos online to learn how to assemble, strip and clean the gun.
“There is an opening sequence (in Love/Hate) where a Glock firearm is stripped,” Det Garda Baynham told the court “and that extract was on the laptop when we entered the property”.
Peter O’Flaherty, who was in the FCA for 14 years, also admitted handling the gun on one occasion but there was also evidence that he had urged his brother to “get rid of it as it was not safe to have in the house”.
Mark Nicholas BL, for Sammy O’Flaherty, told Judge Carroll Moran that watching a mainstream TV show in order to learn how to handle a gun was hardly the mark of an experienced gunman.
The court heard Sammy O’Flaherty was being used by sinister elements to store the gun for two weeks for which he would have €500 taken off his drug debt.
Sentencing was adjourned to November 24.While DC Entertainment is just beginning their expansion into standalone live-action films featuring the most popular superheroes from DC Comics, the DC Universe Original Movies from Warner Bros. Animation are have been bringing some of the biggest comic book storylines to life for the past decade. Soon fans will see a Victorian spin on The Dark Knight in Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, and now we have word of Batman getting an anime makeover in another animated feature.
Batman Ninja is a new direct-to-video animated movie that will reimagine Batman as a ninja, complete with anime style animation. Sweetening the deal is the fact that Afro Samurai creator Takashi Okazaki is working on the Batman anime, which will have a panel at New York Comic-Con next weekend revealing more about the Batman Ninja anime.
ComicBook.com found out about Batman Ninja and has this official description of the NYCC panel:
“Warner Bros. Japan and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment team for an eye-popping addition to the Batman animated legacy with Batman Ninja, a spectacular, all-new anime film coming in 2018. Be among the first to witness the premiere of colorful footage from this imaginative take on Batman and many of his connected characters. Panelists will include director Jumpei Mizusaki, character designer Takashi Okazaki, screenwriter Kazuki Nakashima, English-language screenwriters Leo Chu & Eric Garcia and some potential special guests.”
As we said, Takashi Okazaki is best known for creating the badass Afro Samurai. Meanwhile, director Junpei Mizusaki is best known for his work on the anime adaptation of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and writer Kazuki Nakashima has worked on the likes of Kamen Rider Fourze and Kill La Kill. That should satisfy anime fans who likely don’t want this to be a weak imitation of the popular animation style from Japan.
As for who those special guests are, it will likely be the voice actors bringing Batman and other DC Comics characters to life, but that’s just speculation on our part. Since previous animated DC movies have used voice talent from the the DC Comics animated TV shows, it wouldn’t be surprising if some of those talents were involved in this project, but we’ll have to wait until next weekend to find out more.
The previously released Batman: Gotham Knight featured a segment called “Field Test” that had a style that was as close to anime as The Dark Knight has come (seen up top), but Batman Ninja will be a feature length anime arriving sometime in 2018. Hopefully the release date will be announced at NYCC.
As soon as we learn more about Batman Ninja, we’ll let you know.I worked at Disneyland and at the Disneyland Hotel during high school and college. While there were a lot of rules, there was also a spirit of fun there. Smiling wasn't mandatory, but encouraged. Your job is to serve the guests and keep them happy. Even though you are working with a lot of people, most of them are enjoying themselves and this can be contagious. Likewise, when the employees have a good attitude it helps the guests enjoy their stay. One of my trainers said that for some people, this is something they only get to do once in a lifetime. They save for years to be able to come here. You have the ability to be the person that made their trip worth every penny. Even though it could be hard work, I often drove home with a smile.
I worked at the Disneyland Resort for a couple of years starting in 2002. In a company as large as Disney and a place as complex as Disneyland there are a variety of job opportunities beyond what you might typically consider. For example, I worked in I.T. on databases, and my work was all "backstage" in an office building. Obviously, that will be a different working environment and experience from a cast member working "on stage" as a costumed character, the host for a ride, or a salesperson in a store. But some experiences are shared; all cast members have to go through the same core training at Disney University that helps them understand Disney's heritage and values, and even "backstage" staff (like myself) had to learn Disney's standards of service and how to behave "on stage," and whenever I was on stage, I had to live up to the same standards as any other on stage cast member.
Understanding the "on stage" aspect of the resorts is a key to understanding the experience of working at one of the Disney resorts. The resorts are a show, like a giant theatrical production, and everyone is a cast member. When you are "on stage," you're expected to keep up the appearance of the show, which includes having a good attitude, a good appearance, and a good demeanor. The comparison to being an actor in a theatrical production is probably the best comparison I can make. When you detract from the show (except for cases of safety and service), you diminish the experience for the guests, you tarnish the "magic" a little, just as an actor destroys the illusion of a production when they step out of character.
Being able to do that, to stay in character, day after day requires commitment to the show. I would say that the employees I have known who worked the longest at one of the resorts and got the most out of the experience were people who lived and breathed Disney. You will probably have a good experience and definitely learn a lot about customer service if you work at Disney even if you aren't that "into" Disney, but you'll get the most out of it and turn it into a lifelong career if you really capture the vision of what Disney stands for and truly "value the magic."New Information Surfaces on ‘World’s Best Lake Monster Photo,’ Raising Questions
The famous “Mansi photo” of the Lake Champlain monster has been held up for decades as strong proof for cryptozoology—the so-called best evidence for the existence of a hidden animal. Yet, newly uncovered documents reveal troubling questions about the photo and the circumstances surrounding it.
Introduction
On Tuesday afternoon, July 5, 1977, Sandra Mansi of Bristol, Connecticut, knelt on the shores of Lake Champlain somewhere between St. Albans, Vermont, and the Canadian border, and snapped what is widely touted as the best lake monster photograph ever taken. In Lake Monster Mysteries: Exploring the World’s Most Elusive Creatures, their scholarly study of lake monster traditions, Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell observe that “the Mansi photo stands alone as the most credible and important photographic evidence of the existence of lake monsters” because its authenticity “is held in such high regard by so many writers and researchers” (Radford and Nickell 2006, 43). It has become the Holy Grail of Lake Monsterdom, and a steady stream of journalists has made the pilgrimage to Vermont to hear Sandra Mansi recount the tale of what she reported seeing that day.
Two other famous lake monster photographs that once held similar positions have not stood the test of time. On April 19, 1934, British surgeon Robert Wilson reportedly captured an image of the Loch Ness Monster. Nicknamed “the Surgeon’s photo,” the picture fell into disrepute in 1994 when shortly before his death, Christian Spurling reportedly confessed his involvement in the hoax by fitting a toy submarine with a sea serpent’s head and neck fashioned from wood putty in an effort to fool the Daily Mail (Radford and Nickell 2006). After snapping his famous photo, Wilson himself later claimed that he did not believe in Nessie, and his youngest son openly admitted that the photo was a fraud (Binns 1984, 96–97). Ironically, prior to its exposure, several scientists had concluded that there were strong similarities between Wilson’s image and the Mansi photo, suggesting that “Champ” and “Nessie” may be similar species. Richard J. Greenwell, an optical science professor at the University of Arizona, remarked in 1981 that the ratio between the head and neck “was very much the same in both animals,” (Bartholomew 1981) and naturalist Charles Johnson concurred (Johnson 1980, 1).
During the 1970s, Eric Frank Searle snapped a series of well-publicized photos of Nessie. The pictures created a media buzz, exciting lake monster enthusiasts and connoisseurs of the unexplained, and elevated the native of Middlesex, England, to celebrity status. His photos were later exposed as fakes by future BBC journalist Nicholas Witchell in his 1975 book The Loch Ness Story. Searle died in Lancashire, England, in 2005 after living the rest of his life in obscurity (Tullis 2005).
The Power of a Photo
This year will mark the thirty-second anniversary of the Mansi photo’s public release in the New York Times on June 30, 1981, which triggered a short-lived media feeding frenzy, allowing Champ to bask in the world media spotlight (Wilfred 1981). While the hoopla soon died down, the Mansi photo remains a staple of photographic evidence in numerous books on cryptozoology, a relatively new field devoted to the scientific study of “hidden animals” that was founded in 1975 by Belgian zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans.
The photo’s stature cannot be underestimated and was credited, in part, with helping to build the political momentum necessary for an international Champ Conference at Shelburne, Vermont, on August 29, 1981. Among the participants who were attracted to the meeting: Roy Mackal, professor of biology at the University of Chicago, and Roy Zug, a zoologist from the Smithsonian Institution. Champ’s public profile was further enhanced the next year by the passage of two bills protecting it from harm by both the New York and Vermont State legislatures. These resolutions were useless as practical documents but essentially served as free publicity. Radford and Nickell (2006, 45) attribute publicity surrounding the photo for the Champ renaissance of the early 1980s and note that when Radford visited the Champ sighting board in Port Henry, New York, in 2004, nearly half of the 132 sightings were dated 1981 or ’82. They credit the Mansi photo with singlehandedly triggering a bandwagon effect “whereby widely publicized sightings lead to other reports independent of an actual creature’s presence or absence.”
New Questions
Soon after the photo’s existence first came to light in the fall of 1979, the first red flags appeared. The original photo was sent to Philip Reines, a nautical expert at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, with the hope that he could authenticate it. Reines soon learned that the two most crucial elements in verifying the photo were missing. Sandra Mansi said that she had thrown away the negative, and that she could not locate where she snapped the photo. Images purportedly taken of monsters are notoriously blurry and vague; here was a spectacular image in full color, but without the negative or location it was impossible to determine with any degree of certainty what was in the photo. Possessing the negative would allow the image to be magnified to see greater detail, while knowing the location could reveal important clues such as the object’s size and distance, and whether the photo was even taken on Lake Champlain. When Reines could not authenticate the photo, Sandra and Anthony Mansi were soon insisting through their lawyer that the photo be returned, which he reluctantly did.
In researching my new book The Untold Story of Champ, I uncovered two important pieces of information that had previously been withheld from the public that cast doubt over the authenticity of the photo. This information was known to Joe Zarzynski when he wrote his book Champ: Beyond the Legend (1984), yet despite presenting a detailed analysis of the Mansi photo in it and affirming its likely authenticity, this information was left out.
The Missing Negative
Sandra Mansi has always maintained publicly that she threw away the negative. This would have been a very unusual practice for the period because during the era of pre-digital cameras, most people kept their negatives in case they needed duplicates or the original was destroyed. This is especially baffling given that she took a picture of what she believed to be a prehistoric creature in the lake, arguably one of the most important zoological photographs of the twentieth century. But kept hidden from the public was a letter written in August 1980 by Vermont’s official naturalist Charles Johnson who expressed concern after talking to the Mansis in person. He wrote that there “was a discrepancy over what happened to the negative: Mrs. Mansi said they threw it away, something they did with all the negatives of pictures they took; Mr. Mansi, talking to me alone, said they buried it (or burned it...) since their experience had been somewhat fearful” (Johnson 1980, 1).
Besides contradicting Sandra Mansi’s account, if the picture was so distressing as to necessitate burning or burying the negative, why even keep the photo pinned on a bulletin board in the kitchen, where it would likely be seen on a daily basis? In 1981, two journalists interviewed Sandra Mansi separately and were told the same story: that after the image came back from Fotomat, it was either tacked or pinned to the kitchen bulletin board (Kermani 1981; Smith 1981). That same year Sandra Mansi told journalist Jeff Wright that in the two and a half years before they showed the photo to Reines: “Our children would bring their friends in and show them” the photo (Wright 1981, 5). Yet in 1992, when interviewed by John Lenger from the Glens Falls, New York, Post-Star, Sandra Mansi said that as soon as it came back from developing, she “hid the photo in an album behind another photo. And it stayed there for years” (Lenger 1992). In 2003, she told Ben Radford a similar story: That the photo had been hidden in an album (Radford and Nickell, 2006, 45).
So, did Sandra Mansi hide the photo in an album and keep it a family secret for years, or was it tacked to the kitchen bulletin board where her kids were showing it off to their friends? The original photo looks quite different from the image that the public sees; it is sharper and has scratch marks and is yellowing around the edges. Several years ago Ben Radford flew to Westport, Connecticut, and met with Mansi’s attorney where he was allowed to closely examine the original. While Sandra Mansi’s recollection of these events may have faded or changed with time, contrary to popular belief her story is certainly not consistent over time.
The Missing Location
Joe Zarzynski, who knew the Mansis intimately, was not overly concerned—at least publicly—over their inability to find the location of their famous photo just a few years after they had taken it. He later wrote: “They were a little bit disoriented. But to their credit, things had changed. What was once a field was now condos and houses. Dirt roads had been paved... and there’d been a general facelift” (Citro and Christensen 1994, 108). It is a stretch of the imagination to contend that remote St. Albans, Vermont, had changed dramatically between 1977 and 1980, or that this had any bearing on the inability of the couple to locate the spot. While the lake has 587 miles of shoreline, the Mansis said they took the photo somewhere between St. Albans and the Canadian border—a length of only twenty miles. There is only so much shoreline and so many back roads in that relatively small area. Reines and Zarzynski scoured the shoreline by boat without success. It is difficult to imagine that just two and a half years later the spot could not be located, given that four people were involved. It was not as if Sandy was unfamiliar with the region, having spent part of her early life in the area; her parents lived in Brattleboro and her relatives had a camp near St. Albans. One would think that at least one of the four would be able to recall a nearby landmark—a distinct house, mountain, or sign that would allow them to narrow their search area. Her two children, Heidi-Jo and Larry, were aged eleven and twelve respectively. When they drove off, she said they got the kids something to eat. If they could recall where and how long it took to drive there, one would think they could further reduce the search area. Even with the publicity surrounding the publication of the photo in the New York Times, no one has stepped forward to say they could recognize the stretch of shoreline where the picture was supposedly snapped.
In addition to these red flags, Zarzynski withheld another key piece of information from public scrutiny. Despite knowing the importance of finding the location as a means to verify their story, Sandra and Anthony Mansi were remarkably lax in finding it. During early July 1980, at the prompting of Zarzynski, the Mansis spent ten days vacationing in the region and were to spend part of the time trying to identify the site. It was one of the reasons for their trip. Finally, here was an opportunity to validate their photo. Then on July 17, a crestfallen Zarzynski sent Reines a remarkable letter: “For your knowledge... the Mansis did not look for the site. They waited until the last couple of days of their vacation to look and according to them bad weather set in. I guess they could not leave the island.... I think it was very poor planning on their part.” Was this really poor planning or did the Mansis know something they weren’t telling? During the final three days of their trip, local weather records reveal that the conditions were fine and zero precipitation fell.
Revisionist Cryptozoology
What should we make of these new revelations? While the photo may be genuine—that is, of some real unknown object in the lake, whether floating log, lake monster, or something else—and the Mansis truthful, if this is the “best” lake monster photo ever taken, it leaves much to be desired. As for Joe Zarzynski, he can be best described as having been blinded by his desire to believe in Champ to the point where, when he wrote his “definitive” history on the creature, Champ: Beyond the Legend (1984), he edited it to reflect what he hoped it would be rather than the reality. His actions bring to mind the adage: “Why let the facts get in the way of a good story.” In this regard he is in good company, for as one glances at an outline of the lake, its glacial symmetry is reminiscent of a Rorschach inkblot test that psychiatrists sometimes use to help their patients describe what they are thinking. As residents and tourists peer onto the vast lake, they typically see what they want to see. If, as most scientists assert, Champ is a creation of the human mind, we may do well to heed the words of Walter Lippmann: “For it is clear enough that under certain conditions men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities, and that in many cases they help to create the very fictions to which they respond” (Lippmann [1922] 2007, 19).
Postscript
In the course of composing this article, Ben Radford provided an audio interview that he and Joe Nickell conducted with Sandra Mansi in 2002. In it she appears to let slip that she knows the location of the sighting but does not want it revealed.
Ben Radford: “I know that one of the questions that always comes up [about the photo] was where exactly it was [taken], but there’s no answer. So, you’ve looked?” Sandra Mansi (shaking her head): “I have no clue...” Joe Nickell: “We know it was somewhere near—” Sandra Mansi: “I know it’s up... [pause] Well, I don’t want it—I don’t want it to get out where it was... because of the idiots, you know?... I knew once it got out, once the photograph got out there.... I was so darn afraid that some idiot with a gun would go out there and shoot at something in the lake...”
For over three decades, in every published interview, Sandra Mansi has steadfastly maintained that she does not know the location—with this one exception where she appears to let her guard down. Is this yet one more example where she has changed her story? If she feared that harm may come to what she believed to be Champ, why not say so and refuse to give out the location on moral grounds, instead of engaging in an elaborate deception, knowing that researchers were spending valuable time and resources conducting searches for the spot, some of which even included the Mansis on them. If she was genuinely concerned for the welfare of Champ, why publicly release the photo in the first place—for money no less—knowing its appearance would draw attention to the lake? In 1979, she even signed a pact with a coworker to serve as a publicity agent for the photo. The man—Roy Kappeler—said that Sandra was obsessed with profiting from the photo, noting: “She would come to work and say things like, ‘Are you ready to get rich kid?’” (Koepper, 1981, 1).
Sandra Mansi could help to resolve many of the questions surrounding the photo if she were to reveal its location, which could be given discretely to a select group of researchers. According to Ben Radford, finding the exact spot where the photo was taken would still reap enormous benefits and help to remove the cloud of suspicion that hangs over the photo, including whether it was even taken on Lake Champlain. More precise data could be gained on the object’s size, distance, how far out of the water it was, and so on, and if there are sandbars nearby.The field experiments conducted by Radford and Nickell (2006) estimate that the object in the photo is some seven feet long, with the ‘neck’ roughly three feet above the waterline, making a floating log or tree stump a likely candidate. Here is an opportunity to assess these estimates.
At first glance, when one hears the story of Sandra Mansi, it appears to be a straightforward event involving a vacationer snapping a photo of something extraordinary. But like so many accounts in cryptozoology, when one delves below the surface and wades through the facts, the saga grows more convoluted with time. Even if Champ is someday proven to exist, the human saga surrounding it is likely to tell us more about us as a species than about a possible new species in the lake.
References
Bartholomew, Paul. 1981. Audio recording of a seminar presentation by Richard Greenwell at the “Does Champ Exist?” conference in Shelburne, Vermont, August 29.
Binns, Ronald. 1984. The Loch Ness Mystery Solved. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books.
Citro, Joseph A., and Bonnie Christensen. 1994. Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls & Unsolved Mysteries. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Johnson, Charles W. 1980. Letter to Joe Zarzynski dated August 22.
Kermani, Ronald. 1981. In search of Champ. Times-Union (Albany, NY), July 5, 1, A8.
Koepper, Ken. 1981. Champ: About the money and a monster. The Day (New London, Connecticut), October 18, 1, 14.
Lenger, John. 1992. Bright lights, big mystery: TV’s ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ to retell Champ legend. The Post-Star (Glens Falls, NY), July 5, C1 and C8.
Lippmann, Walter. (1922) 2007. Public Opinion. Minneapolis, MN: Filiquarian.
Radford, Benjamin, and Joe Nickell. 2006. Lake Monster Mysteries. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.
Smith, Hal. 1981. Myth or monster? Adirondack Life (November–December), 22–26, 44–45, 47.
Tullis, Andrew. 2005. Obituaries: Frank Searle, Loch Ness Monster hoaxer. The Independent (London), May 24.
Wilford, John Noble. 1981. Is it Lake Champlain’s monster? The New York Times, June 30.
Wright, Jeff. 1981. Photo of ‘creature’ means headaches for Mansi. Plattsburgh Press-Republican, September 2, p. 5.Share. Master Chief’s looking awfully bad ass. Master Chief’s looking awfully bad ass.
The wait for Halo 4 has been arduous for some. Xbox 360’s most significant exclusive in 2012 doesn’t come out until November 6th, leaving legions of Halo fans hungry for some new information.
Microsoft has obliged in an exceptionally clever way, e-mailing 32 separate pieces of the same image to ardent fans of the series in messages titled “Your Piece of the Halo 4 Puzzle.” The pieces were numbered X/32, allowing players to pool together their imagery on forums with all the applicable components of the puzzle.
Franchise Development Director Frank O’Connor posted on his Facebook the picture above along with “Our boxart illustration,” confirming its legitimacy.
Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.After Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth described herself as a “daughter of the Revolution” during the second of three debates in the Illinois U.S. Senate race, incumbent Republican Mark Kirk replied, “I forgot that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.” Duckworth, who served as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot and lost both legs fighting in the Iraq War, was born in Thailand to a Thai mother and an American father, who traces his roots back to before the Revolutionary War. Kirk, who unendorsed Donald Trump in June following his remarks about a Mexican-American judge, trails Duckworth by an average of 7 percentage points in the polls.
Following the debate, the Kirk campaign issued a statement, but not an apology. “Sen. Kirk has consistently called Rep. Duckworth a war hero and honors her family’s service to this country,” it read. “But that’s not what this debate was about. Rep. Duckworth lied about her legal troubles, was unable to defend her failures at the VA, and then falsely attacked Sen. Kirk over his record on supporting gay rights.”
Duckworth responded on Twitter with a photo of her family.
UPDATE—Friday, Oct. 28, 12:30 p.m. ET: Kirk apologized, tweeting, “Sincere apologies to an American hero, Tammy Duckworth, and gratitude for her family’s service.”On this day in 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower ends his presidential term by warning the nation about the increasing power of the military-industrial complex.
His remarks, issued during a televised farewell address to the American people, were particularly significant since Ike had famously served the nation as military commander of the Allied forces during WWII. Eisenhower urged his successors to strike a balance between a strong national defense and diplomacy in dealing with the Soviet Union. He did not suggest arms reduction and in fact acknowledged that the bomb was an effective deterrent to nuclear war. However, cognizant that America’s peacetime defense policy had changed drastically since his military career, Eisenhower expressed concerns about the growing influence of what he termed the military-industrial complex.
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Before and during the Second World War, American industries had successfully converted to defense production as the crisis demanded, but out of the war, what Eisenhower called a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions emerged. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience Eisenhower warned, [while] we recognize the imperative need for this development.we must not fail to comprehend its grave implicationswe must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence…The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. Eisenhower cautioned that the federal government’s collaboration with an alliance of military and industrial leaders, though necessary, was vulnerable to abuse of power. Ike then counseled American citizens to be vigilant in monitoring the military-industrial complex. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
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Ike also recommended restraint in consumer habits, particularly with regard to the environment. As we peer into society’s future, we–you and I, and our government–must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.The National Park Service is stepping up its effort to restore the historic names that fell victim to a trademark dispute at Yosemite, including the monikers of the famed Ahwahnee Hotel and Curry Village, by entering into mediation with the company that wants millions of dollars to surrender the titles.
Court documents indicate that federal officials intend to work privately with representatives of Yosemite’s former concessions operator, Delaware North of Buffalo, N.Y., to settle their disagreement over who owns the site names and what they’re worth. Paperwork filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on Thursday says a mediation schedule will be established by Aug. 4.
While neither the Park Service nor Delaware North would comment on what a potential agreement might look like, park officials have long said they want to bring back the names of the five places that the company registered as trademarks before losing its contract to run the park’s hotels and services in March.
With Delaware North demanding $44 million for the names, park officials took the precautionary step of coming up with new ones, at least until their legal battle over ownership concludes, a process that could take years.
The mediated settlement offers hope of a quick and kinder resolution. Mediation typically involves one or more people who meet with the parties, often separately, to find a compromise that ends their quarrel. The two sides are not bound to any agreement that’s reached, and any deal is subject to the court’s blessing.
“It’s an opportunity to find the middle ground,” said Mel Owen, a San Francisco attorney specializing in trademark law, who has worked as a mediator in intellectual property cases.
Owen said any mediated settlement between park officials and Delaware North is likely to involve some exchange of money, though a mediator will probably also stress the importance of the two
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them under. Most LGBTQ victims have even less recourse.
Of course, the whole pretext for the practice is the criminalization of homosexuality itself. In Kenya, activists are working to overturn the ban, often by engaging religious leaders as well as political ones. The Daily Beast’s Quorum: Global LGBT Voices project profiled one such activist last year. Until legalization takes place, however, the risk of state violence such as forced anal exams remains.
According to Ghoshal, Kenyan constitutional rulings can take anywhere from one month to several months, just as in the United States. We won’t know until then whether Kenya will bring the world one step closer to abolishing an antiquated pseudo-medical practice for good. But thanks to two brave petitioners and a group of dedicated activist lawyers, there’s a good chance that it will.RIO DE JANEIRO -- A Belgian woman who won a 2012 bronze medal has become sick, the first Olympic competitor to fall ill after sailing the polluted waters of Guanabara Bay.
Evi Van Acker reported feeling sick after Wednesday's races, the governing body World Sailing said. Her poor performances have put her at risk of missing out on a medal in the Laser Radial class.
Her coach told the Belgian VRT network that he believes Van Acker contracted a severe intestinal infection while training in Rio de Janeiro last month.
"Evi caught a bacteria in early July that causes dysentery," coach Wil Van Bladel said. "Doctors say this can seriously disrupt energy levels for three months. It became clear yesterday that she lacked energy during tough conditions. She could not use full force for a top condition.... The likelihood that she caught it here during contact with the water is very big."
The poor quality of Guanabara Bay was at the forefront of the buildup to the Olympics. An independent study by The Associated Press has shown high levels of viruses in the water as well as bacteria from human sewage.
Van Acker was evaluated by the chief medical officer and the Belgian medical team, World Sailing spokesman Darryl Seibel said. He added that this appears to be an isolated case and that Van Acker is the only sailor who has reported feeling ill in the opening days of the regatta.
Van Acker had a "serious gastrointestinal infection a few weeks ago," the Belgian Olympic Committee said in a statement. "She has not fully recovered. It makes it difficult for her to go through long periods of sustained effort." The committee said a physiologist is working with Van Acker leading up to the next races Friday "so she can get the most out of her energy reserves."
Evi Van Acker of Belgium became sick after competing on Guanabara Bay in the women's Laser Radial class. Clive Mason/Getty Images
Thursday was a day off for the Laser Radial fleet.
Olympic officials have insisted that sailing on the sprawling bay is safe, and sailing officials have said competitors have taken precautions. Even Brazilian sailors have said there's no danger -- at least for those who compete there regularly.
German sailor Erik Heil, however, was treated for several infections he said were caused by polluted water during a Rio test regatta a year ago. He sails in the 49er class in which the two-man crew is splashed the whole race. That class is also prone to capsizes. The 49er competition begins Friday.
Van Acker, a favorite to return to the podium in Rio, has had consistently weak performances. She was second and 12th on Monday, second and 29th on Tuesday, and then 16th and 15th in tough conditions on Wednesday. She's 10th overall with four races left before the medals race. Although that would get her into the medals race, she has 47 points, currently 26 points out of medals position.
As the Games approached, most sailors tried to deflect talk from the foul water to the competition.
"That's a shame," Denmark's Allan Norregaard said about Van Acker's illness. "I don't have much comment on that."
Norregaard had been outspoken about the pollution in Guanabara Bay, particularly the amount of trash in the water.
"It's a lot better now than it was," said Norregaard, who changed subjects and said the weather conditions on some courses are "just not suitable for the Games.... It's scandalous."
At a test event a year ago, sailors complained about the stench of sewage flowing into the harbor at the venue, the Marina da Gloria, just yards from where the boats are launched. That problem was fixed earlier this year when a new sewage system was installed to stop brown, untreated sludge from being poured into the small harbor.
Seibel said every morning that World Sailing's medical and technical officials evaluate the latest water quality testing data provided by the government to make certain conditions acceptable.
"The standard our team uses in assessing water quality is the World Health Organization standard for primary contact (even though sailing is classified as a secondary contact sport)," Seibel said in an email. "For every day of competition thus far, and in the lead-up to the games, the water quality has met this standard."
Britain's Giles Scott continued to lead the Finn class with finishes of 11th and first. American Caleb Paine of San Diego went 14-2 to jump into fourth, just two points out of the bronze medal, but was disqualified from the day's second race after a protest and dropped to 15th. In men's windsurfing, defending gold medalist Dorian van Rijsselberghe of the Netherlands had finishes of fourth, first and first to power into the lead over Great Britain's Nick Dempsey.Prostitution Narratives, Caroline Norma and Melinda Tankard Reist, eds.
Prostitution Narratives: Stories in Survival in the Sex Trade, edited by Caroline Norma and Melinda Tankard Reist. Melbourne, Australia: Spinifex, 2016. 238 pages.
4 stars
A powerful collection of stories written by women from various countries who survived their time in prostitution and are willing to talk about its violence, drug usage, and overall dehumanizing impact.
Australians Caroline Norma and Melinda Reist, a scholar and an activist, both have expertise about sexual violence. They know what prostitution looks like for those involved and have collected twenty stories and three articles to present their viewpoint and expose the seamy underside of the prostitution industry in developed nations.. Their purpose is to share stories that sharply contradict the rosy accounts of prostitution as ordinary work: stories spread by those who profit from it. In deliberate imitation of the American slave narratives, Norma and Reist believe that if the public faces the reality of prostitution, the practice can be ended. Reading their book, I see their point. I gained a troubling new awareness of the damage it does not only to the women who rent the use of their bodies, but also to the larger society in which prostitution is allowed to be practiced. I credit Prostitution Narratives for pushing me to think about prostitution differently.
Previously I had not realized the extent to which prostitution, like rape, is about violence. Women are used as objects, not simply for sexuality, but to absorb the physical abuse that angry men think they are entitled to use against them. Even if men do not hit or bite or choke, the female body is not meant to withstand penetration by a dozen or more men per night. I also had not considered the psychological cost of repeated sex with men who do not value women. As the stories repeatedly asserted, the way for woman to endure being a prostitute is to distance herself from what is happening to her body. Legal or illegal drugs may help her, but they take a toll on her, compounding the damage from sex itself. In addition, once caught up in prostitution it is very difficult to get out psychologically or practically.
Debates about prostitution and possible ways to end it allow all of us to distance ourselves into thinking about the practice as essentially harmless. Reading the stories of women who have lived through it changes that immediately. Even if we have no reliable statistics about the numbers of women who have been harmed, identifying with the victims gives us a seldom considered perspective and raises questions about why it is allowed even as an illegal, but tolerated practice.
After reading Prostitution Narratives, I began to consider the various ways in which prostitution is integral to how we as a society think. Those of us in “free” societies can be attracted to the libertarian view that men are free and entitled to do what they have the money to do. Men, perhaps, but not women. Prostitution exhibits the problem with that view. Nowhere else is entitlement of men over women taken to the extreme of his ability to buy time alone with a woman to abuse and harm her. Even boxing, proposed as a parallel example, is regulated to establish some measure of equality between the combatants.
Prostitution has long existed, of course, as a means for powerful men to exercise their dominance over those most powerless. Today the practice has been democratized, offering all men that privilege. Some prostitutes, like those working for the “DC Madam”, have created individual solutions to lessen the abuse through the wealth and visibility of the men who come to them. But as we know from other groups seeking paths out of oppression, success for a few does not guarantee survival of the whole group
Proponents of prostitution try to normalize its practices, emphasizing the happy prostitutes and describing it as “sex work.” They claim that to attack it is to deny women their “autonomy.” But, like much else in our capitalist world, being a prostitute is hardly a free choice. Proponents offer the hope that if prostitution were decriminalized the abuses, which they admit exist, could be regulated or negotiated away. As the book points out, in parts of Australia which have experimented with decriminalization, brothels are still brothels.
In their book Norma and Reist support the Nordic Model for dealing with prostitution. In it men who use prostitutes would be arrested and punished but the actual prostitutes would not. At least this would represent a move away from the idea that the women are to blame for “offering” themselves, and that they deserve what they get. But I am unsure that any legal measures would suffice, unless we as societies stop assuming that male domination is their birthright and women, some women at least, are disposable.
I didn’t mean to express the rage that Prostitution Narratives inspired in me rather than focusing on the book itself. This rage and my new thought about prostitution are perhaps the best evidence of the power of this book. I strong recommend it to all readers, whatever you think you understand about prostitution.Dear millennial, If you, like so many of your peers, are squirreling away hard-earned cash in hopes of one day making a down payment on a piece of real estate in this city you know what it feels like to live with false hope.
You have stared, mournful at your desk, at the insane listings showcased on Toronto Life ($1.15 million for a dog-friendly condo with valet parking, don't even get me started on the actually houses). You are no doubt aware that the struggle is real, with even properties only worth tearing down going way over-asking. Well, here's your daily wake-up call: Toronto's chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat says its time to lower your expectations. "Fancy countertops"? Not in your lifetime.
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Amid rising real estate prices, CBC host Matt Galloway has been asking an interesting question on Metro Morning this week: "Who are we building the city for?” After having Vass Bednar – a millennial and the associate director of cities for the Martin Prosperity Institute, who is less than optimistic about Toronto's future and affordable housing – on the show, on Friday morning, Galloway interviewed Keesmaat. “It’s hard for Torontonians to appreciate, but we are in fact relatively affordable on the global scale for a large city," said Keesmaat, who lives in a red-brick detached home near Yonge and Eglinton. She said cities are looking to appeal to millennials by boosting the number of amenities as part of condo developments. And, she said, the frustration that decision makers are catering to the concerns of boomers already invested in the market is valid. But, Galloway said, millennials still seem to feel owning a home remains unaffordable. That frustration is real, Keesmaat acknowledged. And then offered this:
“Part of it is about expectations. You know, buying a house and renting out two thirds of it and living in one third of it as a way of getting a foothold if you’re interested in ownership in the market. Historically that’s actually been a really good approach – getting into the market and renting out a portion of your condo. Renting out a room in your condo is a way of bringing your costs down. It means you live in less space. You know, you might need to buy a fixer-upper instead of maybe buying a place that has fancy countertops but I think there are innovative and creative ways to still get into our market.”
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Though it's not uncommon these days for new homeowners to immediately become landlords by renting out a level or two to put towards mortgage payments, Keesmaat's second suggestion for you millennials is to rent out a room in a condo – assuming they had enough money to put a down payment on a two-bedroom condo in the first place. In other words: Just get a roommate. One listener (an anonymous user posing as a raccoon) tweeted at the radio show's account calling Keesmaat "delusional." Another offered more constructive criticism: "Guest is ignoring the fact that (millennials) can't afford down payment to buy house to rent out, perpetuating myth of entitlement." For those of you currently renting with one, two or more roommates, the dream of homeownership may still include marathoning Grey's on Netflix while your perpetual roommate demands brunch plans that include a bucket of Gatorade. For others, that dream might not involve the expectation of "fancy countertops," but it may centre, at the very least, on a place to call your own. The woman in charge of building the city up, says even that may be too much to hope for. Sincerely, Your city hall correspondent (a fellow millennial)As Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson made the PR rounds everywhere from 60 Minutes to the Daily Show, the terribleness of Jobs' too-early death has come into focus: that Jobs evaded conventional medicine when his tumor first appeared, may have died as a result, and regretted it.
"I think that he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don't want something to exist, you can have magical thinking,” Isaacson told 60 Minutes. “We talked about this a lot. He wanted to talk about it, how he regretted it....I think he felt he should have been operated on sooner."
It’s not just that Jobs’ refusal of treatment is “crazy,” as former Intel chief Andy Grove put it to Isaacson. This tragedy sprung from the very thing that made him so great: his unwillingness to believe that technology needed to be clumsy, ugly, or difficult. In consumer products, this led to the MacIntosh and the iPhone. In animation, it created the Pixar canon. But biology and medicine are messy, and demanding a magic solution doesn't always produce one.
There's more here than just the simple lesson that people with cancer should listen to their doctors about getting their tumor cut out, or that you can't cure cancer with diet or acupuncture, as Jobs apparently hoped he could. The kind of innovation Steve Jobs practiced, probably the type of innovation we mythologize and lionize most since personal computers started changing the fabric of society three decades ago, does not and has not translated to medicine in the same way.
To some extent, everything that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and the folks at Google have done to change our world springs from a single innovation: the creation of the microprocessor in the early 1970s. Every computer technology has sprung from this fundamental innovation. If we really want to talk about the biggest heroes of the digital age, we should always be starting with Robert Noyce, the Intel co-founder, or Jack Kilby, the physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his transistor work.
But we don't. Neither of those men ever bonded with the larger public the way Jobs did. And that's because Jobs (like Gates, and Sergey Brin and Larry Page, really), was solving a different kind of problem: how to make a powerful new technology useable to people. And Jobs, with an artist's vision, went a step further: he made it perfect. Like Ferdinand Porsche building cars, he made the mundane beautiful, building technological gadgets in which people could see themselves.
Certainly, hospitals could use the Jobs touch. In a stunning eulogy, Jobs' sister Mona Simpson recounted how an intubated Jobs asked for a sketchpad in the ICU. "He designed new fluid monitors and x-ray equipment," she said. "He redrew that not-quite-special-enough hospital unit. And every time his wife walked into the room, I watched his smile remake itself on his face."
Hospitals could use someone to stitch all the gadgets together, and make it all perfect, but there simply may be too much going on for this to happen. Meanwhile, the innovations that matter most in medicine are more of the Noyce and Kilby variety. The gutsy decision by Andreas Gruentzig, a German cardiologist, to use a catheter to open clogged arteries; the resulting procedure has saved millions of lives. The creation of the first statin drug for lowering cholesterol by Akira Endo, a Japanese scientist, which made no fortune for him but has also saved millions and made billions for Pfizer and AstraZeneca. Millions of people don't wind up in the hospital because of the vaccines made by researchers like Merck's Maurice Hilleman, who developed most of our childhood inoculations.
The hospital where Jobs was has had every bit as much technological innovation over the past thirty years as the computer industry. But much more of that innovation has been technical, and hard to understand, and only physicians and surgeons can grasp it. And we don't reward it as much as a society: unlike in tech, little of the money in medicine goes to the actual innovator. There are 50% more billionaires from tech than from health care, and they are far richer. This has to stunt medical innovation – although it is still progressing at an amazing pace, which gave Jobs extra chances at life. Isaacson reports Jobs had his genome sequenced, in the hopes of finding the targeted cancer drugs that would kill his specific tumor.
I've idolized Jobs since I was a teenager. My first email account was on a NeXT, and I think he more than deserves his place in the firmament of business stars. But I'm haunted by a story I heard once about a biotech industry lobbyist who went to see a congressman and was told, "You guys don't do innovation. The iPad. That's innovative." As a society, it seems to me, we say that a lot. We value the magic box built out of many more basic innovations much more than what came before – and as a result, we overlook the work that is actually foundational. And I worry that were this less true, medicine could have done even more for Steve Jobs.“Charlotte should release police video of the Keith Lamont Scott shooting without delay," Hillary Clinton said. | Getty Clinton postpones trip to Charlotte
Hillary Clinton's campaign announced late Friday that it was postponing a trip by the Democratic nominee to Charlotte scheduled for Sunday.
"After further discussion with community leaders, we have decided to postpone Sunday's trip as not to impact the City's resources," Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri wrote in a statement. "She will plan to visit Charlotte next Sunday, provided circumstances allow."
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The rescheduling comes after Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts made a public plea to Clinton and Donald Trump to delay any campaign trips to the city in light of their "very stressed resources." Clinton's campaign had announced the trip earlier Friday.
Palmieri added: "Her prayers are with the people of Charlotte during these difficult times."
Donald Trump wasted no time in responding to Clinton's reversal on social media, accusing his opponent of trying to "grandstand" and calling her initial decision to go to Charlotte "dumb."
"Crooked Hillary's bad judgement forced her to announce that she would go to Charlotte on Saturday to grandstand. Dem pols said no way, dumb!" the Republican nominee tweeted late Friday. Trump was reportedly considering traveling to Charlotte next week following the presidential debate Monday, but has not elaborated on those plans. He incorrectly identified Clinton's initial trip as scheduled for Saturday.
Protests have erupted in Charlotte since Keith Lamont Scott was shot dead by police Tuesday afternoon. The outcry over yet another officer-involved killing of a black person, days after an officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, shot and killed Terence Crutcher, who was unarmed and had his hands up when he was fatally struck, turned violent late Wednesday into Thursday morning, prompting North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory to issue a state of emergency.
Earlier Friday, the Democratic presidential nominee called on police to release the video of the shooting — after Scott’s family had released its own cellphone video recorded by Scott’s wife, Rakeyia Scott.
“Charlotte should release police video of the Keith Lamont Scott shooting without delay. We must ensure justice & work to bridge divides,” she wrote on Twitter, signing her message with “-H” to denote it came from her, not her campaign.Categories: All > Chicken Facts
All
Q: Do chickens have a language? A:
Roosters can sing loudly when they crow--they also issue predator warnings. Interestingly, they have different "words" for a predator that is coming on the ground, compared with a predator that is coming from above, like a hawk. They can call their girls over whenever they find a tasty treat by using a specific vocalization that the hens recognize. Hens make a similar clucky calling sound when they are teaching their babies what is good to eat and what is not.
(Photo courtesy Lydia Jacobs)
Cute, huh? Hens will repeatedly pick up and drop yummy little tidbits in front of their chicks to demonstrate what is good to eat. It's the chicken version of the amazing Italian mama who says to everyone, "Eat, EAT!" In tests, hens can even teach their babies to stay away from color coded grains that are bad for them. Hens can also make a purring sound, and may do this when they are hatching eggs--the little chicks inside can hear her so they can recognize her voice after they hatch. Chicks begin peeping even inside their eggs, so that mama can feel and hear them, too. So, chickens actually begin communicating before they have even hatched.
Different breeds have different voices. Faverolles have a distinctive, pretty warble, and tend to be chatty. Rhode Island Reds say very little except when they have just laid an egg. Silkies have distinct voices. At times when they're nervous, it can almost sound as if they're laughing. These are just a few examples.
Other sounds that chickens produce include the "cackle" hens make after they have laid an egg. A broody or dominant hen can issue warning to others to stay away. Here is a broody silkie named Matilda, with her wings protectively around the chicks she is raising. She will let other hens know if they're getting too close!
(Photo courtesy of Sole Riley)
Free ranging flocks of chickens mutter quietly simply to be companionable with one another; they are flock animals, and the soft, back-and-forth chatter lets them know they are close enough to everyone to receive any important communications that will help keep them safe (and also they will hear if their rooster locates something tasty they might be interested in eating). All chickens will squawk when they are disturbed or hurt: for instance, hens in battery farms sometimes moan all day in misery and from excessive stress.
My chickens even let me know when they have knocked their waterer or a feeder over: I can recognize the tone in their ba-gawking when they are complaining about something wrong in the coop, and I can distinguish that from the "I laid an egg" song. My rooster has even called me over to his side to retrieve bits of broken glass someone has scratched up somehow, while at the same time driving off any hens that came to investigate his calls, as if he somehow knew that it was not supposed to be there. I knew he was calling for me when the "COME HERE" got more and more insistent, and when I saw that he was driving the hens away, very unlike him. When I started to walk toward him to see what was up, he redoubled his efforts to get me interested in what he had to show me. Good boy! Bits of broken glass would not be good for the hens, but I wonder how he knew that? Perhaps it was a coincidence, but if so, it was a very lucky one.
If you try to pay attention to what your chickens are doing when they make their vocalizations, you may be able to begin deciphering their language. Recently, for example, I was listening to a program on NPR in which they played a humorous "chicken song" where one human made chicken noises while another sang. Something about the song bothered me, though--it sounded so unnatural! I couldn't figure out at first what it was until I began to listen closely to the alleged "chicken noises" in the song. Then it struck me: whoever was making the noises was clearly unfamiliar with chickens. In fact, that person was speaking chicken gibberish! All the noises were chicken-y, certainly, but strung together in the order they were, they were completely random and made no sense at all.
As I listened to the Chickenese, it sounded like he was saying "OH NO, A HAWK--well, this looks tasty--OUCH, STOP PECKING ME--yum yum yum yum yum--I'M THE BIGGEST ROOSTER THAT YOU'VE EVER--how I love laying in the sun--Girls, I've got a treat for--TIME TO ROOST--get out of my nest because I'm going to lay an--LUCKY ME THERE'S MORE BIRDSEED UNDER THE FEEDER--stop being so uppity, Glenda, I don't think--COME HERE, EVERYBODY, QUICK!"Really, it was dizzying change of subjects all in a row, and to a chicken lady like me, the string of sounds made absolutely no sense. My conclusion is that NPR is definitely better at speaking English than Chickenese. With time and attention, you will also be able to begin understanding Chickenese--and we hope your birds will speak more sense than the chicken monologue in NPR's "chicken song"! In many ways they do. Chickens can make a very wide range of sounds, and they communicate amongst each other well.Roosters can sing loudly when they crow--they also issue predator warnings. Interestingly, they have different "words" for a predator that is coming on the ground, compared with a predator that is coming from above, like a hawk. They can call their girls over whenever they find a tasty treat by using a specific vocalization that the hens recognize. Hens make a similar clucky calling sound when they are teaching their babies what is good to eat and what is not.(Photo courtesy Lydia Jacobs)Cute, huh? Hens will repeatedly pick up and drop yummy little tidbits in front of their chicks to demonstrate what is good to eat. It's the chicken version of the amazing Italian mama who says to everyone, "Eat, EAT!" In tests, hens can even teach their babies to stay away from color coded grains that are bad for them. Hens can also make a purring sound, and may do this when they are hatching eggs--the little chicks inside can hear her so they can recognize her voice after they hatch. Chicks begin peeping even inside their eggs, so that mama can feel and hear them, too. So, chickens actually begin communicating before they have even hatched.Different breeds have different voices. Faverolles have a distinctive, pretty warble, and tend to be chatty. Rhode Island Reds say very little except when they have just laid an egg. Silkies have distinct voices. At times when they're nervous, it can almost sound as if they're laughing. These are just a few examples.Other sounds that chickens produce include the "cackle" hens make after they have laid an egg. A broody or dominant hen can issue warning to others to stay away. Here is a broody silkie named Matilda, with her wings protectively around the chicks she is raising. She will let other hens know if they're getting too close!(Photo courtesy of Sole Riley)Free ranging flocks of chickens mutter quietly simply to be companionable with one another; they are flock animals, and the soft, back-and-forth chatter lets them know they are close enough to everyone to receive any important communications that will help keep them safe (and also they will hear if their rooster locates something tasty they might be interested in eating). All chickens will squawk when they are disturbed or hurt: for instance, hens in battery farms sometimes moan all day in misery and from excessive stress.My chickens even let me know when they have knocked their waterer or a feeder over: I can recognize the tone in their ba-gawking when they are complaining about something wrong in the coop, and I can distinguish that from the "I laid an egg" song. My rooster has even called me over to his side to retrieve bits of broken glass someone has scratched up somehow, while at the same time driving off any hens that came to investigate his calls, as if he somehow knew that it was not supposed to be there. I knew he was calling for me when the "COME HERE" got more and more insistent, and when I saw that he was driving the hens away, very unlike him. When I started to walk toward him to see what was up, he redoubled his efforts to get me interested in what he had to show me. Good boy! Bits of broken glass would not be good for the hens, but I wonder how he knew that? Perhaps it was a coincidence, but if so, it was a very lucky one.If you try to pay attention to what your chickens are doing when they make their vocalizations, you may be able to begin deciphering their language. Recently, for example, I was listening to a program on NPR in which they played a humorous "chicken song" where one human made chicken noises while another sang. Something about the song bothered me, though--it sounded so unnatural! I couldn't figure out at first what it was until I began to listen closely to the alleged "chicken noises" in the song. Then it struck me: whoever was making the noises was clearly unfamiliar with chickens. In fact, that person was speaking chicken gibberish! All the noises were chicken-y, certainly, but strung together in the order they were, they were completely random and made no sense at all.As I listened to the Chickenese, it sounded like he was saying "OH NO, A HAWK--well, this looks tasty--OUCH, STOP PECKING ME--yum yum yum yum yum--I'M THE BIGGEST ROOSTER THAT YOU'VE EVER--how I love laying in the sun--Girls, I've got a treat for--TIME TO ROOST--get out of my nest because I'm going to lay an--LUCKY ME THERE'S MORE BIRDSEED UNDER THE FEEDER--stop being so uppity, Glenda, I don't think--COME HERE, EVERYBODY, QUICK!"Really, it was dizzying change of subjects all in a row, and to a chicken lady like me, the string of sounds made absolutely no sense. My conclusion is that NPR is definitely better at speaking English than Chickenese. With time and attention, you will also be able to begin understanding Chickenese--and we hope your birds will speak more sense than the chicken monologue in NPR's "chicken song"!
See Also:
Are your birds "show-quality"?
At what age do hens start laying eggs?
Can hens REALLY crow?
I want to sell the eggs from my chicks as "organic". Are your chicks organic?
Is there a way to tell if my chicken is happy or sad?When Katie Otersen transferred from Northern Virginia Community College to George Mason University last fall, she braced for a jump in price. Tuition and fees would total $11,300, more than double what she had paid before. She covered expenses the first semester without taking out loans. But she struggled in the second.
Little by little, Otersen paid down her bill with earnings from a job at a salon, but she still owed nearly $3,000 when classes ended. When she sought to make another payment in May, she was shocked to learn that her account had been sent to a collection agency that tacked on a fee of 30 percent. She can’t continue at Mason unless she pays it.
“I can’t argue or negotiate this. I’m just stuck paying almost $1,000 more,” Otersen, 23, said. “The fact that they charged me as a student who has been paying throughout the semester this 30 percent fee is disgusting.”
Otersen is one of thousands of Virginia students caught in a state-sanctioned debt trap. These students lack the money to pay their bills on time, and are penalized in a way that makes it harder to meet the obligation.
[Freshman residency rules sometimes force students to pay prohibitive costs]
A little-known Virginia statute requires public colleges and universities to shuttle student accounts of less than $3,000 that are 60 days past due to private debt collectors. Those companies can charge up to 30 percent of the outstanding balance as a fee. That fee is far more than the interest on most credit cards, or on any car loan or mortgage, and it can add hundreds of dollars to student debt. Past-due accounts of more than $3,000 are referred to the state attorney general’s office to enforce collection. That also results in a 30 percent fee.
Schools across the country use debt collectors for delinquent accounts. The issue is when to make those referrals, and how much the associated fees add to the bills.
Those in Virginia handle the fees in various ways. The College of William & Mary, with enrollment of 8,600, caps the fee at 20 percent. College spokeswoman Suzanne Seurattan said fewer than 1 percent of student accounts wind up with debt collectors.
Mason, the state’s largest public university, has about 35,000 students. About 1 percent of its accounts go to collectors, a spokesman said.
The arrangement is striking because universities have the tools to collect payments through their bursar’s offices. Yet the state law forces them to seek outside help as a last resort.
Colleges typically incur no expense in employing private collectors because the companies take their cut through fees. Say a student had an outstanding balance of $1,000. The collection agency could assess a 30 percent fee, bringing the total due to $1,300. The college recovers its $1,000, and the company gets the rest.
[Should colleges charge for academic credit earned from unpaid internships?]
“This is a surcharge for the student, just a penalty for the student,” said Adam Minsky, an attorney specializing in student loan law. “It just makes it that much harder, take that much longer, to pay back what they owe.”
With state budgets stretched thin over the years, legislatures have cleared the way for public agencies to seek assistance from the private sector to recover unpaid debts. At least 15 states have laws instructing schools to employ collection agencies when they are unsuccessful in their own attempts, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Even without a state mandate, the vast majority of colleges and universities use private collection agencies, said Anne C. Gross, vice president of regulatory affairs at the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Eighty-seven percent of schools surveyed by the trade group said they relied on such companies, she said, noting that the practice and fee structure have been around for decades.
“Schools aren’t eager to send student accounts to collections... but they have limited staff who can’t keep working on the same accounts. It’s not cost efficient,” Gross said. “I would suspect that any student whose account had gone to collections has ignored or failed to respond to six, seven, eight notices from the school.”
In many ways, the federal government set the standard with its collection of Perkins loans, which are provided to low-income students through a cost-sharing agreement with colleges. The Education Department lets colleges impose fees as high as 40 percent of the balance when students default on those loans, and that cost structure has become the norm for other delinquent accounts.
But those fees may be placing students with limited means at risk of falling behind in school and not graduating.
Because of the money she owes, Otersen said she is not allowed to register for fall classes at Mason. Some of the courses she needs to complete a bachelor’s degree in athletic training have filled up. And even if a slot opens, Otersen worries that her bill will not be paid in time. Working 60 hours a week at the salon this summer has only made a dent in the debt, she said.
“I’m so overwhelmed. I just finished paying the collection fee. School starts in less than a month and I still have to come up with the rest,” she said. “My mom tries to help, but I have two other siblings in college and there is only so much money to go around.”
Mason spokesman Michael Sandler said the university is “sensitive to those situations where students require more time for payment” and “has several options for students with hardships, including multiple payment plans that charge no interest.”
Otersen said she considered one of those plans but could not afford to pay the installments in the three months allotted. She knew her piecemeal payments would result in late fees but thought that as long as she paid, the school would consider her account in good standing. But the balance she carried from one month to the next registered as delinquent.
Sandler said Mason often gives students five months and eight notices to make arrangements to settle their accounts. Unpaid debts, in most cases, are not referred to a collection agency until after the semester ends, he said.
“We can’t allow students to create their own payment plans,” Sandler said. “We are bound by state law and have an obligation to be responsible stewards of the taxpayers’ money.”
Not all Virginia schools enforce the 13-year-old state statute in the same way. Virginia Comptroller David Von Moll said schools have some leeway depending on their level of autonomy from the state.
[Creeping privatization at Virginia’s public colleges]
Years ago, state colleges and universities agreed to less public funding in exchange for more independence in setting tuition, capital
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This image is an illustration of the Bouba/kiki effect. Canary Islands natives called the shape on the left "kiki" and the one on the right "bouba".
In the 2003 BBC Reith Lectures, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran outlined his research into the links between brain structure and function. In the fourth lecture of the series he describes the phenomena of synesthesia in which people experience, for example, sounds in terms of colors, or sounds in terms of tastes. In one type of synesthesia, people see numbers, letters of the alphabet, or even musical notes as having a distinct color. Ramachandran proposes a model for how language might have evolved.[clarification needed] The theory may explain how humans create metaphors and how sounds can be metaphors for images – why for example sounds can be described as "bright" or "dull". In explaining how language might have evolved from cross activation of adjacent areas in the brain, Ramachandran notes four crucial factors, not all related to language, but which combined might have resulted in the emergence of language. Two of these four processes are of particular interest here.
Synesthetic cross modal abstraction: i.e. we recognize properties that sounds and images have in common and abstract them to store them independently. The sounds and shapes of the objects have characteristics in common that can be abstracted; for example, a "sharp", "cutting" quality of a word, and the shape it describes. Ramachandran calls this the 'Bouba/kiki effect', based on the results of an experiment with two abstract shapes, one blob-like and the other spiky, that asked people to relate the nonsense words bouba and kiki to them. The effect is real and observable, repeatable across linguistic groups, and evident even in the description of the experiment (with the bouba shape usually described using similar-sounding words like bulbous or blobby while the kiki shape is prickly or spiky).
Built in preexisting cross activation. Ramachandran points out that areas of the brain which appear to be involved in the mix-ups in synesthesia are adjacent to each other physically, and that cross-wiring, or cross activation, could explain synesthesia and our ability to make metaphors. He notes that the areas that control the muscles around the mouth are also adjacent to the visual centers, and suggests that certain words appear to make our mouth imitate the thing we are describing. Examples of this might be words like "teeny weeny", "diminutive" to describe small things; "large" or "enormous" to describe big things.
More recently, research on ideasthesia indicated that Kiki and Bouba have an entire semantic-like network of associated cross-modal experiences.
Relationship with poetry [ edit ]
The sound of words is important in the field of poetry, and rhetoric more generally. Tools such as euphony, alliteration, and rhyme all depend on the speaker or writer confidently choosing the best-sounding word.
John Michell's book Euphonics: A Poet's Dictionary of Enchantments collects lists of words of similar meaning and similar sounds. For example, the entry for "gl-" contains words for shiny things: glisten, gleam, glint, glare, glam, glimmer, glaze, glass, glitz, gloss, glory, glow, and glitter. Likewise, in German, nouns starting with "kno-" and "knö-" are mostly small and round: Knoblauch "garlic", Knöchel "ankle", Knödel "dumpling", Knolle "tuber", Knopf "button", Knorren "knot (in a tree)", Knospe "bud (of a plant)", Knoten "knot (in string or rope)".
Use in commerce [ edit ]
Phonesthesia is used in commerce for the names of products and even companies themselves. According to linguist Steven Pinker, one particularly "egregious example" was when cigarette maker Philip Morris rebranded to Altria. The name "Altria" is claimed to come from the Latin word for "high"[9] but Pinker sees the change as an attempt to "switch its image from bad people who sell addictive carcinogens to a place or state marked by altruism and other lofty values".[10] The brand names of many pharmaceuticals are common examples.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]
Jakobson, Roman; Waugh, Linda R. (2002). The Sound Shape of Language. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-017285-0.
Magnus, Margaret (2010). Gods in the Word: Archetypes in the Consonants. CreateSpace. ISBN 978-1-4538-2444-3.
Mitchell, John (2006). Euphonics: A Poet's Dictionary of Enchantments. Wooden Books. ISBN 978-1-904263-43-2.
Schuessler, Axel (2007). ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-2975-9.
Further reading [ edit ]Episode Information Episode #04 Title 1: 雨、逃げ出した後 Ame, Nigedashita Go Rain, After the Escape Title 2: Hedgehog's Dilemma [1] Written By Akio Satsukawa Directed By Tsuyoshi Kaga First Aired 10-25-1995 Video Release Date 3-6-1996 (Japan-Video/LD), 5-16-2000 (US-DVD) Angel Appearances None Eva Sorties None Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Episode 03" "Episode 05"
Overview
Misato is upset with Shinji for ignoring her orders in the last Angel battle, and he is so overcome by the stress of being an Eva pilot that he runs away. After wandering around Tokyo-3 for several days, Shinji is faced with the choice of quitting or staying in his new home.
Synopsis
Toji and Kensuke see Misato for the first time
It's been five days since the battle with Shamshel, and Shinji still hasn't returned to school. Misato knocks on his bedroom door and tries to persuade him, only to find that he has run away[2]. Concerned about his absence, Toji and Kensuke come to visit. Misato lies and tells them he is training at headquarters.
Shinji has just left the bus.
Shinji boards a local train and rides it all day, repeatedly listening to tracks 25 & 26 on his SDAT[3], leaving only when the train is taken out of service for the night. He tells himself, "I've got to go back", but instead attends a late-night showing of a movie about Second Impact[4]. The few other people there seem to be either sleeping or making out. He spends the night in the theater's lobby. The next morning he leaves the theater, but hallucinates that the buildings are closing in on him. Thus he flees to the countryside[5].
Back at Nerv headquarters, Ritsuko is examining Rei. Misato is there and we learn that Shinji left after she upbraided him for disobeying her retreat order in episode 3.
Kensuke stares in disbelief as M.I.B.s come to collect Shinji.
Meanwhile, in a violation of the law of incredible coincidence, Shinji meets Kensuke, who is in the wilderness playing survivalist[6]. Kensuke reveals that he is jealous, both because Shinji is living with a beautiful woman, and because he is an Eva pilot. When Kensuke expresses a desire to be a pilot as well, Shinji admonishes him that his mother would be worried[7]. Kensuke reveals that like Shinji, he has none[8]. Shinji camps out with Kensuke that night. The next morning, several men in black from Nerv arrive and take Shinji into custody. Back at school, Toji upbraids Kensuke for not doing anything about it (as if he could have).
A M.I.B. has to restrain Shinji as he denounces himself.
Back at Nerv headquarters Misato confronts Shinji, telling him they don't need a pilot with his attitude. Shinji elects to resign. Gendo orders Unit-01 reconfigured for Rei. Two men in black take Shinji to the train station, where Toji and Kensuke see him off, as they have so many of their other classmates. Toji insists that Shinji hit him to make up for the beating he gave Shinji in Ep. 3. Shinji hits him surprisingly hard for Shinji. As he is being lead away, Shinji shouts that he (Shinji) is the one who should be hit, for being so weak and cowardly.
Misato finally realizes that the reason that Shinji agreed to live with her was because he was looking for a family, and rushes to the station[9], seemingly too late. But Shinji hasn't boarded the train. They greet each other with "I'm home", "welcome home".
Notes
Rei is referred to as the "First Children" for the first time in this episode. Shinji had already been referred to as the Third in Episode 01, clearly implying that there is another pilot whom we have yet to meet.
This is the only episode that series creator Hideaki Anno did not write (or co-write). At one point during production, this episode was removed and what is now Episode 05 would have immediately followed Episode 03. However, it was later decided that time needed to be devoted to establishing Shinji's character and relationships, so the episode was added back in. The result was that this episode was written after what is now Episode 5 was already finished, and Anno did not take a direct role in developing either the plot or script.
The Evangelion ORIGINAL draft script for Episode 04 mentions dates that were cut from the broadcast; apparently Episode 03 ended 14 July 2015 and Episode 04 spanned 15-18 July 2015[10] (this seems to contradict the chronology in Rei Ayanami Raising Project[11], which would put Episode 04 in early June 2015).
Analysis
Kensuke points out to Shinji the noise the cicadas are making outdoors. Kensuke says that it used to be quiet outside when he was a kid (in the early 2000's) but that now cicadas can be heard constantly. Shinji responds that Misato told him that the ecosystem is returning to its former state. See Second Impact for more information on the environmental consequences of the disaster fifteen years earlier.
After exiting the bus, Shinji rests by a statue of Jizo-san, the patron deity of travelers and children. The shot is apparently a tribute to a shot from Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro. (See Tributes to Other Shows in Neon Genesis Evangelion for more.)
Quotes
(Toji and Kensuke have just met Misato for the first time)
Kensuke : "This is an unexpected development."
Toji : "She was a real babe, wasn't she?"
: "This is an unexpected development." : "She was a real babe, wasn't she?" (As Shinji walks down the street after running away)
Public Announcer Left : "Yes, Cheap, Cheap! Blowout sale on hot young girls! When you get tired they'll lead you to paradise."
: "Yes, Cheap, Cheap! Blowout sale on hot young girls! When you get tired they'll lead you to paradise." (Shinji watches the Second Impact Movie)
Man : "You really couldn't detect it?"
Doctor : "Correct. An object tens of millimeters in diameter crashed into Antarctica at more than ten percent of the speed of light!"
Assistant A : "Our technology could neither predict it nor defend against it."
Woman : "But it's hell out there! Just what is the purpose of science!?"
Man : "The atmospheric flux caused by the change in the Earth's axis has decreased by 3%."
Woman : "So, has it calmed down a little?"
Assistant C :"Negative!! There's a tidal wave approaching at 230 meters a second!"
Man : "Doctor! We must evacuate!"
Doctor : "No, it's my duty to remain here."
Man : "Doctor, dying is easy, but you have an obligation to watch this Hell on Earth."
: "You really couldn't detect it?" : "Correct. An object tens of millimeters in diameter crashed into Antarctica at more than ten percent of the speed of light!" : "Our technology could neither predict it nor defend against it." : "But it's hell out there! Just what is the purpose of science!?" : "The atmospheric flux caused by the change in the Earth's axis has decreased by 3%." : "So, has it calmed down a little?" :"Negative!! There's a tidal wave approaching at 230 meters a second!" : "Doctor! We must evacuate!" : "No, it's my duty to remain here." : "Doctor, dying is easy, but you have an obligation to watch this Hell on Earth." Toji : "Don't you have any balls!?! [12] "
Kensuke : "Only an idiot fights when he knows he can't win. Balls have nothing to do with it."
: "Don't you have any balls!?! " : "Only an idiot fights when he knows he can't win. Balls have nothing to do with it." (Shinji has met Kensuke in the wilderness)
Kensuke : "I really envy you. Living with such a beautiful woman and getting to pilot Evangelion. Oh, I wish I could get behind the controls just once!"
Shinji : "You'd better not. Your mother would be worried."
Kensuke : "Ah, that's okay. I don't have one."
Shinji : "Ah…"
Kensuke : "I'm the same as you, Ikari."
: "I really envy you. Living with such a beautiful woman and getting to pilot Evangelion. Oh, I wish I could get behind the controls just once!" : "You'd better not. Your mother would be worried." : "Ah, that's okay. I don't have one." : "Ah…" : "I'm the same as you, Ikari." (Shinji is saying goodbye to Toji and Kensuke)
Shinji: "It's me who should be hit. I'm a scoundrel...a coward...Dishonest...and weak..."
References
↑ This title refers to an analogy about human interaction by Arthur Schopenhauer. See here for more details. ↑ The envelope Shinji leaves for Misato in his room when he runs away is literally addressed "Katsuragi Misato-sama" in the original Japanese. The honorific suffix "-sama" is the more formal version of "-san" (Mr. or Ms.) and is used to politely address those of higher social rank. This formality in in contrast to Misato's request in Episode 01 that her just call her Misato. ↑ The two songs we hear Shinji listening to on his SDAT while riding on the train are "You are the only one" and "Blue Legend" from "Lilia", an image album for the "Ys" RPG series (previously heard in Episode 02 ). However, none of the vocal sections are heard in this episode. ↑ Yuko Miyamura (Asuka) as Movie Theater Woman, Public Announcer Right, Girl A, and Station Announcer Left. Megumi Hayashibara (Rei, Yui, Pen Pen) as Train Announcer, Public Announcer Left, Station Announcer, and (in the movie) Woman. Kotono Mitsuishi (Misato) as Girl B. Yuriko Yamaguchi (Ritsuko) as Girl C. Fumihiko Tachiki (Gendo) as Station Announcer and (in the movie) Doctor. Tetsuya Iwanaga (Kensuke) as Assistant A (movie). Tomokazu Seki (Toji) as Assistant B (movie).
In an example of economy in casting, several of the regular voice actors appear in this sequence as train announcers, public announcers, movie cast members, etc. Including: ↑ The beautiful mountain that Shinji visits before meeting Kensuke is a famous suicide spot; see Geography for more information. ↑ Outline of Summer Training Practice Operations
Japan's Mobilization Schedule
15:00 Deploy for combat
16:00 Prepare for attack, commence firing
19:00 (left blank) Kensuke has a whole "training schedule" written out on a chalkboard in his tent for his military role playing, which translated from Japanese reads: ↑ As it happens, if Kensuke were to become an Eva pilot, his Eva's core would be imbued with his mother's soul. Thus, despite her apparent death, Shinji's statement that she would be worried is likely correct. ↑ In the previous episode, Toji also seemed to imply that his mother was dead. ↑ A mistake that occurs near the end of the episode is that when Misato drives her car up to the train station, she gets out of her car on the left hand side, even though cars drive on the right hand side in Japan. Further, we've actually seen Misato while driving in her car during an extended scene in the first episode, during which she was sitting in the driver's seat which was indeed located on the right hand side of her car. ↑ http://eva.onegeek.org/pipermail/oldeva/1999-December/033295.html ↑ http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?p=367501#367501 ↑ When Toji refers to "balls" he actually says "matanki", which means nothing. It is really "kintama" spelled backward in Japanese characters (ki+n+ta+ma reversed to ma+ta+n+ki). Kintama is a slang term for testicles which literally means "gold balls".Washington, DC - Google "39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad" and you'll get over 590,000 hits. You'll find full-text English language translations of this Arabic document on the Internet Archive, an internet library; on 4Shared Desktop, a file-sharing site; and on numerous Islamic sites. You will find it cited and discussed in a US Senate Committee staff report and Congressional testimony. Feel free to read it. Just don't try to make your own translation from the original, which was written in Arabic in Saudi Arabia in 2003. Because if you look a little further on Google you will find multiple news accounts reporting that on April 12, a 29-year old citizen from Sudbury, Massachusetts named Tarek Mehanna was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison for translating "39 Ways" and helping to distribute it online.
As Anthony Lewis was wont to ask in his New York Times columns, "Is this America?" Seventeen and a half years for translating a document? Granted, it's an extremist text. Among the "39 ways" it advocates include "Truthfully Ask Allah for Martyrdom", "Go for Jihad Yourself", "Giving Shelter to the Mujahedin", and "Have Enmity Towards the Disbelievers". (Other "ways to serve", however, include, "Learn to Swim and Ride Horses", "Get Physically Fit", "Stand in Opposition to the Disbelievers" and "Expose the Hypocrites and Traitors".)
But surely we have not come to the point where we lock people up for nearly two decades for translating a widely available document? After all, news organisations and scholars routinely translate and publicise jihadist texts; think, for example, of the many reports about messages from Osama bin Laden.
In 2009, Tarek Mehanna, who has no prior criminal record, was arrested and placed in maximum security confinement on "terrorism" charges. The case against him rested on allegations that as a 21-year old he had travelled with friends to Yemen in 2004 in an unsuccessful search for a jihadist training camp in order to fight in Iraq, and that he had translated several jihadist tracts and videos into English for distribution on the internet, allegedly to spur readers on to jihad.
Pre-9/11 vs post-9/11
After a two-month trial, he was convicted of conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organisation. The jury did not specify whether it found him guilty for his aborted trip to Yemen - which resulted in no known contacts with jihadists - or for his translations, so under established law, the conviction cannot stand unless it's permissible to penalise him for his speech. Mehanna is appealing.
Under traditional (read "pre-9/11") First Amendment doctrine, Mehanna could not have been convicted even if he had written "39 Ways" himself, unless the government could shoulder the heavy burden of demonstrating that the document was "intended and likely to incite imminent lawless action", a standard virtually impossible to meet for written texts.
In 1969, in Brandenburg v Ohio, the Supreme Court established that standard in ruling that the First Amendment protected a Ku Klux Klansman who made a speech to a Klan gathering advocating "revengeance" against "niggers" and "Jews". It did so only after years of experience with federal and state governments using laws prohibiting advocacy of crime as a tool to target political dissidents (anarchists, anti-war protesters and Communists, to name a few).
But in Mehanna's case, the government never tried to satisfy that standard. It didn't show that any violent act was caused by the document or its translation, much less that Mehanna intended to incite imminent criminal conduct and was likely, through the translation, to do so. In fact, it accused Mehanna of no violent act of any kind. Instead, the prosecutor successfully argued that Mehanna's translation was intended to aid al-Qaeda, by inspiring readers to pursue jihad themselves, and therefore constituted "material support" to a "terrorist organisation".
"History shows that free speech is fundamental to a robust democracy, and that if the government can punish expression because of its political content, it will use that power to go after its enemies."
The prosecutor relied on a 2010 Supreme Court decision in a case I argued, Holder v Humanitarian Law Project. In Humanitarian Law Project, a divided Court upheld the "material support" statute as applied to advocacy of peace and human rights, when done in coordination with and to aid a designated "terrorist organisation". (The plaintiffs in the case sought to encourage the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey to resolve their disputes with the Turkish government through lawful means, by training them in bringing human rights complaints before the United Nations and helping them in peace overtures to the Turkish government.)
The Court ruled that the government could criminalise such advocacy of peaceful nonviolent activity without transgressing the First Amendment, because, it reasoned, any aid to a foreign terrorist organisation might ultimately support illegal ends.
Punishing political expression
The Humanitarian Law Project decision is troubling enough, as I have previously explained. But Mehanna's case goes still further. The government provided no evidence that Mehanna ever met or communicated with anyone from al-Qaeda. Nor did it demonstrate that the translation was sent to al-Qaeda. (It was posted by an online publisher, Al-Tibyan Publications, that has not been designated as a part of or a front for al-Qaeda.) It did not even claim that the "39 Ways" was written by al-Qaeda. The prosecution offered plenty of evidence that in internet chat rooms Mehanna expressed admiration for the group's ideology, and for Osama bin Laden in particular. But can one provide "material support" to a group with which one has never communicated?
The Supreme Court in Humanitarian Law Project emphasised, as had the United States government in defending the "material support" statute, that the law does not make it a crime to engage in "independent advocacy" in support of a designated organisation's cause. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts strongly implied that this limitation was constitutionally mandated:
"The Court also finds it significant that Congress has been conscious of its own responsibility to consider how its actions may implicate constitutional concerns. Most importantly, Congress has avoided any restriction on independent advocacy, or indeed any activities not directed to, coordinated with, or controlled by foreign terrorist groups."
"Under the material-support statute," the Court insisted, people "may say anything they wish on any topic." But apparently not on "jihad". The prosecutor in Mehanna's case argued that the translation was motivated by Mehanna's ideological support of jihadism, and of al-Qaeda in particular. But without coordination, and without delivery of the final product to al-Qaeda or any of its known affiliates, it looks like nothing more than "independent advocacy", activity that the government said would not, and the Supreme Court implied could not, be punished.
Why should those of us who have no interest in reading "39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad" care? For the same reason that we should care about the prosecution of a Klansman or an anarchist for their speech. History shows that free speech is fundamental to a robust democracy, and that if the government can punish expression because of its political content, it will use that power to go after its enemies. Today's enemy may be anyone who shows sympathy with jihadism, but who knows who tomorrow's enemy will be. You don't need 39 ways to unravel democracy; giving the government the power to penalise the speech it detests will do it in one.
David Cole is Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. he is the award-winning author of several books, including The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable (2009), Less Safe, Less Free: Why America is Losing the War on Terror (with Jules Lobel 2007) and Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism (2003).
A version of this article first appeared in the New York Review of Books blog.Every now and then, I get my hands on an application or a piece of technology that I can’t wait to tell the rest of the world about. Something that is a joy to use, tackles a major problem in a totally intuitive way, and makes otherwise difficult tasks unfathomably easy. Something that has the potential to fundamentally change the way we do things.
Mailbox, which was created by the makers of task-management application Orchestra, is one of those apps.
It’s difficult to overstate how big the email problem is. Many of us struggle to keep up with the hundreds or thousands of emails that we get every day, each of which is asking for some action: respond to, archive, or maybe save for later. But the tools for facilitating those actions have been somewhat broken, as most apps don’t deal with the decision-making it takes to cycle through mass quantities of stuff — some good, some bad, and some impossible to get to in any reasonable amount of time.
Very few really good apps have emerged to tackle this problem. A lot of people loved Sparrow, but I could never get too excited about it. It provided a pretty rich set of tools for moving emails around and making sure they got archived and were searchable — basically improving on things that the iPhone’s native mail app did poorly. But for me, Sparrow was always a little too feature-rich. It didn’t make getting through my email any easier, it just gave me more stuff to do with it.
In contrast, Mailbox takes a very stripped-down approach, providing a limited set of options for dealing with email. It breaks incoming emails into three basic categories: Those you’d like to keep in your inbox, those you’d like to save for later, and those you’d like to get rid of as quickly as possible.
The whole thing is built on the concept of gestures, basically swiping left or swiping right over an email in your inbox to do something with it. Want to archive an email? A short swipe to the right will do that, clearing it from view. Want to delete? Try a longer swipe right.
But the most interesting aspect is the save-for-later option. Don’t have time for an email right now but want to respond at some point? Just swipe to the left. Once you do, you’ll be met with a few options for when you want that email to appear in your inbox: later in the day (three hours later), tomorrow, on the weekend, next week, etc. It then clears those emails from the inbox but makes them easily accessible from the menu screen. It works the same for adding emails to lists, like a “read later” or “watch later” list. It just needs a longer swipe.
Otherwise, email in Mailbox works pretty much the same way as in other apps. You can read emails, reply, reply to all, forward, etc. If there’s one feature that’s missing, especially for advanced Gmail users, it’s probably the ability to label emails into different categories. But for me, the ease of archiving and search within the app makes labels unnecessary.
It’s difficult to argue with the results: I frequently strive for Inbox Zero but never quite get there, and I get antsy if there are more than say, 25 emails in my inbox at any one time. But with Mailbox, the only emails that are kept in my inbox are those which are important at the moment. I have a fair — but not overwhelming — number of emails that will return to me and be dealt with later, and the rest I’ve been able to archive or delete. (I’ve yet to take advantage of the Lists feature, which seems more for reminding oneself to read an article or watch a video at some unspecified future time.)
Orchestra was named the App Store’s 2011 Productivity App of the Year, so it should come as little surprise that Mailbox boosts productivity mainly by treating emails like to-dos. It might not work for everyone, but I’ve seen very few tools like it — especially for people like myself, people who are anal about having as little email in their inbox as possible.
The app is currently in beta testing, with plans to release sometime in the New Year. Wanna see more? Watch this video:
Introducing Mailbox
Or check out these rave reviews from beta users:
Massive fan of apps that completely replace defaults in iOS. Recently: @mailbox for Mail and Fantastical for Calendar — Danny Trinh (@dtrinh) December 10, 2012
Very surprised at how much I’ve taken to dealing w/ email the @mailbox way. I’m already yearning for an iPad & Mac version :P — Sahil (@sahil) December 10, 2012
https://twitter.com/hunterwalk/status/278618559821778945Asexuals are a vastly underrepresented section of the population. Even as I type this, my spellcheck doesn’t know the word “asexual”. With roughly 1% of the population identifying as asexual at any given time, it’s high time that people learn how to interact with someone who is asexual, because you’re likely to run into one eventually. And when you do, here are some things to never, ever say to them:
“Asexuals don’t exist.”
I hear this all the time. It’s usually the first thing out of any person’s mouth. I usually just want to say back, “Really? Huh. I was always worried I wasn’t real. Now I know for sure. What does that say about you, since you talk to people who don’t exist?” Sadly, I often here this uttered from people who give the “Sexuality is fluid” speech every time you get a little drunk and they try to kiss someone of the same sex. Apparently sexuality is only fluid if you actually feel sexual attraction. Otherwise you’re as real as the Easter Bunny.
“Are you sure you’re not just gay?”
This one gets me every time. “OH SHIT, SON! I never thought of that! All this time my lack of sexual desire was really just a deep-seeded, repressed sex drive towards people of the same sex! DUH!” Um. Just no.
“I bet I could make you want it.”
Not only is that super rapey, but what makes you think you are special enough to change my sexuality just by showing me your glorious dong? I have found that straight men have the hardest time accepting that not every women could possibly want to sleep with them (or anyone).
“How do you know if you’ve never tried?”
How do you know you don’t like having sex with dogs if you’ve never tried? Or people of the same sex? Or alligators? Go try the alligator one and get back to me with your answer.
“How could you not want to fall in love!”
This one is more interesting because it delves into the different brands of asexuality. A lot of asexuals want to find love just as much as the next person. Some, the aromantics (another word my spellcheck doesn’t know), don’t feel romantic attraction either. Try explaining this to someone who can’t wrap their head around the concept of no sex drive. It’s like trying to explain astrophysics to a dog. Though I think the dog has a better chance of catching on.
“Maybe you’re just sick.”
Ah, the feigned concern. You’re right, maybe I do have a debilitating disease that makes me some sort of sex-deprived monster. Or maybe I just feel things differently from you because, you know, different people are different. But thanks for just wanting me to be normal as to not hurt your brain.
As with most kinds of ignorance, a lack of education is really the main issue asexuals are dealing with. If more people were aware that this a real thing and not just a phase or a disease, it would be much easier to come out to friends and family and not be looked at like a crazy person. If even my computer doesn’t recognize the word, it’s a major issue that deserves awareness. Another word my computer doesn’t know: heteronormativity. But that’s a whole other issue." Danny Boy " is a ballad set to an ancient Irish melody. English songwriter Frederic Weatherly wrote the lyrics, which are usually set to the Irish tune of the " Londonderry Air ". The song was written in a small town called 'Limavady' [1] It is most closely associated with Irish communities.
This article is about the folk song. For other uses, see Danny Boy (disambiguation)
1940 recording by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra on RCA Bluebird, B-10612-B
Initially written to a tune other than "Londonderry Air", English lawyer and lyricist Frederic Weatherly wrote the words to "Danny Boy" in Bath, Somerset in 1910. After his Irish-born sister-in-law Margaret (known as Jess) in the United States sent him a copy of "Londonderry Air" in 1913 (an alternative version of the story has her singing the air to him in 1912 with different lyrics), Weatherly modified the lyrics of "Danny Boy" to fit the rhyme and meter of "Londonderry Air".[2][3]
Weatherly gave the song to the vocalist Elsie Griffin, who made it one of the most popular songs in the new century. In 1915, Ernestine Schumann-Heink produced the first recording of "Danny Boy".
Jane Ross of Limavady is credited with collecting the melody of "Londonderry Air" in the mid-19th century from a musician she encountered.[4]New Delhi: No Indian city complies with air quality standards prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and very few cities in southern India comply with the norms set by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India’s nodal pollution watchdog, said a report released by NGO Greenpeace on Wednesday.
The report ‘Airpocalypse’ assessed air quality in 168 cities across 24 states and union territories and pinpoints fossil fuels as one of the main culprits for the deteriorating air quality.
The report was prepared using information obtained through online reports and Right to Information (RTI) applications from state pollution control boards across India. According to the report, the top 20 most polluted cities have particulate matter (PM 10) levels between 268 µg/m3and 168 µg/m3 for the year 2015.
ALSO READ: On-road emission tests to be mandatory in India from 2020
“While Delhi tops the list with 268 µg/m3, it is followed closely by Ghaziabad, Allahabad, and Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, Faridabad in Haryana, Jharia in Jharkhand, Alwar in Rajasthan, Ranchi, Kusunda and Bastacola in Jharkhand, Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, and Patna In Bihar, with PM10 levels ranging from 258 µg/m3to 200 µg/m3," the report said.
PM (particulate matter) up to 10 micrometres in size and less is considered the most dangerous pollutant in the air.
Air pollution is a national public health crisis as almost none of the cities have bothered to keep air pollution in check, making them unlivable. We are facing an apocalypse right now due to unbreathable air. Deaths due to air pollution are only a fraction less than those due to use of tobacco, yet authorities are turn a deaf ear to the numerous scientific reports that have set alarm bells ringing," says Sunil Dahiya, campaigner, Greenpeace India in an official statement.
India’s pollution trends have been steadily increasing, with India overtaking China in number of deaths due to outdoor air pollution in 2015. India’s deteriorating air quality demands an urgent robust monitoring system," Dahiya said.
An analysis by the environment ministry shows that 60% of 249 Indian cities where air pollution is monitored, have witnessed an increase in the level of PM 10. According to the analysis, the annual average levels of PM 10 for 2011, 2012 and 2013 have exceeded in 148, 137 and 152 cities, respectively.
ALSO READ: Choked by smog, Beijing creates new environmental police
The Greenpeace report also said that most polluted cities are spread across the North India, starting from Rajasthan and then moving along the Indo-Gangetic belt to West Bengal.
“A closer analysis of the data obtained through RTI and previous studies on air pollution pinpoint to continued use of fossil fuels as the main culprit for the dangerous rise in the level of pollutants in the air across the country," the report added.
In December, the Supreme Court had approved a set of steps to be taken whenever air quality deteriorates beyond a certain level in Delhi-NCR area. The plan sets in motion a series of steps that every authority—central government, Delhi government, municipal corporations and Delhi’s neighbouring states—need to take as pollution levels spike.
Greenpeace said a similar system needs to be
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doesn't matter how you were raised or where you grew up; you can still turn out to be someone."I recently wrote an article on Ghacks titled “Is Samsung Giving up on the S-Pen?”, which argued that Samsung is shying away from releasing many new devices that feature the famous “S-Pen” stylus associated with it’s “Galaxy Note” brand.
The argument was that Samsung did not find mainstream traction for the S-Pen, that it hasn’t released a new S-Pen equipped Note tablet since 2014, and that it’s stylish new ‘Edge’ large screen phablets left the stylus behind. Coincidentally, however, shortly after that article was published, there were signs that Microsoft is undertaking a campaign to promote digital pens (specifically, it’s ‘Surface Pen’) as the ultimate tool for note taking and innovation.
This article aims to describe Microsoft’s efforts to promote digital pens in general, and to ponder the question: who’s right? Are digital pens here to stay, now that touchscreens are everywhere?
Are digital pens here to stay?
1. Microsoft is actively linking note taking, innovation, and digital pens
I recently received an email from Microsoft promoting a free downloadable ebook they issued titled "The innovator's guide to Note taking". Being an avid note taker AND generally a sucker for downloadable guides, I quickly downloaded it, my interest piqued by the combination of “innovation” and “note taking”. You can download it for yourself here or here in exchange for registering with a valid email.
The guide was a highly polished affair which at first glance didn't seem like it was overtly selling anything. The gist of the argument in the guide went something like the following (Note: this is a very quick and dirty summary; and I am skipping a lot of info, especially examples and studies used in justification of these ideas).
Pen-and-paper style scribbles and notes have considerable value in relation to the process of thinking and innovation.
Conversely, typed notes are of LESS value and less likely to have traction inside our brains.
In the information age, we need to find a way to store, access, share, and organize notes digitally.
And, of course, all notes must live centrally in the cloud.
Therefore; “digital note taking with a smart pen or stylus marries the best of both worlds, igniting creativity while leveraging the benefits of modern technology”. (A direct quote, but the emphasis is mine).
marries the best of both worlds, igniting creativity while leveraging the benefits of modern technology”. (A direct quote, but the emphasis is mine). Typewritten notes are good for documentation, but lack the active conceptualization of pen and paper notes.
The very act of using a smart pen or stylus makes note taking a “right brain”, creative activity.
Doodling is an integral part of note taking which increases retention and active conceptualization of info. Even if unrelated to the content of the notes, doodling is good, and not merely a frivolous activity.
It goes on to give advice on note taking techniques: (1) simplify/abbreviate, (2) use your own words rather than copying verbatim, (3) engage in follow-up note taking after the meeting and (4) if you are inclined to visualize (doodling etc.)… go for it.
Interestingly, the guide presents a side-by-side comparison between a “ Digital Pen ” (the kind you use on a touchscreen, like Microsoft’s ‘Surface Pen’) vs. a “ Smart pen ” (the kind that actually writes on special paper AND is uploadable to a PC, like the ‘LifeScribe 3’). It mentions these products by name, and although LiveScribe 3 is developed by Livescribe Inc, it has been recently integrated with Microsoft’s ‘OneNote’ note taking app.
” (the kind you use on a touchscreen, like Microsoft’s ‘Surface Pen’) vs. a “ ” (the kind that actually writes on special paper AND is uploadable to a PC, like the ‘LifeScribe 3’). It mentions these products by name, and although LiveScribe 3 is developed by Livescribe Inc, it has been recently integrated with Microsoft’s ‘OneNote’ note taking app. The ebook ends by mentioning some applications of digital note taking in various industries: Healthcare, Construction, Education, Law Enforcement, and Sales.
2. Microsoft just created a video promoting the ‘Surface Pen’
A few days later, I received another email from Microsoft with the subject line “Amazing Ways a Pen Can Change Your Life”. This was a straightforward promotion of the Surface Pen – “The digital pen you’ve been waiting for” – and linked to a promotional video on YouTube, which you can view below.
Discussion: the future of digital pens
It would seem, in the outset, that Microsoft is jumping into the digital pen bandwagon at the very same time that Samsung has cooled off on the concept. Apple, of course, is also jumping in with the Apple pencil for the iPad Pro.
Let me state up front that I am a huge fan of Samsung’s S-Pen and Note series, and use it daily. If we assume that everyone involved is right, we get the following set of arguments:
Samsung has discovered that although the S-Pen has a coterie of core followers, it has not caught on in the mainstream. It seems that Samsung is currently very busy attempting to go after the mainstream.
Microsoft has found that an optional ‘Surface Pen’ that can be purchased separately and added to it’s Surface line of tablets/laptops has a natural appeal to enough users that it decided to actively promote it, and has been trying to associate it with note taking and innovation. On some devices, the surface Pen is included with the purchase.
Apple came to the conclusion that a digital pen (the Apple Pencil) is a perfect logical companion to it's large-sized iPad Pro, useful for that creative user that will find the extra large screen perfect for creating art or technical drawings etc. This despite Steve Jobs’ famous assertion that the fingers are the natural stylus (or whatever).
As an artistically inclined techie, I will say that I am always in the market for a digital pen and a hi-resolution screen. I may or may not be in the minority, but content creation is the mainstay of the information age, and a digital pen is extremely useful for that purpose. Microsoft thinks it can be useful for a wide range of applications: for teachers, composers, doctors, etc., as seen in the video above.
Suffice it to say there will always be a market for digital pens, and I for one have been considering switching from the Note to the Surface for some time. The real question is: in the future, will the market for digital pens be shrinking, or will it be growing. Microsoft seems to think the answer is the latter. I hope they are right.
Summary Article Name Microsoft is betting that digital pens are here to stay Description Microsoft is actively promoting it's 'Surface Pen' digital pen at the same time that Samsung seems to be cooling off on the S-Pen. This article sheds light at Microsoft's efforts to associate it's digital pen with note taking and innovation, and asks the question: are digital pens here to stay? Author Samer Kurdi Publisher Ghacks Technology News Logo
Advertisement47 Pages Posted: 22 Nov 2015 Last revised: 17 Nov 2017
Date Written: November 20, 2015
Abstract
Scholars have examined the lawmakers’ choice between rules and standards for decades. This paper, however, explores the possibility of a new form of law that renders that choice unnecessary. Advances in technology (such as big data and artificial intelligence) will give rise to this new form – the micro-directive – which will provide the benefits of both rules and standards without the costs of either.
Lawmakers will be able to use predictive and communication technologies to enact complex legislative goals that are translated by machines into a vast catalog of simple commands for all possible scenarios. When an individual citizen faces a legal choice, the machine will select from the catalog and communicate to that individual the precise context-specific command (the micro-directive) necessary for compliance. In this way, law will be able to adapt to a wide array of situations and direct precise citizen behavior without further legislative or judicial action. A micro-directive, like a rule, provides a clear instruction to a citizen on how to comply with the law. But, like a standard, a micro-directive is tailored to and adapts to each and every context.
While predictive technologies such as big data have already introduced a trend toward personalized default rules, in this paper we suggest that this is only a small part of a larger trend toward context-specific laws that can adapt to any situation. As that trend continues, the fundamental cost trade-off between rules and standards will disappear, changing the way society structures and thinks about law.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption "My mistake! Don't think I've fooled anyone!" Mr Bush wrote on Twitter
Politicians want to appeal to a range of voters but Jeb Bush may have overreached chasing the Hispanic vote.
The New York Times has revealed that the former Florida governor identified himself as Hispanic in 2009.
It published a voter registration form where Mr Bush had marked "Hispanic" rather than "White, not Hispanic".
On Twitter Mr Bush came clean, "My mistake! Don't think I've fooled anyone!, after his son called him a "honorary Latino".
The newspaper posted a fuzzy copy of the form, which it said it had obtained from the Miami-Dade County Elections Department.
The Bush camp said it was unclear how the error was made.
"The governor's family certainly got a good laugh out of it," spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said. "He is not Hispanic."
Image copyright Twitter
The Republican politician has excellent credentials for his alternative ethnicity. He is a fluent Spanish speaker and his wife, Columba Bush, was born in Mexico. He also spent two years in Venezuela during his early twenties.
Born in Texas, Mr Bush is the brother of former US President George W Bush and son of former President George HW Bush. He is believed to be considering seeking the Republican nomination for president in the 2016 elections.
He is widely seen as a centrist Republican who can appeal to different demographics, hopefully including Hispanic voters.MORONI, Comoros -- Malaria kills more than half a million people every year, and in the Comoros, a tiny island nation off Africa's east coast, it's been a constant fear. In some villages here, 90 percent of people carried the disease.
But a team of Chinese scientists, partnered with the Comoran government, say they've wiped malaria off the islands with a new, Chinese-made drug given to everyone in the country in a massive, controversial medical experiment.
More than 700,000 people were given three doses of Artequick -- a new combination of anti-malaria drugs which has not been approved for use in humans by any international health body.
The scientists behind the project say malaria has been eliminated in the Comoros, and they're setting their sights much wider.
"The vision is to contribute to the elimination of malaria in the world," Pan Longhua, General Manager of Artequick's maker, Artepharm Co. Ltd., tells CBS News.
The Chinese scientists say they were studying Artequick's side effects, toxicity and the feasibility of getting literally a whole country to take the medication all at once; the only way the experiment can work as designed.
"This is very new"
It is not only a test of a new drug, but a test of an entirely new method of fighting malaria; three administrations of a drug over the course of three months to a large, isolated population, with the goal of completely eliminating the malaria parasite from the human bloodstream.
The scientists argue this method will be more effective than the Western method, which is focused on killing mosquitoes.
"We cannot kill all of the mosquitoes," explains scientist Song Jianping, a professor at Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine. "So we changed the idea. Maybe we can kill all the parasites in the people."
The theory was that repeated doses of Artequick would eliminate the malaria parasite from the whole Comoran human population's bloodstream for three months. That is the life-cycle of the mosquitoes which transmit the disease from person to person, so with no human hosts left to carry the disease, the bugs should no longer able to spread it, and it disappears.
"The Comoros model of elimination will be useful and will be a model for other African countries," Song tells us in the Comoran capital.
Half the people in the Comoros live on less than $1.25 per day. Average life expectancy is just 60 years, and since its independence in 1975, the Comoran government has suffered 20 coups or attempted coups.
Fouad Mhadji, the Vice President and Minister of Health of the Comoros, tells CBS News that China's mass drug experiment is bringing free medicine to his people, saving his government $11 million every year in health care costs, and providing economic benefits that will help stabilize the country.
But the new combination of drugs used to formulate Artequick remains untested and unapproved by the global healthcare community, and there are concerns about testing it on so many people all at once.
"This is a new medicine, and it has not been studied a lot and it is not widely available, says Andrea Bosman of the World Health Organization's Global Malaria Program. "This is new. This is very new."
But Artepharm, the drug's maker, is already citing the experiment in the Comoros as proof of the drug's effectiveness. The company is marketing the drug throughout Africa, advertising Artequick as a malaria treatment with a longer shelf-life, fewer side effects, a shorter regimen and lower cost than other options on the market. All of which makes it a "very promising" drug to treat the disease, according to company boss Pan Longhua.
The World Health Organization doesn't dispute the claim from the Chinese scientists and the Comoran government that malaria has all but vanished on the islands since the Artequick "mass drug administration."
But while the scientists behind the project said only 1 percent of the population should experience side effects from Artequick, many people CBS News spoke to in the country reported serious ones.
Local hospital officials wouldn't blame the drug openly when speaking to us, but they say their patient intake doubled the week after the first administration.
The Comoros government blames the seasonal flu for the surge in hospital admissions.
comoros map CBSNews
Bosman, of the WHO's Global Malaria Program, is critical of how the Chinese experiment's managers are handling reported side effects from Artequick.
He says neither the scientists running the experiment nor the Comoran government have monitored side effects in a systematic way. That, in Bosman's view, not only risks harming the participating Comorans, it is also a missed opportunity to learn lessons from the project that might have helped other countries in the fight against malaria.
"You should probably monitor the population closely when doing these mass drug administrations, and this is very difficult. It's not an easy task. As far as we know, this is not being done during this mass drug administration," Bosman tells CBS News.
"As far as I know, they are looking at the clinics where the drug is being given and asking if there is increased reporting of side effects, but it is very insensitive. This approach is very crude," adds the WHO official.
Few locals told us they were warned of any side effects before taking Artequick. Villagers were also not informed about the risks of Primaquine, a powerful anti-malaria medicine the scientists use in combination with Artequick for this experiment. Primaquine can be lethal -- causing red blood cells to rupture -- but chief scientist Song Jianping says his team is using it at low, safe levels.
Ahead of the second administration, scientists tried to give people more information. We went with Chinese researchers and local doctors to meetings across the island where villagers voiced their confusion and fear of the drug.
"Our main concern is that just a few hours after people took the drug, they got sick, and there were economic effects. Some people spent 30,000 Comoran francs for treatment at the hospital after taking the malaria medicine," said a local man at one meeting, adding, to applause from his peers: "We are poor! We are hungry! Give us rice not a drug."
"This drug is safe and effective," a local doctor shouted through a megaphone, "Some of you think you are being used as guinea pigs. You are not being used as guinea pigs. The WHO would not allow this administration to happen if you were being used as guinea pigs."
Future monitoring
There could also be severe, unintended consequences just a few years down the road.
Dr. Yao Kassankogno, the WHO representative in the Comoros, fears China's mass drug administration will rob the population of its built-up immunity to malaria, creating conditions for an epidemic if the disease is ever re-introduced to the islands.
"After two or three years, if they lose (natural immunity), and the parasite comes back, everyone looks like new, and there will be more severe cases," he tells CBS News, adding that other countries have seen epidemics of a similar nature.
Kassankogno says that means more people could be killed by a resurgence of malaria in the Comoros in the future thanks to China's mass drug administration.
Song Jianping, the chief project scientist and a president at the company which manufactures Artequick, says his team trained 200 Comorans to monitor malaria rates in the future in an effort to prevent the parasite from returning to the islands.
Kassankogno worries, however, that the Comoran government's ability to monitor malaria in the country is simply not up to par.
Critics also say administering a malaria drug to such a large population could build up resistance to Artemesinin, one of the key ingredients in Artequick and one of the most widely-depended upon treatments for malaria in the world today.
Vice President Mhadji dismisses that criticism of the mass drug administration as propaganda fueled by Western rivals to the Chinese drug's maker.
"For me as a politician," he says, "I think it is a problem of market between the Chinese part, and maybe Novartis."
The vice president's reference is to Coartem, another Artemesinin-based Combination Therapy, or ACT, made by Dutch company Novartis, which would be a market competitor to Artequick.
"Why is Artequick bad? It is because it is sold by China," argues Mhadji.
Hope for the future
Among the Comorans CBS News met during the experiment, opinion was divided.
Hadia Ali, a school teacher who said she had to take time off work due to side effects after taking Artequick, still fears the drug. But right her next door, her neighbor Chamsati Assani is hopeful that it can safeguard her son's future.
"As a mom, malaria is a constant fear. When my baby looks tired, does not want to eat, or behaves strangely, I worry it is malaria. The disease is a nightmare in our lives, especially because I don't have money to take my child to the hospital," she tells us near her home in the capital. "We pray to God that this drug will work, because times are hard and malaria is affecting our families more and more."
It will be months, or even years, before Chamsati and other people at risk of malaria around the world can be confident that the Chinese have created a real, safe, and lasting cure for the deadly disease.Thanks for all the comments/questions on the rules. They're extremely helpful to figure out what's unclear and what needs work.
I'll post some clarifications here. I'm also working on an FAQ and a "living" set of rules online that will evolve as more feedback comes in. When I have a link for that, I'll post it.
In the meantime...
Q: What does "next player" mean?
A: "Next player" is the player after the player casting the Spell or Counter-Spell. If there are three players, Albert, Billy, and Clarice, and play proceeds clockwise... Albert casts Draught of Life (Gain two life points.), and nobody plays a Counter-Spell. Albert gains two life points and his turn ends. Billy plays Magic Mirror {Last Spell cast and any resolved effects from Counter-Spell(s) occur again to next player (and only that player).}. If nobody counters, Clarice would gain two life points -- because the effect of the last Spell cast (Draught of Life) occurs again to the "next player" from Billy.
Q: Do Counter-Spells work on Blasts? What about Magic Mirror?
A: Counter-Spells only work on Spells. They do not work on Blasts. Blasts are un-counterable. Magic Mirror also does not work on Blasts. If there are several Blasts played and someone casts a Magic Mirror, you would go through the discard pile in order until you find the last Spell played.
Q: How does turn order work for Counter-Spells? If a player passes on playing a Counter-Spell and others play Counter-Spells after, and play goes back around to her, can she play a Counter-Spell then?
A: Yes, she sure can. Counter-Spells work in that everyone gets a chance to play one, in order. If anyone plays a Counter-Spell on a turn, then everyone gets a chance to play a Counter-Spell in response. This continues until either everyone passes or runs out of cards to play. Part of the strategy in Wands is knowing when to hold and when to play your Counter-Spells to the most advantage.
Q: Can you Worsen Vampiric Gaze (Swap life points with next player.)?
A: Short answer - no. Playing a Worsen triggers the original Spell effect again, in this case, swap life points with next player. So the person who played Vampiric Gaze would swap life points with the next player, and then he would swap back to no real effect. You can use a Worsen as basically an alternate Dispel on a Vampiric Gaze.
You could in theory play a Worsen on a Vampiric Gaze, and then someone else could play a second Worsen on that turn. That would then take effect, with the end result being that the person who played Vampiric Gaze would swap life points with the next player from the person who played the second Worsen (jeez Louise)! That really doesn't happen too often, however. And of course, someone can always Dispel a Worsen played on a Vampiric Gaze to have the Vampiric Gaze take effect as the first player intended.
Q: Can I Worsen a beneficial Spell?
A: Yes. The effect of Worsen is to add on the original spell effect again and shift all the active Spell and Counter-Spell effects to the next player. So you can do things like Worsen a Draught of Life or a Bountiful Spellbook. Keep in mind that this won't give you the beneficial effect -- it will go to the next player. But you may want to prevent someone in the lead from gaining four cards or help out someone who's low on life points.
Q: What happens if Albert, Billy, and Clarice are playing, turn order is clockwise, and... Albert plays Bountiful Spellbook (Draw 4 cards.); Billy skips; Clarice plays Dispel (Cancel last Spell or Counter-Spell cast.); Albert skips; Billy plays Worsen {Add original Spell effect again. Shift all active Spell and Counter-Spell effects to next player (and only that player).}; and Clarice plays Worsen?
A: Whew! A couple of things may make this easier to figure out. Spells and Counter-Spells are resolved in a last-in-first-out order, and a stack (like in Magic: The Gathering). So we can look at the effects as they'd be resolved as:
1. Worsen (Clarice)
2. Worsen (Billy)
3. Dispel (Clarice)
3. Bountiful Spellbook (Albert)
So that would mean -
1. Original spell effect again (Draw 4 cards, and everything gets shifted to next player from Clarice, which is Albert);
2. Original spell effect again (Draw 4 cards, it would get shifted to next player from Billy, which is Clarice, but she cast Worsen as well...)
3. Albert's Bountiful Spellbook is Dispelled.
Pro-Tip: I find it helpful to play Spells and Counter-Spells in an actual stack, and to remove Dispels and the cards they cancel as you resolve them. In this case, you'd be left with two Worsens, and you'd check the original card to see what the effect is that gets played again.
The end result would be that the next player from Clarice -- Albert -- would draw 8 cards (Worsen and Worsen on his original Bountiful Spellbook, which was Dispelled).
Q: What happens if I cast Magic Mirror on a dispelled Spell? For example, Albert casts Eldritch Flames and Billy casts Dispel; then Clarice casts Magic Mirror on her next turn?
A: In short, nothing. The resolved effect is that Albert's Eldritch Flames was canceled. Clarice would be Magic Mirroring a dead spell.
Keep in mind Magic Mirror takes into account all resolved effects from the last Spell and any Counter-Spells played. So, for example, if Albert played Eldritch Flames, Billy played Dispel, and Clarice played Dispel, the resolved effects would be for Albert to hit Billy for two damage. And if Billy then played Magic Mirror on his turn, he would hit Clarice for two damage.
And to Phillipe Laroche - thanks for all the comments. Those could make a cool rules variant. I haven't tried something like land enchantments. That might be fuel for an expansion set!Somewhere near the end of my eight years of surgical training, I was operating with an older female attending surgeon. We were exchanging stories about the traumatic yet awesome experiences of residency.
"Surgery made a man out of me," she chuckled.
We finished the operation and I headed home later that day.
I thought about the magnitude of that statement. She didn't need to explain the masculinization that had occurred through her surgical residency -- I totally got it. As a female surgeon 25 years my senior, hers had certainly been a more grueling experience, with no work hours regulations and a significantly more cutthroat environment than the current, more closely monitored world of surgical training today.
Since the Bell Commission implementation in New York in 1989 and the Institute of Medicine report in 1999 "To Err is Human," restrictions have been placed on resident work hours, sleep requirements and patient hand-offs. But don't get me wrong -- surgical residency today is still grueling. Anyone who has watched Grey's Anatomy would agree with that, however exaggerated or inaccurate Hollywood portrayals may be. And despite roughly one-third of women accounting for surgery residency positions these days, it is still very much a man's field.
I was the only woman in my graduating class of six from a highly competitive general surgery training program just a few years ago. But that was my decision. I had chosen to be smack in the middle of an aggressive, male-dominated field for those eight years.
Was I, too, somehow more masculine now that I'd been through surgical training? Did I lose my femininity through training, or perhaps was I always less feminine because I had chosen surgery as a career?
Indeed, the overwhelming majority of surgeons are men. A woman in scrubs walking through the hospital hallways rarely gets recognized as a doctor, and almost never as a surgeon. I am most often confused for a nurse, amongst other professions.
As a third year resident, having helped complete a colon operation with my attending surgeon, I went to check on our patient post-operatively. He was on the phone, but when I entered the room, he said, "Hang on, the aide just came in to give me my newspaper."
I stifled my frustration and politely corrected him. And to be clear, I was not carrying a newspaper.
On the other hand, male medical students need only don scrubs, and -- BAM -- they look like surgeons. During rounds, some patients would preferentially direct their gaze and answers to the male medical students, even though I was the chief resident leading the group, asking questions and directing care (and nearly a decade older than the students). Even when we are introduced as doctors, some older patients still refer to us as "lady doctors," whereas men are just "doctors."
I am a woman in a man's profession, and it's certainly time that the prevalence of societal sex-stereotyping is publicly addressed.
I, for one, am greatly encouraged by the social media #ILookLike...(fill-in-the-male-dominated-profession-here) movement. It's inspiring to see smart, capable women in fields such as engineering and physics take charge of this issue. In surgery, too, women have long struggled to gain a foothold, and have been fighting to overcome a perception of inability for years.
However, there is another side to the problem that must be openly discussed.
A woman in a male-dominated profession shouldn't need to assimilate herself into an established culture that isn't welcoming to women. The culture needs to change from within to become a truly gender-neutral meritocracy.
Although recognition that women are successfully participating in surgery is paramount, there are emotional barriers, including both subtle and overt misogyny, and a sense that we don't belong unless we are as "hardcore" as the men.
Another difficulty is that the lifestyle is not very conducive for having a family -- a reason frequently cited by women medical students when deciding not to pursue a surgical field. Dr. Julie Frieschlag, former surgeon-in-chief at Johns Hopkins, once wrote "the environment must be made more amenable to women" when discussing the lack of women in surgery.
During training, it was expected that surgery took precedence over all else. Being allowed the incredible privilege of operating on a patient and understanding all the complexities of smooth recovery, as well as the treacherous road of complications, requires significant dedication. But as residents, we were also subtly praised for being more masculine, more tough. For being able to tolerate the brutally long hours and lack of sleep; able to perform a 12-hour operation without succumbing to the physical needs of your body; able to hold back tears when realizing the patient you're operating on is dying in front of your eyes and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
The overall attitude is one of condoning brotherly camaraderie through an incredibly difficult personal experience, but with suppressed emotions, and where bonded commitment to training supersedes all else. It is a place where display of emotion is taken as a sign that maybe you aren't tough enough to be there, and actual admittance of having trouble with surgical life means you definitely shouldn't be there. A place where you put your head down, don't let feelings get in the way, and do your job.
It is also a place where there is muted acceptance of time spent away from your family, and underhanded remarks are made about women and pregnancy. According to a survey conducted by Cliff Straehley, M.D. and Patrizia Longo, Ph.D. for the American Journal of Surgery, over 75 percent of women surgeons experienced gender discrimination in their careers. I've spoken to many women surgeons about these topics.
There are subtle issues, like surgical instruments and sterile gloves being made to fit a man's hand. And there are more obvious transgressions. One surgeon told me that when her co-resident became pregnant, her program director said, "This is why we didn't want to match two girls in the same year. Oh well, we're stuck with you."
Another was told by a transplant surgeon that women surgeons are only useful in the operating room as organ donors. Yet another told me about her three weeks of maternity leave, considered adequate by her all-male faculty, and the only question they asked of her after delivery is whether or not it was a cesarean section birth, because that could mean longer leave. She was told that she belonged at home with her uterus, not in the OR.
We begrudgingly accept this level of misogyny and anti-family sentiment when it's subtle, constitutive and mixed with praise for being tough. After all, this is surgery. And surgeons are tough.
Women surgeons appear to take three distinct approaches to manage this internal conflict to prove their worthiness. She can become "one of the guys," essentially denying that there is any difference between herself and the male surgeons -- hence, she gets treated as gender-neutral. Alternatively, women surgeons can adopt almost a caricature of the traditional female role, seductive and helpless, and the men will consider her a sex object. Lastly, she may feel compelled to prove herself as unquestionably competent at both family and home, which begets praise from others for "having it all."
Many discussed an overall sense that for a woman to be considered as competent as the men, she must show that she's actually more capable than them. I saw many women, myself included, utilize all three of the above approaches.
For me, I struggled the most with the last of these angles. The cost of being in this environment came to a peak when I chose to start my family in the middle of my residency. As a woman in my early 30s, I felt it was a reasonable time to start a family. But I suffered a great deal to balance all of this -- to be a good surgeon, wife and mother.
When I had children, I felt tremendous guilt about being what I considered tantamount to an absentee mom -- and I didn't feel very tough. I had difficulty reconciling being fully committed to the two things I loved most: surgery and my family.
I loved being fully immersed in surgery. Understanding the nature of the ways in which the human body can be altered by infection, inflammation, tumors and trauma is completely engrossing. Being able to reverse those processes in a single day is even more so. It can be all-consuming. And for many surgeons, it is the pursuit of these experiences that gives meaning to their lives.
However, the time away from my family was painful, and there was little support or guidance through this process. I rarely saw my children during the last years of residency. I spent far more hours with my patients and my colleagues than I spent with my husband and kids. I left the house before my children woke up and arrived home after they were asleep, which left me feeling empty and depressed -- emotions that I stifled at work.
During the short months that I breastfed, I used a breast pump in the on-call rooms; most days I did not nurse my children even once. I wasn't there for my son's first steps or first words. I missed all of their doctor's appointments, school events, major milestones. My children would cry when our nanny left for the day, but not for me.
My phone was on 24/7, and anything relating to patient care took precedence over everything else, regardless of time, location or company. I dealt with frustration and resentment from my family and friends as surgery became a major priority in my life. I encountered bitter jealousy and spite from a friend, disappointed with her own choices in life, who took her anger out on me.
I had internal conflict about talking openly to my peers about the difficulties of balancing work and home, for fear of being accused of having anything less than total commitment to surgery, or being "weak." Nothing prepared me for these personal challenges, though now I know that I'm not the first to experience them.
My struggle was to find guidance and understanding through this process, not to somehow be a simultaneous stay-at-home parent and surgeon. Indeed, there is very little guidance during training, and the misogyny doesn't help matters. Surgery is a patriarchal field which, by the nature of its demanding schedules and those who pursue it, is neither female- nor family-friendly.
In addition, there is a severe paucity of female mentors.
There are wage discrepancies, as well as a lack of career advancement and leadership opportunities. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 women physicians and surgeons earned only 62 percent of what their male counterparts were paid.
Only a handful of women currently hold leadership positions -- you can count on two hands the number of female Department Chairs of Surgery in the country. And although research has shown that the overall general surgery attrition rate of about 20 percent is not higher for women, more women are unhappy and consider quitting due to struggles with work-life balance.
It is not sufficient to simply find more women willing to survive in the male-driven world of surgery. Until we recognize that the culture of the surgical institution needs to strive for a more cohesive and balanced environment, women will continue to avoid surgical training, and we will lose competent, intelligent women to other fields. Recognition of stereotyping won't be enough.
Ultimately, my choice to become a surgeon has led me to a fantastic practice and a peaceful life beyond residency, and for that, I am grateful. My growing family has weathered the storm of surgical training, and I'm much more aware of the difficulties facing women surgeons today.
I would argue that these challenges did not masculinize me, but rather bolstered my femininity.
Still, recognition of these issues and mentorship through them would have helped provide a framework for a better experience. I now try to provide that for women medical students and surgery residents, as they traverse the long and challenging road of life in surgery.I have been thinking about this matter as well, myself. I am an adult fan of Star vs. the Forces of Evil and have loyally supported the show – for example, by telling my friends about it, by writing about it, and by purchasing episodes on Amazon as well as buying the comics and the guidebook.
I have had an interest for a long, long time in animation, art, and writing. I think the show is well-written with well-designed characters, and I have enjoyed taking my training in literary criticism and applying it to the show in order to demonstrate there’s a lot of thought and care put into it. As far as I can tell, few people are doing that kind of in-depth analysis.
I am deeply troubled by Sabrina Cotugno’s words. It appears to me that she believes that it is inherently inappropriate for older fans to like a work meant for a younger audience simply because they might have contact with those younger people. This is not a game. That kind of insinuation can ruin – and has ruined – people’s personal and professional lives. If Sabrina Cotugno had said about me the things that I have seen her say about others, you had better believe that I would be consulting a lawyer.
I don’t need headaches like that in my life. I don’t want to have to retain a lawyer’s services just to be able to continue writing about a cartoon show without fear of being defamed by someone who thinks (wrongly) that I am up to no good. It is ridiculous. Do people think animation is made in a vacuum? It is made by adult professionals
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losses against the French battalion were estimated at 2000 men. In the winter and the spring of 1953, the battalion took part in combats which kept the North Korean and Chinese forces from reaching Seoul. After the signing of the armistice in July 1953, the French Battalion left Korea with five French Citations to the Order of the Army; the French Fourragère in the colors of the Military Medal; two Korean Presidential Citations; and three American Distinguished Unit Citations. The French Battalion was the most famous unit of the United Nations Forces in this war. The French Navy took part also in this conflict to repel the Communist North Korean and Chinese forces: Commanded by Commander Cabanie, the frigate "La Grandière" reached the theater of operations on 29 July 1950 and immediately engaged in transport and escort missions between Japan and Pusan (South Korea). In recognition of its action, the crew of the ship was awarded the Korean War Service Medal. In total, 3421 French servicemen were involved in the Korea War. Of these, 287 were killed in action; 1350 wounded in action; 7 missing in action; and 12 became prisoners of war. Greece Holland (Netherlands) India Italy Luxembourg New Zealand Norway Philippines Republic of South Korea Brief Facts Strength of South Korean protective forces at outbreak of war in 1950 ill-equipped South Korean army of less than 100,000 men an army lacking in tanks, heavy artillery, and combat airplanes coast guard of 4,000 men police force of 45,000 men
Current military strength (Source: The World FactBook ) Military branches - Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, National Maritime Police (Coast Guard) Military service age and obligation - 20-30 years of age for compulsory military service; conscript service obligation - 24-28 months, depending on the military branch involved; 18 years of age for voluntary military service; some 4,000 women serve as commissioned and noncommissioned officers, approx. 2.3% of all officers; women, in service since 1950, are admitted to seven service branches, including infantry; excluded from artillery, armor, anti-air, and chaplaincy corps (2005) Manpower available for military service - males age 20-49: 12,458,257 (2005 est.) Manpower fit for military service - males age 20-49: 9,932,026 (2005 est.) Manpower reaching military service age annually - males: 344,723 (2005 est.) Military expenditures - dollar figure - $20 billion FY05 (2005) Military expenditures - percent of GDP - 2.5% FY05 (2005)
) Casualties (Source: Korea Herald, June 20, 2000)
"The war left about 5 million people dead, wounded or missing, more than half of them civilians. It also left more than 10 million people separated from their families, 300,000 war widows and 100,000 war orphans."
Names (Source: Wikipedia)
"The name 'Korean War' is the English language name for the war. In South Korea, the war is called the "June 25th Incident" (육이오 사변; 六二五 事變), although some use the term "한국전쟁" (韓國戰爭), which means Korean War. In North Korea, the war is called the "Fatherland Liberation War" (조국해방전쟁; 祖國解放戰爭). In China the war is called 抗美援朝 (kàng měi yuán cháo), which can be translated to "The War To Resist America And Aid (North) Korea", or the more politically correct "War of Chosun" 朝鲜战争/朝鮮戰爭. Another common term for the Korean War in Chinese-speaking communities is 韩战/韓戰, which is an abbreviation of Korean War. South Africa Sweden Thailand Turkey United Kingdom [KWE Note: The United Kingdom is Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain consists of three regions--England, Scotland and Wales. The remainder of Ireland (the Republic of Ireland or Eire) is an independent country that is not part of the United Kingdom.]There’s nothing quite like a movie monster.
No, we are not talking about Liz Hurley, Catherine Zeta Jones or Rosie O’Donnell, we are talking about hideous creatures that thrive on the weak and the unholy scent of death. Again, we are not talking about Liz Hurley, Catherine Zeta Jones or Rosie O’Donnell.
Anyway, a good movie monster can add real bite (literally) to even the most mundane films.
They can shock, terrify and even inspire highly-profitable marketing spin-offs. We just can’t get enough of them. But why? Is it because we are so sick of being at the top of the food chain? Are we really that bored? Or is just because we take great pleasure in watching a predator outwit its prey?
Truth is, how the hell should we know? Who do you think I am, David frigging Attenborough?
Anyway, in our latest excuse to write some random list, we have decided to expose the monsters with a little more bite. The creatures which really make the feature. And no we are not talking horror icons like Dracula, Freddie, Jason or Michael Myers, or just beastly humans like Hannibal. We are talking horrible, slavering beasts with a taste for human flesh.
And no, we are still not talking about Liz Hurley, Catherine Zeta Jones or Rosie O’Donnell.
Enjoy!
20. Sarlacc
Movie: Star Wars : The Return of the Jedi
A giant anus in the desert which eats you and you are digested for 1,000 years. Now that’s pretty scary.
19. Giant Claw
Sorriest-looking thing on two wings? but who cares?
18. Worms
Movie: Deep Rising
Pretty disgusting worms from a little gem of a horror movie.
17. Stripe
Movie: Gremlins
Best Mohican we’ve ever seen.
16. Pinhead
Movies: Hellraiser series
Don’t ever play with nail guns.
15. The Thing
Movie: The Thing
Don’t fancy yours much.
14. Gamera
Movies: Daikaij? Gamera and a few others
A giant, flying turtle that was launched in Japan as a rival to Godzilla during the 60s. Among some of his other names is ‘Friend To All Children’. We think he should keep quiet about that one.
13. The Marshmallow Man
Movie: Ghostbusters
He’s so sweet.
12. Crawlers
Movie: The Descent
Stopped us from going pot-holing again.
11. Werewolf
Movie: An American Werewolf In London
Americans?! You come over here, shag our women, take our jobs and turn into man-eating wolves.
10. Pale Man
Movie: Pan’s Labyrinth
Really quite horrible.
9. Skeletons
Movie: Jason and the Argonauts
Scared the hell out of us when we were kids.
8. Shelob
Movie: Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
Imagine finding that in your bath.
7. Tyrannosaurus Rex
Movies: Jurassic Park series
True story – a friend of ours’ mum after watching Jurassic Park asked: ‘Dinosaurs: They are extinct, aren’t they?’ Guess the T-Rex really did push new boundaries.
6. Fly
Movie: The Fly
Pesky flies.
5. Gwoemul
Movie: The Host
Tadpoles have never been so scary.
4. Shark
Movie: Jaws
OK, the award should really go to the cello, but still?
3. King Kong
Movies: King Kong in its various guises
The Peter Jackson remake was good? but the 1933 original is better.
2. Godzilla
Movies: Too many to mention
A legend.
1. Xenomorph
Movies: Alien series
Scares the hell out of us.
You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!The best security operation centers (SOCs) are built on efficiency and speed-to-response. But if you’ve ever worked in a SOC or on a security team, you know it’s tough to get your security systems, tools and teams to integrate in a way that streamlines detection, response, and remediation.
One of the most tedious tasks of all is cobbling together alert details to assess if a security event is a real threat, along with correlating data and coordinating the appropriate response.
That’s why security tools need to be connected, security processes need to be efficient and as an industry, we need to start working together. As new technologies arrive on the scene every day (IoT, BOYD and continued virtualization of all the things), security teams need a way to become more agile.
This is where security orchestration and automation comes in. Orchestration is not a new term by any means. You’ve probably heard of DevOps orchestration, which seeks to automate infrastructure deployments and document ‘infrastructure as code’. Now it’s time to apply this to security processes.
What is Security Orchestration?
Security orchestration is a method of connecting security tools and integrating disparate security systems. It is the connected layer that streamlines security processes and powers security automation.
Security Orchestration Applied
Considering the sheer volume of output generated from today’s security tools, it’s no question that SOCs are experiencing serious alert fatigue and ultimately missing intrusions. With security orchestration, SOCs are able to coordinate the flow of data and tasks (e.g. monitoring SIEM alerts) by integrating existing tools and processes into a repeatable, automatable workflow.
A security orchestration solution connects your systems, tools, and processes together, allowing you to leverage automation as necessary, and get more value out of your people, processes, and tools.
Moreover, SOCs can avoid slow, manual processes and instead replace them with contextual decision making and fast responses. After all, security teams should be using their expertise to quickly and effectively respond to events, not wasting time on tedious, manual tasks.
Security Orchestration Rescues Complex, Reactive Processes
Automating security operations and processes is no longer a “nice to have”, it’s a “need to have”. Not only has it become increasingly complex to manage multiple security tools and processes manually, it’s inefficient and can introduce human error to the equation.
For example, common threats like phishing emails require significant time to manually investigate, which opens the door to human error. Security analysts and incident responders have to look for malicious attachments, phishing URLs or suspicious requests for sensitive information by jumping from system to system to test email content. The effort to manually retrieve that data is extensive.
It’s also unrealistic to expect that a modern security team use a ‘single solution’ or tool for the work they do. A CISO can no longer just buy ‘Trusted Security Vendor X’ and check off a compliance checklist. Increasingly, security teams are being held responsible for missed breaches, and look to buy ‘best of class’ products to protect against the threats that affect their businesses. However, using a wide variety of vendors means increased complexity for security teams that is oftentimes difficult to manage.
The good news is that security orchestration can automate these routine investigatory tasks and execute them with far more accuracy, leaving more time for human insight and response. It can also enable CISOs to use their security budget far more effectively: by orchestrating the integration between security products, security teams can still buy the ‘best of breed’ in protection while staying efficient.
Security Orchestration Translates Complex Processes Into Streamlined Workflows
Considering the sheer number of moving parts in any given company (applications, users, credentials, endpoints and more) it’s impossible to stay ahead without some form of automation. With security orchestration, companies are able to translate complex processes into seamless and automated workflows.
Let’s take user provisioning and deprovisioning as an example. Many companies make use of single sign-on (SSO) solutions, which can dramatically simplify the login process while keeping users and data protected. However, not every app supports SSO — which makes for a serious security headache, especially for users with a variety of permissions across systems. Security orchestration solves for this problem in a reliable way.
With security orchestration in place, SOCs can automate the addition or removal of users under different scenarios by using pre-built integrations to the apps your business uses along with a custom workflow to ensure that access is granted only to employees who need it.
Security Orchestration Will Change Security Operations (for the better)
Security orchestration is about to transform security operations in a big way. Bringing in orchestration means you can extend the power of your team so they can instead focus on strategic insight — catching compromises and continuing to build deep layers of defense.
Even better, security orchestration doesn’t require you to throw out your current tools. In fact, it extracts even more value from them by weaving in an orchestration layer to connect the dots between each tool and better inform security team members in the event of an incident.
And with security orchestration in place, and automation handling rote tasks and processes, day-to-day activities can finally be manageable for security teams!
Ready to start exploring orchestration and automation as a solution? With our security automation best practices guide, you'll learn when and how to add orchestration and automation for maximum effectiveness. Get the guide here.LOUIS BURKE | Culture | CONTACT
In the wake of the viral #metoo hashtag, out of touch men worldwide have gained some minor understanding of the sexist underbelly pinned beneath our patriarchal society.
Perhaps most surprising is retired cabbie Alistair Coote (72) who has now started caring about sexual assault upon realising the perpetrators are sometimes immigrants.
“They shouldn’t be allowed to do that! You can’t come here illegally and be doing shit like that, it’s just wrong!”
Formerly a taxi driver, Coote was vocal about defending his fellow cab drivers whenever one was accused of sexually assaulting lone female passengers late at night.
“Ridiculous. In all my years on the job, I never met a cabbie who did that sort of thing. It’s a stereotype is what it is. You want to find a rapist, you just need to look at some of these people we’re letting in here!”
When asked for a source for the particular acts of sexual assault Coote was referring to, he responded immediately that he’d heard it on “the radio” and that it was “all over the papers.”
Coote even went as far as to say that the average person didn’t need to listen to his variety of AM radio stations and tabloid journalism to form the same opinion as him.
“Just step outside mate! They’re everywhere and they’re not the same as us, they’re a different culture. They don’t treat women right, no respect.”
We asked Coote’s wife of 45 years, Mary Coote (71), what she thought of his newfound feminism and Alistair was all too happy to answer on her behalf.
“Just hang on love, I just want to finish what I was saying there and I’ve forgotten now. I’ve forgotten. Bloody hell woman. What’s for tea?”Andrew Puhanic, Contributor
Activist Post
The main stream media and the Globalists in the United States have finally begun to show their true colours. In an article written by Carl Pope published in the Huffington Post titled ‘Why It’s Time to Tax Carbon Pollution’, it has been argued that the United States should follow the lead set by Australia and introduce a carbon tax as part of tax reform and the climate change movement.
The author, Carl Pope, claims that ‘carbon taxes fit conservative tax theory’ and that it would be an ‘important symbol’ for believers of climate change and global warming. He then goes on to claim that a carbon tax would ‘put in place one important piece of an eventual, global, harmonized carbon fee’ (setting the stage for world government).
Many of the claims made by Pope are misleading and outright dishonest…
Pope claims that carbon taxes ‘would generate revenues, and if climate advocates can bring power to the negotiating table, those revenues in part might be devoted to other aspects of energy innovation, like paying for renewable power incentives’.
Of course the tax would generate revenues, but at what cost? As with the current carbon tax experiment in Australia, a carbon tax is nothing but a transfer payment from low-income earners to the pockets of the elite. Having the government force investors to invest in renewable energy will only lead to failure.
He then goes onto claim that:
The threat of climate disruption is real, (that) carbon is harmful and not beneficial, and that something will need to be done.
It’s well-known that the threats of global warming are yet to be conclusively proven, still, main stream media outlets such as the Huffington Post continue to push the globalist agenda on unsuspecting Americans without any accountability or concern.
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The claims made by Pope and the Huffington Post are just as ridiculous as those made by America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Recently, America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration blamed bad weather on global warming. Yes, you read that correctly.
Pope concludes his argument for a carbon tax by claiming:
The biggest danger for the climate movement in a carbon tax debate is that we will let the symbolism trump the substance.
Is he for real? The symbolism of the climate movement is nothing but a fallacy that will lead to the demise of our economic prosperity and that carbon taxes will only be paid by the poor and disadvantaged. The global elite will reap the profits.
The environmental movement’s failure to focus on the worlds real environmental issues such as the overfishing of our seas and water pollution has diluted their cause and mislead many into believing that the environmental movement could generate the momentum for change they seek.
Unfortunately, at the end of the day, developing countries like China and India will never succumb to the pressures imposed by the globalists and environmental movements.China and India will continue to pollute more than ever, and recent figures show that their level of CO2 emissions are increasing. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t improve our environment, but it means we should focus on the tangible risks; not the made-up lies of the globalists and environmental movements.
Avoiding The Eye - Ships Free Today! To read the article by the Huffington Post, click here. To learn more about the carbon tax experiment taking place in Australia, click here. Andrew Puhanic is the founder of the Globalist Report. The aim of the Globalist Report is to provide current, relevant and informative information about the Globalists and Globalist Agenda. You can contact Andrew directly by visiting the Globalist Report. Please support this info by voting for it on Reddit HERE var linkwithin_site_id = 557381; linkwithin_text=’Related Articles:’ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Hillary Clinton had all the star power.
Blockbuster concerts with Jay Z and Beyonce in Cleveland, Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen in Philadelphia, Lady Gaga in Raleigh, North Carolina.
“We don’t need Jay Z or Beyonce,” Mr. Trump told fans at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Tuesday. “We don’t need Jon Bon Jovi. We don’t need Lady Gaga. All we need is great ideas to make America great again.”
He was right. And now the celebrities are freaking out — perhaps realizing their influence only goes so far.
Lady Gaga marched over to Trump Tower after Mr. Trump’s victory Wednesday morning and held a sign that read “Love trumps hate.” Ms. Gaga posted her protest picture on Instagram, adding the caption, “I want to live in a #CountryofKindess #LoveTrumpsHate He divided us so carelessly. Let’s take care of each other.”
Singer Mick Jagger tweeted: “Just watching the news…maybe they’ll ask me to sing ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ at the inauguration. Ha!”
Singer Katy — who held several campaign events with Mrs. Clinton — was more ominous, writing “THE REVOLUTION IS COMING.”
Chris Evans, the actor who plays Captain America, was just embarrassed.
“This is an embarrassing night for America. We’ve let a hatemonger lead our great nation. We’ve let a bully set our course. I’m devastated,” he tweeted.
Cher — who promised to leave the U.S. if Mr. Trump won (we’ll see if she goes through with the promise) — wrote: “world will never be the same. I feel Sad for the young. [Toilet emoji] will never be more than the toilet, I’ve used as a symbol 4 Him. U can’t polish [turd emoji].”
Ha.
Rapper Snoop Dogg was more dramatic, posting an Instagram reading: “Worst day in America 9/11, 2nd worst day in America 11/9.”
Actress Sophia Bush wrote on Twitter shortly after midnight: “The number of ‘I’m scared’ and ‘my heart is broken’ texts I’ve gotten in the last 20 minutes breaks my heart…Man oh man America…”
Rashida Jones was just frightened — how did her bubble not allow her to see the rise of Mr. Trump, she openly questioned.
“I’m so scared,” Ms. Jones tweeted. “How did we get here?”
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Image caption Wales and Northern Ireland are keeping GCSEs, but so far are not adopting the changes proposed for England
MPs have warned against a rush towards separate school exams systems in Wales, England and Northern Ireland, saying such a move would be "regrettable".
New-look GCSEs for schools in England are to be unveiled, with exams graded from eight to one rather than A* to G.
Wales and Northern Ireland are keeping GCSEs, but so far are not adopting the changes proposed for England.
The education select committee warned against sleep walking into a separation of school qualifications.
Last month the Westminster Education Secretary Michael Gove wrote to his Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts, saying that a splitting of the consensus was a "natural consequence" of devolution.
But the Welsh minister, Leighton Andrews, has emphasised that GCSEs and A-Levels will be retained in Wales.
The decision in Wales follows a review which heard concerns about the quality of GCSE students' abilities at reading, writing and maths.
From 2015, GCSEs in England will move from coursework and continuous assessment to exams at the end of two years.
Pupils will face more rigorous content, with those studying English, for example, having to read a 19th Century novel and a whole Shakespeare play.S3xyPillows is a battle rank 100 Planetside 2 player, He has gotten to battle rank 100 on two accounts under the same name after having one permanently banned. He is one of the leaders of a large outfit called Icy Hot Stuntaz he first became a member of the game in December the 2nd of the year 2012. his score per minute is 689.7 and his K/D ratio is 3.89. 45% of all S3xy’s kills are Vanu Sovereignty players and the other 55% are New Conglomerate players. S3xyPillows plays for the Terran Republic the best of all factions. He has accumulated 18,862 kills to this day and 4,843 deaths he has assisted in kill 2,735 players. S3xyPillows has attacked 743 facilities and defended 1,132 facilities. He has accumulated a overall score of 19,743,128. He has a total play time of 19 days and 21 hours. S3xyPillows has destroyed 3,158 enemy vehicles. he gained 6,214 medals for his service in Planetside to the glorious Terran Republic. He has an accuracy for his infantry of 15.3% and has fired 672,681 bullets from all his guns he has only hit 102,919 bullets fired. His vehicle accuracy is at a much higher rate being 36.62% of all shots fired being 234,346 out of 92,046. His most time played on a class is Heavy at 48% followed closely by Engineer at 40%. All other classes are gronks.
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Shortly after her wife died in March, Arlene Goldberg had to give up the beloved South Florida home that the couple shared. Because Goldberg’s 2011 marriage to her partner of 47 years wasn’t recognized as legal in Florida, she was denied her wife’s social security benefits.
Without that income, Goldberg, 67, couldn’t pay her mortgage. “I’m trying to figure out how I am going to get through this time,” she said from Fort Myers, Florida. “I really can’t even pay my bills.”
Goldberg is among an untold number of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people nationwide who suffer economic distress and in some cases, poverty, as a result of anti-gay laws such as same-sex marriage bans, or from a lack of legal protections, like non-discrimination ordinances, according to a new report by two think tanks, the progressive Center for American Progress and the pro-LGBT Movement Advancement Project.
Census data and other research over the last decade have shown higher rates of financial hardship and poverty among gays. But the report’s authors make the connection between those difficulties and specific laws and policies by analyzing current incomes and poverty rates for LGBT people and their heterosexual counterparts in states that have protections and those that don’t.
“You’ve got all of these laws that have indisputable economic impact,” said Ineke Mushovic, executive director of MAP. “In all these states that have the bad laws we actually are seeing lower incomes and higher rates of poverty (for gays) that is disproportionate to what’s happening with their heterosexual peer comparison.”
"There is a pervasive myth that LGBT people are more affluent than the general population."
Key findings from the report, “Paying an Unfair Price,” include:
- Same-sex couples raising children made about $10,000 less a year than their heterosexual peers in states banning same-sex marriage, whereas incomes for the two groups were almost at parity in states allowing gay nuptials, according to analysis of 2012 U.S. Census data.
- Single LGBT adults who have kids are three times more likely to have incomes near the poverty line compared to single heterosexuals raising children.
- Married or partnered LGBT parents are twice as likely to have household incomes near the poverty line as opposed to married opposite-sex parents.
- Lesbian couples suffer a double financial hit due to their sexual orientation and the gender wage gap: In 2010, 7.6 percent of lesbian couples were poor compared to 5.7 percent of heterosexual couples and 4.3 percent of gay couples.
- A study of transgender Americans revealed they were nearly four times more likely to have a household income under $10,000 per year than the overall population (15 percent versus 4 percent).
-- And 29 percent of gay adults earlier this year said they were thriving financially, compared to 39 percent of heterosexual adults.
Sources for the report include survey data commissioned by the Center for American Progress; analyses of census data and Gallup polls by the Williams Institute, a think tank focused on LGBT issues; and federal agencies, community-based reports and research published in academic journals.
“There is a pervasive myth that LGBT people are more affluent than the general population,” said Mushovic of MAP, adding that instead there was a “very real financial cost” to these policies. “When you’re thinking about anti-LGBT laws, people don’t really understand the real consequences that has on people’s survival, their ability to put food on the table, the ability to pay the rent.”
Mushovic said the marriage bans and lack of legal protections needed to be viewed as a package, because of how they interacted to trigger a series of financial difficulties. For example, no marriage recognition generally means no shared health insurance for gay couples.
"We knew it wouldn’t be an issue if we were a heterosexual married couple in North Carolina."
That was the case for Evan Adams-Raczowski, 29, who said he and his husband, Joseph, 41, moved from North Carolina to the Washington, D.C., area after he accrued $6,000 in medical debt. The pair couldn’t get married in their home state so Evan couldn’t be covered under his husband’s generous health plan and had to buy his own.
When Evan, who teaches part-time for an online community college, fell ill in 2011, the debt built up as doctors tried to diagnose him.
“We knew it wouldn’t be an issue if we were a heterosexual married couple in North Carolina,” he said.
After the state approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in May 2012, the couple decided to move to a state that recognized gay nuptials. That meant leaving behind family and friends, and trading a home for an apartment and higher cost of living in Maryland. But Evan is benefitting from his husband’s medical coverage though he still is paying off his debt.
“It was our only option if we wanted to get married and also have equal rights as far as something as simple as a doctor visit that some people take for granted,” he said. “I didn’t like being afraid of going to the doctor because I just couldn’t afford it.”
"Neither sexual orientation laws, family law, nor the educational system should be used as social welfare systems to be manipulated to boost incomes based on someone’s sexual lifestyle."
Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the anti-gay marriage Family Research Council, said it wouldn’t be surprising for LGBT couples to be more likely to live in poverty than opposite-sex ones as a result of the benefit of the “natural institution of marriage between a man and a woman, rather than the product of any legal ‘discrimination.’”
But he noted some surveys suggest gays have higher incomes than heterosexuals.
“Neither sexual orientation laws, family law, nor the educational system should be used as social welfare systems to be manipulated to boost incomes based on someone’s sexual lifestyle,” he said in a statement.
Twenty states have enshrined protections for gays in employment, relationships (marriage), adoption and schools, while another 28 for the most part have not. Two states offer most but not all of these benefits.
Some of the financial assistance that can be denied gays in states without same-sex marriage includes spousal, veteran and disability benefits, survivor’s pension and the ability to file joint taxes or claim a family tax credit. The denial of such resources hurts the most vulnerable, such as families, older adults and those already struggling financially, Mushovic said.
"I am important and she was important. And we were married.”
Goldberg is now living on $1,400 a month, compared to the roughly $5,600 she and her wife, Carol Goldwasser, used to take in. Goldberg can’t access Goldwasser’s Social Security – which is $800 more than she earns – because the Social Security Administration only recognizes marriages valid in the state where the couple lives. Goldberg also doesn’t receive her deceased wife’s pension benefit, about $2,000 a month, because Goldwasser didn’t name her as the recipient of it. Goldberg said her spouse feared that being out as a lesbian at work could lead to discrimination. That turned out to be an unfounded fear, said Goldberg, who learned after Goldwasser’s death that her colleagues were aware of and accepted her sexual orientation.
But Goldberg couldn’t retroactively change the pension decision.
“Florida is a state that lacks nondiscrimination protections based on employment and other factors,” said Mushovic of MAP. “If there were laws in place that would have protected her (Goldwasser) from discrimination, then it would have been much easier for her to put her wife down as her beneficiary.”
Goldberg says she will pursue the Social Security. For the moment, she is awaiting a new death certificate for her wife saying she died married – not single, as the original document had read. Goldberg is part of an ACLU lawsuit challenging Florida’s marriage ban, and in a recent decision striking the prohibition down, a judge ruled that the state had to correct Goldwasser’s death certificate to reflect she had been married.
She hopes to use that document, plus others, to one day collect her wife’s Social Security benefit.
“It sure would help, big time. Not only financially but emotionally it would help because it’s verifying that I’m not a second-class citizen,” Goldberg said. “I am important and she was important. And we were married.”
Are you a same-sex couple or LGBT person who has experienced financial hardship due to anti-LGBT laws or policies? Contact the reporter with your story: [email protected] 7 Director J.J. Abrams is known for his patented Mystery Box approach to filmmaking. In the past hes kept plot points and character details close to his vest so fans can enjoy his latest movies spoiler-free. Unfortunately for Abrams, the production of Episode 7 is leaking rumours like a sieve and one massive plot point has just dropped (SERIOUSLY HUGE POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOLLOW): According to the website Making Star Wars, the feature will include a scene where Episode 7s protagonist, Kira, confronts a monster that's rumoured to be living in a cave on a distant planet. It turns out the Monster is none other than Luke Skywalker, the hero of the original Star Wars Trilogy. What makes this revelation earth-shattering to Star Wars fans is that it turns out Luke has turned to the Dark Side and is, in fact, a villain. Keep in mind that none of this has been officially verified and could be nothing more than wild speculation. However, hardcore Star Wars fans may be bummed out by this alleged turn of events because the whole point of Return of the Jedi was that Luke forsook the Dark Side and redeemed his father Darth Vader in the process. Luke becoming a villain later on defeats the purpose of the original trilogy. But, is this spoiler as straightforward as it seems? There is another way to interpret this encounter in a cave besides Luke simply being a villain. If we look back to The Empire Strikes back, we know that part of Lukes Jedi training involved Yoda sending him into a cave to confront his greatest fear, which turned out to be a vision of Vader. Could this spoiler actually be a similar scenario that occurs in the middle of the film rather than the end? Could this simply be a matter of Luke testing Kira to determine her Jedi worthiness? Also, its important to note that in Episode IV Obi Wan used his Jedi powers to sound like a massive beast to frighten Sand People; so, Luke might be doing something similar in his cave, hence the rumors that its occupied by a monster. While many fans are crestfallen at the possibility Luke may be a villain, our alternate interpretation offers a new hope. What do you think? Has Abrams jumped the shark on the new Star Wars trilogy already? Or, is this just a crafty twist hes put into the plot to thrill his audience while paying homage to the original trilogy? Let us know in the comments.Isn’t it amazing how rebellious and controversial Madonna seems to become as she ages? On Monday, Madonna called Obama a black Muslim on stage, in what could easily be one of her weirdest endorsements yet. Plus, Madonna promised she’ll strip if Obama wins the re-election.
Monday night at the Verizon Center in downtown Washington, Madonna’s fans heard their diva endorse Barack Obama in a weird way. The 54-year-old pop diva shouted at her fans to vote for Obama, the “black Muslim in the White House!”. Madonna’s choice of words had the media scrutinizing her, but the diva explained she was being ironic when she referred to Obama as a black Muslim.
“Y’all better vote for f**king Obama, OK? For better or for worse, all right? We have a black Muslim in the White House! Now that’s some amazing s**t” Madonna told her fans at Monday night’s concert. Madonna also stripped down to her bra to reveal a black “Obama” stencil on her back. The 54-year-old diva also promised she’s going to strip everything “when Obama is in the White House for a second term”.
“Now, it’s so amazing and incredible to think that we have an African-American in the White House…we have a black Muslim in the White House” Madonna said while sipping from a water bottle. This “means there is hope in this country, and Obama is fighting for gay rights, so support the man” she added.
Tuesday night, Madonna explained she was only being ironic when she said Obama was a black Muslim. Her speech says it all, but the tabloid media loves to stir some confusion and cause a fuss. Headlines early morning read about Madonna making a confusing speech about Barack Obama being Muslim.
“I was being ironic on stage. Yes, I know Obama is not a Muslim – though I know that plenty of people in this country think he is. And what if he were? Madonna reacted to media scrutiny. “The point I was making is that a good man is a good man, no matter who he prays to. I don’t care what religion Obama is – nor should anyone else in America” she added.Two rookie MPs from Manitoba are being mentioned as possible cabinet members in the Justin Trudeau-led Canadian government.
Trudeau, whose Liberal Party swept into power with a majority win in Monday's federal election, has said the new cabinet — chosen from among his 183 MPs — will be sworn in on Nov. 4 and will have gender balance.
Jim Carr, who defeated Conservative incumbent Joyce Bateman by more than 17,000 votes in the Winnipeg South Centre riding, has been listed by political reporters and analysts as a possibility.
The former newspaper journalist, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra oboist and director of the Manitoba Arts Council has political experience as a Manitoba Liberal MLA from 1988 to 1991. He was also deputy leader of the provincial Liberal Party during that time.
The other name on some lists is Robert-Falcon Ouellette, the giant-killer in Winnipeg-Centre who defeated longtime NDP MP Pat Martin by 8,981 votes.
Ouellette, who was born in Saskatchewan and raised in Calgary, moved to Winnipeg from Quebec City five years ago, after getting a job at the University of Manitoba. He took his first shot at a political seat a year ago, running for mayor of Winnipeg and coming in third.
Deciding on cabinet positions is going to be a big task for Trudeau, who has said he wants to slim down the number of ministers to 25 from the 40 it ballooned to under Stephen Harper.
Trudeau has not yet set a date for reconvening Parliament
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his team rejected the bid as it was deemed too low. He just acquired his International FA status this year, therefore he’s no longer subjected to posting bids.
The South Korean southpaw finished his 2016 regular season campaign with the KBO (Korean Baseball Organization) KIA Tigers with a record of 10-12, along with an earned run average of 3.68 in 31 games played (200 1/3 innings pitched) this year, primarily as a starter. He currently owns a record of 87-60, and an earned run average of 3.95 in 305 games played (1251 1/3 innings pitched) in his 10 year career in the KBO, all with the KIA Tigers organization.It’s a curious bit of trivia to note that while Pierre Elliott Trudeau created the Status of Women Canada office, the first three people he appointed to the post were men.
He certainly had an excuse the first time around, when the position was formed in 1971 in response to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. There was only one female MP that term and she was with the NDP. That wasn’t the case, however, when Trudeau Sr. appointed men to it in two subsequent parliaments.
There’s something of a parallel between this little tidbit and another, more recent item, that’s never really been discussed. When Justin Trudeau won the Liberal leadership in 2013, four of the five candidates he beat were women. All of them had much stronger resumes than him.
Funny that. The guy who, the fairy tale goes, released the nation’s downtrodden women from their shackles by proclaiming “because it’s 2015” only got to his post after elbowing out women far more accomplished than him using his alpha male theatrics and father’s name.
Yet now there are further cracks in this feminist warrior’s breastplate after he shuffled Maryam Monsef from democratic reform minister to head up Status of Women Canada.
She was clearly downgraded for her shoddy performance. There’s no denying that. The main task at democratic reform was to change the way we’ve voted since 1867. No small order. And Monsef blundered it big time. Meanwhile, the big job at Status of Women is … well there is no big job. (More on that in a moment.)
Now people have questions. Does this mean Trudeau doesn’t take the Status of Women gig seriously? Or that he doesn’t actually value women’s issues?
But they’re two different questions. Ones that are at odds with each other. The truth is anyone who does believe in gender equality should think it’s about time they closed shop at this retrograde pseudo-department.
I’m betting Trudeau agrees but, like Stephen Harper before him, just won’t shutter it because of the optics. After all, if he did in fact think it was integral to securing the gender equality he makes a big show of publicly supporting, he’d restore it to its former glory.
The Liberals aren’t reopening the regional Status of Women offices the Conservatives closed back in 2006. At the time there were a whopping 16 of them. Now there are three plus the head office in Ottawa.
“We don’t need to separate the men from the women in this country,” Bev Oda, the minister at the time, said. “This government as a whole is responsible to develop policies and programs that address the needs of both men and women.” No kidding.
The ministerial mandate letter Trudeau sent to Patty Hajdu, Monsef’s predecessor, outlines the post’s role. It’s almost exclusively about hovering over the shoulders of other ministers busy with real files and ensuring that a “gender-based analysis is applied to proposals before they arrive at cabinet for decision-making.”
In other words, the 32-year-old Monsef, who’s never held much of a real job, is tasked with reminding the likes of 45-year-old Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was a Crown prosecutor before she became regional chief of the B.C. First Nations, about the challenges faced by women today. What a joke.
Poor Monsef. First she’s assigned the toughest job, then the most needless.
This whole office is of course symbolic. It only has a $30-million annual budget — which is mostly spent on doling out grants to other groups. It’s even slated to slightly decrease under the Liberals’ watch.
But at a time when 6 in 10 of university graduates in Canada are women — to take but one statistic that’s significantly changed since 1971 — is it the right symbolism?
The office has already faced a soft shut down. The only question is who will wind down the rest.
[email protected] findings
Over the last decade, the UK government has incurred at least £650 million in such penalties because of errors in how public bodies have spent European Union funds—the sixth-highest level of 'disallowance' in the EU as a proportion of funding received by the Commission.
The Committee finds departments "only seem to have woken up to this problem recently" and calls on the Treasury to take the lead in addressing urgently the causes and levels of penalties incurred.
The Committee says: "By the end of 2016 we expect departments to have spelt out what actions they will take to reduce penalties. If necessary, a task force should be established to ensure that the action needed is delivered."
UK departments add complexity to EU programmes
The Committee highlights the problem of UK departments contributing "additional complexity" to the implementation of EU programmes, driving up error rates.
Too little is being done to learn lessons and share best practice in Whitehall, says the Committee. Departments are also doing too little to learn from other member states.
On agriculture and rural development funding, for example, the Report states: "There is clearly scope to learn, with 21 countries having better records than the UK’s figure of £2.70 disallowance for every £100 received over the last 10 years.
"For example, the equivalent figures as at June 2015 for other countries include Lithuania at 90 pence, Ireland at 20 pence, and Estonia, Germany, Latvia and Austria at just 10 pence of penalties for every £100 received."
Treasury does not hold departments to account
The Committee concludes the Treasury "does not sufficiently hold departments to account for spending EU funds" and calls on it to publish a strategy for using EU funds in the UK, setting out standards for performance and value for money.
It finds the private sector and UK universities "have a good success rate in securing funding from EU-wide funding competitions" and urges the Treasury to lead new work to learn from this.
The Treasury should also "press the Commission to identify actions that will ensure that a budget focused on results becomes a reality", says the Committee, concluding "the current EU budget process limits the achievement of value for money".
Chair's comments
Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the PAC, said:
"Government inaction on EU penalties is costing taxpayers dear. Money intended to support projects and programmes in the UK is instead being lost. The apparent lack of practical concern about this fact until recently will anger many people, whatever their views on Britain's EU membership. As a priority the Treasury and departments must identify the reasons they keep being penalised and take whatever action is necessary to rectify their mistakes. Beyond that, on behalf of taxpayers our Committee will expect the announcement of a named official to take responsibility for improving performance in this area. What makes this doubly frustrating is departments have hindered themselves by introducing still further complexity to already complex EU programmes. As we have seen, these poor decisions can have costly repercussions. The experiences of EU member states, the UK private sector and UK universities point to some simple overall conclusions: the government has much to learn and the sooner it learns it, the better."
UK third largest net budget contributor
In 2014, the EU budget received €143.9 billion (£116.0 billion) in contributions from 28 member states and other sources, and made €142.5 billion (£114.8 billion) in payments. The UK gross contribution to the EU budget, after taking into account the UK rebate of £4.9 billion, was £11.4 billion.
It received £5.6 billion in public and private-sector receipts from the EU budget, thus making the UK’s net contribution £5.7 billion. If private sector receipts are excluded, the net contribution in 2014–15 was equivalent to 1.4% of UK government total departmental expenditure.
Overall, the UK was the third-largest net contributor of all member states in 2014.
Report summary
Over the last decade, the UK government has incurred at least £650 million in penalties to the European Commission because of errors in how UK public bodies have spent European Union (EU) funds.
EU rules and regulations for spending EU funds are complex, and this in itself contributes to errors; however, UK governments have chosen to design programmes which have added to this complexity, driving up the risk of errors and penalties further.
Departments have exhibited "lack of urgency"
UK government departments have exhibited a distinct lack of urgency in tackling complexity and reducing the levels of penalties incurred.
HM Treasury has not done enough to hold departments to account for spending EU funds, nor to encourage learning from best practice, nor to lead by example by improving the quality of information available on how well EU funds are spent in the UK.
Further information
Image: iStockphotoBill Plaschke Dodgers don't have the time to make it right this season
All the Dodgers' big acquisitions need to learn how to play together and by next year they should roll through the division. But for this season, it would be a shock if they make the playoffs.
Dodgers pitcher Josh Beckett delivers a pitch in the first inning against… (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles…) Millions, schmillions. Money can't buy you runs. Money can't buy you time. Money can't move a runner or work a pitcher or, as it turns out, win a division. It's time to look past the dollar signs and face the facts. The Dodgers are baseball's Poor Little Rich Team, their attempts to buy a championship stymied by their hurry to do so. This will be a very good baseball team. Next year. This will be a team capable of blowing through the National League and winning a World Series with the best lineup in baseball. Next year. For now, with the heart of their batting order still in its infancy, the Dodgers are crawling through the final days of the season red-faced, colicky and desperate for a growth spurt that's not happening. If they make the playoffs, it will be a shock, and that should not surprise anybody.
Entering the most crucial stretch of their wild-card chase Thursday, the Dodgers drove into another ditch, falling two games behind the St. Louis Cardinals by losing to the Cardinals, 2-1, at Dodger Stadium. That's seven losses in eight games. That's six hits in nine innings. That's a second consecutive failure by the middle of their order in the pressurized ninth inning, but at least they are lasting longer. On Wednesday in Arizona, the Dodgers' heart was stopped in 10 pitches. On Thursday, thanks to a double by Hanley Ramirez, it hung in there for 16 pitches. "There are some issues,'' Manager Don Mattingly said before the game. "There's something to be said for guys being around each other. I can't deny it." Here's the main issue: The Dodgers' four best hitters are all cornerstone sluggers who wouldn't know a hit-and-run if it hit them and ran. They've made their money bashing in runs, not carefully producing them. They haven't played in the same lineup long enough to know when to instinctively protect each other by taking a pitch or shortening a swing. The Dodgers and their $300-million worth of acquisitions need two words, and it's not "bling bling" or "tax shelter." The Dodgers need spring training. It's that simple. Adrian Gonzalez and Ramirez need time to learn Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. A lineup around them needs to be assembled that will complement those four guys. Everyone needs to know each other better. Everyone needs, you know, practice. In their last six games,, the Dodgers have batted.185 while collecting just three hits in 35 at-bats with runners in scoring position. It is a small sample window into what has been their biggest problem since this full team was assembled. They don't hit well together. They don't make each other better. They bat like four separate guys in a home-run hitting contest, their only real connection coming during the high-fives after a ball leaves the yard, which has happened rarely. Since finalizing their playoff roster with the trade that brought the likes of Gonzalez and Josh Beckett, the Dodgers have gone 6-11 and their middle of their order has mostly gone soft. Ethier is batting.303 since the trade, but Ramirez is hitting.186, Kemp is hitting.188, and Gonzalez is hitting.233.
Most obviously lost has been Gonzalez, who hit a home run on his second pitch as a Dodger, yet has not hit one in the 72 ensuing at-bats since then. "There's some challenges with it, that's for sure, those problems are there," Mattingly said. "But I don't think they keep you from having success." It did on Thursday. In the first inning, the first four hitters took the first pitch from the Cardinals' Lance Lynn and the Dodgers wound up with a run on Mark Ellis' single and an eventual double by Gonzalez. But with Gonzalez on second, Ramirez mindlessly hacked at the first two pitches and struck out looking on the third. The Cardinals, meanwhile, did everything right, taking the lead in the seventh an opposite-field ground single by Allen Craig, and when is the last time you've seen one of the big Dodgers do that? "Everybody is trying to be who they are, but it's just not happening for us," said Shane Victorino, shaking his head. "This is not a smarty pants answer — we just need to score runs." But sometimes runs just don't score themselves. Sometimes they have to be manufactured by wit and unselfishness. Sometimes, as the Cardinals' appearance here reminded us Thursday, a team can win a championship with no 100-RBIs guys and somebody named David Freese being World Series MVP. Mattingly compared his new players to businessmen who are transferred to an office and expected to immediately excel. "You don't know anybody, you won't be comfortable," said Mattingly. "You have to become part of each other.... There's a value in that... how you quantify that in wins and losses, I don't know." I know. It's more losses than wins. It's a season that appears beyond fixing, an odd case of adding too much, too late. [email protected] twitter.com/billplaschke
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Seinfeld The early seasons of Seinfeld - are these episodes evidence of a Sitcom finding its stride, or a prologue to the lives of the four people that surrendered to a life about nothing? 2015-09-08
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Computers on our Face Official Promotional video for Google Glass, released this past February. Well this is interesting, Google 2013-06-29SPECIAL REPORT | How do a bestselling novel, an Academy
Award-winning screenwriter, a pair of Hollywood hotties
and a No. 1 opening at the box office add up to $78 million of red ink?
The documents, obtained by The Times, provide a rare behind-the-curtain peek at the thousands of expenditures that drain the budget of a major motion picture. The line items cover such things as "local bribes" within the Kingdom of Morocco and the salaries and "star perks" paid to Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz.
This kind of spending, according to accounting records, helped turn "Sahara" into one of the biggest financial flops in Hollywood history.
The cost of the 46-second clip: more than $2 million.
But when the film opened in theaters in April 2005, the sequence had been deleted. "In the context of the movie, it didn't work," said director Breck Eisner.
ON an old studio lot outside London, a production crew began work on the movie "Sahara" in November 2003 by staging the crash of a vintage airplane.
Movie budgets are one of the last remaining secrets in the entertainment business, typically known to only high-level executives, senior producers and accountants.
"The studios guard that information very, very carefully," said Phil Hacker, a senior partner in a Century City accounting firm that audits motion pictures. "It is a gossip industry. Everyone wants to know what everyone else is getting paid."
The records offer insights into the economics of modern-day moviemaking and industry practices that seldom are disclosed. Some examples:
* "Sahara," an action-adventure based on the bestselling novel by Clive Cussler, has lost about $105 million to date, according to a finance executive assigned to the movie. But records show the film losing $78.3 million based on Hollywood accounting methods that count projected revenue ($202.9 million in this case) over a 10-year period.
* About 1,000 cast and crew members worked on "Sahara." The highest-paid was McConaughey, who received an $8-million fee, or $615,385 for each week of filming, not including bonuses and other compensation. Cruz earned $1.6 million. Rainn Wilson, who since has raised his profile through roles in "Six Feet Under" and "The Office," was paid $45,000 for 10 weeks of work.
* "Courtesy payments," "gratuities" and "local bribes" totaling $237,386 were passed out on locations in Morocco to expedite filming. A $40,688 payment to stop a river improvement project and $23,250 for "Political/Mayoral support" may have run afoul of U.S. law, experts say.
* Ten screenwriters were paid $3.8 million in fees and bonuses -- highlighting the increasingly common practice of hiring and firing numerous writers on big-budget features. David S. Ward, who won an Academy Award for "The Sting," received $500,000.
* The production firm owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz got $20.4 million in government incentives to film and edit parts of "Sahara" in Europe.
Unlike most financial failures, "Sahara" performed reasonably well, ranking No. 1 after its opening weekend and generating $122 million in gross box-office sales. But the movie was saddled with exorbitant costs, including a $160-million production and $81.1 million in distribution expenses.
The financial documents obtained by The Times were submitted as "confidential" exhibits in an ongoing Los Angeles jury trial.
Cussler initially sued, claiming that Anschutz's producers reneged on his $10-million contract by failing to honor his right to approve the script. Anschutz countersued, alleging that Cussler exaggerated sales of "Sahara" and other Dirk Pitt adventure books and that he refused to promote the film, hurting attendance. Both sides seek millions of dollars in damages.
"I'm floored that these documents could have been provided by someone, despite the fact that there is a clear agreement within the litigation ensuring that they are confidential," said Marvin Putnam, an Anschutz attorney. "They have been provided in clear breach of that agreement."KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia- Malaysian authorities have sent 66 Muslim schoolboys identified by teachers as effeminate to a four-day camp where they will receive counseling on masculine behavior to discourage them from being gay, an official said Tuesday.
Gay rights advocates decried the measure as a symptom of widespread homophobia in this Muslim-majority country where gay sex is illegal.
The boys between 13 and 17 years old reported Monday for what is officially being called a "self-development course" after their schoolteachers in Terengganu state identified them as students who displayed effeminate mannerisms, said Razali Daud, the state's education director.
They will undergo religious and motivational classes and physical guidance, Razali said. He declined to give further details.
The camp is meant "to guide them back to the right path in life before they reach a point of no return," Razali told The Associated Press. "Such effeminate behavior is unnatural and will affect their studies and their future."
It is the first such program in Terengganu, a conservative state. Over the years, Terengganu's officials have held programs aimed at promoting Muslim morality, such as offering free honeymoons to save the marriages of couples considering divorce.
Razali denied the boys were compelled to attend the camp, saying they were simply "invited" to do so. After it ends, their teachers and parents will monitor and continue advising them.
"It is not an overnight cure," he said. "We can't force the boys to change, but we want them to know what their choices are in life. Some effeminate boys end up as a transvestite or a homosexual, but we want to do our best to limit this."
Pang Khee Teik, the co-founder of a Malaysian sexual rights awareness group, called the camp "outrageous."
"If we don't do anything to stop the rot of homophobia... I worry it may get worse," he said.
Gay Malaysians say they face discrimination from government policies such as a law that makes sodomy punishable by 20 years in prison. The law is seldom and selectively enforced, but some states also impose jail terms for public cross-dressing.
Last year, a young gay Malaysian who posted a Youtube clip defending his sexuality received online death threats. Government authorities accused him of insulting Islam, though no official action was taken.
Malaysia's most high-profile use of the anti-sodomy law involves opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is on trial on charges of having sex with a male former aide. Anwar, who is married with six children, insists the charge was fabricated to smear his reputation. The government denies plotting against him.Azerbaijan 'arrested 40 and seized assault rifles and grenades as it thwarted planned terror attacks on Eurovision'
Security forces claim song contest venue and major hotels were targets
Apparently most extravagant alleged attack to date
Other plots included assassination attempt on President Ilham Aliyev, according to officials
Security services in Azerbaijan say they arrested 40 suspects and seized weapons as they thwarted a series of planned terror attacks against the Eurovision Song Contest.
Officials said they had discovered 13 assault rifles, a machine gun, 12 handguns, three rifles, 3,400 rounds of bullets, 62 hand grenades, and several kilograms of explosives.
Targets included the song contest venue and major hotels housing foreigners, including the Marriott and Hilton in Baku, the National Security Ministry said.
Scroll down for video
High risk: The song contest venue of Baku Crystal Hall was allegedly a major target along with hotels housing visiting foreigners. Pictured, Loreen of Sweden performs her winning song Euphoria
Azerbaijan has in recent months reported being the target of terrorist activities planned by groups with ties to al-Qaeda and Iran, and this appears to be most extravagant alleged plot revealed to date.
An oil-rich nation of 9million people wedged between Russia and Iran, Azerbaijan has nurtured close relations with the US and played an active role in Western-led counter-terrorist programmes.
That policy has placed a strain on its ties with Iran, which hosts a sizeable ethnic Azeri community.
Today's statement said other plots included plans for an assassination attempt on President Ilham Aliyev in April, as well as attacks on religious pilgrimage sites and police stations.
The statement provided no details on when the arrests took place.
'The armed group set itself the aim of mounting terrorist attacks in several regions of Azerbaijan, creating a mood of powerlessness and lawlessness, sowing panic, ethnic and religious enmity, disrupting the public peace and damaging Azerbaijan's international image,' the statement said.
Danger zone: Azerbaijan has recently reported being the target of terrorist activities planned by groups with ties to al-Qaeda and Iran, and this is the most extravagant alleged plot revealed to date. Pictured, Baku
The Eurovision attack would have centred on the Baku Crystal Hall, where the singing competition took place on Saturday.
At least one suspected plotter, 37-year-old Azerbaijani citizen Vugar Padarov, and a security agent were killed during raids to shut down the terrorist group, the statement said.
Padarov was identified in an April security statement as the leader of a group that had received religious training in Syria. Some of its members had weapons training with the Jihad Islami group in Pakistan and took part in fighting Nato-led troops in Afghanistan, the National Security Ministry said.
In March, the ministry announced the arrests of 22 Azerbaijani citizens it said had been hired by Iran to stage terror attacks against the US and Israeli embassies as well as against western-linked groups and companies.
It said they had been trained in Iran by the Revolutionary Guard.Posted on by meritwager
Kommuner om åldersbedömningar av asylsökande unga
En statlig myndighet ska sköta sitt uppdrag och inte lämpa över en del av det på Sveriges kommuner! Dels blir det både dyrare för oss alla; dels blir det krångligare och tidsödande för kommunerna och dels blir det inte heller bra för dem som söker asyl och skickas till kommuner, där man inte är säkra på att ”ynglingarna” verkligen är ”barn” och då ska börja göra åldersbedömningar för att, i förekommande fall, återsända dem som visar sig vara vuxna.
En helt onödig och kostsam cirkus som Migrationsverket iscensatt i stället för att göra åldersbedömningar vid misstanke om att den sökande uppger att han är yngre än han är!
Klicka på rutan för att komma till artikeln.
Idag skriver fyra kommunalråd på Brännpunkt i Svenska Dagbladet om Migrationsverkets haveri på just detta område. Ur texten:
Migrationsverket gör ingen åldersbestämning av dem som säger sig vara ensamkommande minderåriga vid ankomsten. Åldersuppgiften utgörs i de flesta fall enbart av vad som muntligen uppges av den asylsökande. Därefter skickas denne till sin mottagningskommun varpå en asylprocess på mellan 8 och 15 månader tar vid. Kommunerna får ansvaret för den asylsökande i det som faller inom kommunens verksamhet. Först i slutet av asylprocessen genomförs en åldersbestämning, som i sig ligger långt efter våra nordiska grannländers vad gäller kvalitet. Under den tid som förflutit från ankomst till kommunen och till dess svaret på ansökan om uppehållstillstånd kommer har den asylsökande placerats på kostsamma familjehem eller HVB-hem, samt i många fall påbörjat skolgång bland elever som har samma ålder som den asylsökande muntligen uppgivit. Att detta inte är ett optimalt system kan man utan överdrift påstå.
2015
Till Sverige kom 35.369 asylsökande och sökte asyl som minderåriga
Till Danmark kom 2.068 sylsökande och sökte asyl som minderåriga
Till Norge kom 5.297 sylsökande och sökte asyl som minderåriga
Till Finland kom 3.024 sylsökande och sökte asyl som minderåriga
Till de tre övriga nordiska länderna kom således sammanlagt 10.389 asylsökande som sade sig vara minderåriga, till Sverige ensamt 35.369. Nog är det väl lite märkligt, för att inte säga direkt obegåvat, att man i Sverige inte reagerar över att det hit kommer 3,5 gånger fler minderåriga asylsökande (i Sverige och endast i Sverige envist kallade ”ensamkommande barn”) än till tre närliggande länder sammanlagt?
I många år har miggorna slagit larm och rapporterat om just detta med att den sökandes egen muntliga uppgift så gott som alltid ensam ligger till grund för huruvida de placeras i ”barn-gruppen” eller ”vuxen-gruppen” i asylprocessen. (Alla texter här på bloggen, genom åren, som innehåller ordet ”ensamkommande” finns här.)
Äntligen har politiker vaknat ordentligt och satt den här stenen i rullning också politiskt! Under galgen, men ändå. Miggorna har dragit inte bara strån till den här stacken utan släpat stenbumlingar till ett högt torn, de borde ha lyssnats på under alla år de rapporterat och informerat.
Heder åt de fyra som i ängslighetens förlovade land tagit upp detta självklara ämne på ett så rakt och tydligt sätt:
Michaela Fletcher (M), Österåker
Leif Gripestam (M), Täby
Olle Reichenberg (M), Danderyd
Martina Mossberg (M), Haninge
Fortsättning följer.
© denna blogg.
Filed under: Allmänt, Asyl&Migration, Samhälle | Tagged: asyl, asylsökande, asyl
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change his mind about China's relationship with North Korea. A meeting with corporate executives reportedly convinced Trump he was wrong to label China a currency manipulator.
Trump attacks Canadian lumber
No sooner had Trudeau's session in Toronto finished than Trump appeared on camera in Washington ripping the Canadian lumber industry.
"Emerging pattern-Trump attacks-Trudeau sits in the corner & hopes he doesn't really mean what he's saying??" the NDP's Tracey Ramsey quickly tweeted.
Emerging pattern-Trump attacks-Trudeau sits in the corner & hopes he doesn't really mean what he's saying?? <a href="https://t.co/iPJEdFqAVP">https://t.co/iPJEdFqAVP</a> —@traceyram
The good news is Trump might say something else entirely tomorrow.
Because whether or not Trudeau can fairly be described as sitting in the corner, there is scant evidence Trump is particularly committed to the things he says. The Washington Post's Fact Checker has declared him "king of flip-flops." Last November, Politico counted 15 reversals in Trump's first 15 days as president-elect.
"In a world where candidates have lost elections over a single flip-flop, Trump has turned the self-contradiction into an art form," Michael Kruse and Noah Weiland wrote for the magazine during the campaign last May.
Having defied the laws of politics to win the presidency — surviving scandals that would have doomed other candidacies, saying things that would have been considered beyond the pale — there is little reason to expect anything like normalcy now.
Changing Trump's mind about trade
That history of contradiction undermines any suggestion Trump is merely confronting the learning curve that all new presidents experience. And while all governments deviate to some extent or another from their campaign commitments, Trump seems to possess a unique willingness to change course.
On the one hand, that might mean he suddenly decides to bomb Syria. On the other, it could have him deciding to stay in the Paris accord on climate change.
To what degree are his positions now determined by whoever is advising him? How often does it depend on who speaks to him last?
Maybe Trump really is willing to be convinced by substantive, well-informed arguments. But, in the meantime, how many unnecessary tempests will he stir? And on what points might his supporters demand he hold firm?
Chances are the president isn't angling for a trade war with Canada; that this is rhetorical posturing for an American audience. Or that, even if he is fixing for a fight, Trudeau can talk him out of it.
Unless, of course, he decides to listen to someone else who's telling him differently.Once seen as a one-trick pony with his Orianna play, Jin Air's GBM has evolved into a versatile weapon for the Green Wings. Simply put, GBM's elevated play has helped transform Jin Air into one of the most methodical and calculated teams in the world. They had a forgettable preseason, finishing last, but currently find themselves in a playoff spot with only seven matches remaining in the Spring Split.
We talked with GBM to get his thoughts on the Western scene, what changed for him and his team to improve, and what LCS player would have the best chance to succeed in Korea.
You've become one of the best mid lane players in Korea this season after inconsistent results in 2013 and 2014. Did anything change that helped you get better as a player?
For starters I think what changed our play the most is our hearts. Like all of the other mid laners I have the same amount of selfishness (greed) and the same amount of desire to win my lane. However, nowadays, if you try to gain an advantage (at mid) by yourself, your jungle has to watch your lane for you. If he doesn't then there is a big risk of losing your lane. So, instead of trying to take so many risks and trying to make plays, I try to play safer and think “let’s do what I can do” (play within my limits is like the train of thought almost) and I think this is the reason.
Your team has two ADCs and two supports with Pilot, CptJack, Chei and XD. Which bottom lane pair do you think fits your play style the best?
When I play an offensive (aggressive) champion: Pilot and XD.
When I play a defensive (passive) champion: Cpt Jack and Chei is the choice.
When you started out as a player, a lot of people knew you for your Orianna play. What drew you to playing that champion?
When I first started playing League of Legends, my friend used to show me videos of competitions. I saw Chan-yong “Ambition” Kang’s Orianna and I was very impressed, (and it left) an impression on me. I think this is why I started to play Orianna.
Nowadays you are seen as the best Xerath in Korea and possibly the world. Do you see yourself as the best Xerath, and if not, who do you think is the best at Xerath?
There are a lot of players that are very good at Xerath but, aside from me, I wonder how many players can put down their selfishness and greed. I don’t watch too many international games so I’m not sure, but in Korea, after me, it is Incredible Miracle's Frozen.
Jin Air had a terrible preseason, but have fought back to be one of the top teams in the regular season. Was there a reason for Jin Air's lack of success in the preseason?
Haha, our change in the way we think about the game?
You've been said to really want to travel to an international competition to compete. Which countries and cities would you like to play in?
I definitely want to go to international competitions and compete against foreign players, but I actually have never experienced being abroad and that's a part of the reason why I want to play in international competitions. If I compete, I would like to compete against the best team from every country.
Following the last question, which international teams or players would you like to play against at an international level?
The team that has Helios and the team that has Lustboy.
Which Western (Europe/NA) player do you think could play in Champions Korea if given the chance and do well?
Pobelter.
Faker is considered the best player and mid laner in the world. If you had to rank the best mid players, who would be the top three?
Faker, Kuro, and GBM. Hahaha.
For our final question, we would like to play a little word association. We are going to tell you five things and you tell us the first word or statement that come to mind:
Fnatic
Xpeke
Faker
Teacher
Orianna
Fiery bat (Translator Note: I think he’s trying to say he hits a home run or gets really hot when he plays this champion).
Bjergsen
I want to play against him.
CptJack
Ass.
Hahahahaha.
We would like to thank the Jin Air Green Wings and GBM for the interview. theScore's Paul Park translated the interview from Korean. You can watch GBM and his Jin Air Green Wings take on the GE Tigers this weekend in Champions Korea. The interview was edited and condensed.A Georgetown University study showing that black girls in the United States are perceived by adults as much less innocent than white girls has created a lot of buzz this summer. The study released last month, “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood,” identifies several well-researched reasons for the disparity. Black girls, according to the study, are adultified, sexualized and deemed overly aggressive from a young age.
This news was a shock to everyone but black mothers, who live with this truth every day.
Any black mother could’ve told the researchers that, from the time they are talking and walking, little black girls are deemed “fast,” a word synonymous with promiscuity. Their “attitudes” are frequent topics of conversation, while their “sassiness” is taken as a rebellious streak. And this is all before they reach elementary school.
I could’ve introduced the researchers to my oldest daughter, Chloe. Through her, I learned that if I wanted my daughters to be seen as the little girls they are, I would have to advocate for them. Chloe initiated me into the black mom of black daughters club.
It started when Chloe was a toddler, and people commented on her “curves.” I combated that by putting her in one-piece jumpers and shorts at the beach, instead of bathing suits. Meanwhile, my white niece played blissfully in a two-piece with ribbons and lace. I never heard anyone talk about her body. Chloe’s bathing “outfit” had a picture of her favorite dinosaur on it, so she never cared about the difference. But I did.
The study calls this phenomenon “adultification” or “a social or cultural stereotype that is based on how adults perceive children in absence of knowledge of the children’s behavior and verbalization.” In other words, my kid never had to say or do anything for people to think it was okay to consider a toddler “curvy.” She just had to exist and play in her black skin.
The stereotypes and assumptions got worse for Chloe in middle school, so much so that I didn’t let her sleep over at her best friend’s house for a year. She thought it was because her grades were in need of improvement. But it was because the girl’s dad had made a comment to his daughter about how “fast” Chloe was, after overhearing the girls talk about cute boys at school. My black kid was cast as the problem, even though both girls had contributed opinions and names.
I did not want him around my child with that attitude, and I only let the girls start hanging out again when they were in high school, after the dad changed his tune. After a string of teen pregnancies hit the high school, he deemed Chloe the most chaste of his daughter’s friends. But even then, the sleepovers were at the girl’s mother’s home.
According to the study, black girls are never given the chance to be innocent. “Ultimately, adultification is a form of dehumanizing, robbing black children of the very essence of what makes childhood distinct from other developmental periods: innocence,” the study’s authors write.
That’s been my experience, despite my attempts to protect my baby from a culture that saw her as less than her white friends. The mothers of her black friends practiced the same caution. We were strict, never letting our daughters even have a play date unless we knew the parents well. We vetted parents with questions to determine if they saw our daughters as kids, or as a bad black influence. Could they be trusted to be objective when the girls get into trouble? We understood the stakes.
[My kids learned from my struggles, even when I thought they weren’t watching]
Chloe’s freshman year of high school brought new friends and more sleepovers. I allowed her to go around kids whose parents I vetted. But one got past me.
I knew that the sleepover had gone bad when I got a phone call from a hysterical woman yelling at me to come get my kid, less than three hours into the party. I raced to the house. My child was the only one sitting in the living room with the parents, while the other girls peeked out from down the hall. The mom said Chloe brought pot to her house, and the girls smoked it.
My 14-year-old had just mastered the art of rolling the top of her uniform skirt to make it shorter. All of her friends were similarly awkward teens. I couldn’t figure out how she had gotten pot, much less smuggled it into my home, which, with four teens, my husband, me and a dog, didn’t allow for privacy. Something didn’t add up.
I sent Chloe to the car before I started my questions.
Did you see Chloe smoking?
No.
Who had the pot when you discovered it?
Does it matter?
Yes. Turns out, the girl hosting the sleepover was holding the weed when the mom’s boyfriend caught them. No one saw Chloe smoke, but all of the girls said Chloe brought the drugs. Chloe was the only girl there who wasn’t white.
All of the girls had bloodshot eyes, telltale pupils and goofy grins. I told them I would get to the bottom of this.
I was so angry at Chloe that we did not speak until we were home. How could she be involved with drugs? At home, my husband and I checked her clothing and sleepover bags (which I carried to the car when we left the party). No sign of that distinct odor. Furthermore, Chloe’s eyes were clear, her pupils were normal and she insisted that the girl who hosted got the weed from her boyfriend. My husband wanted to call the mom and tell her what we discovered.
I knew that was pointless, but I had no way to articulate this to him, my white husband. It’s something that black women learn as girls, and that I had been teaching our three daughters since they were old enough to interact with the world. Chloe’s black skin was all the proof that woman needed to find her guilty in a room full of white faces. Her race made her the villain, the enabler, the influencer, the evil one. Black moms don’t need a study to tell us that.
But how could I explain to my husband that his baby had been initiated in this long-held tradition? I let him call the mom. She was shocked, then angry and then hung up on us. My husband was baffled, but I knew that in that mom’s eyes, the black girl did it.
The next day, another one of Chloe’s friends came over. I was sitting nearby as Chloe relayed the story to her. Despite her age and whiteness, the girl saw between the lines what my husband could not: “Oh no! She blamed you cause you black!”
The girl who hosted the pot party came by later that day. I caught her before she knocked on the door. I told her that I knew what she did, and it was foul. She apologized, but I told her to stay away from my daughter. She was banned from our house, and after we talked about it, Chloe never took a ride from that girl, or her mom, again.
The Georgetown study is not news to me, or to the many black moms out there trying to protect our girls from stereotypes. We have spent our lives playing the villain to white girls, and being punished because of white girl tears. So we shield our daughters from the troubles, and teach them to see it coming. Maybe one day they will go further than the Georgetown study, and work to change public perception about black girls. But until then, we moms know, and we’ve got this.
Jonita Davis is a freelance writer based in Indiana. Find her on Twitter @surviteensntots.
Follow On Parenting on Facebook for more essays, news and updates. You can sign up here for our weekly newsletter.
More reading:
Guiding my African American children through the next four years
How my interracial marriage changed the way I see the world, and how I parent
5 ways parents can help kids balance social media with the real worldThe ROG SWIFT PG278Q represents the pinnacle of gaming displays, seamlessly combining the latest technologies and design touches that gamers demand.
This 27-inch WQHD 2560 × 1440 gaming monitor packs in nearly every feature a gamer could ask for. An incredible 144Hz refresh rate and a rapid response time of 1ms eliminate lag and motion blur, while an exclusive Turbo key allows you to select refresh rates of 60Hz, 120Hz or 144Hz with just one press. The ROG SWIFT contains integrated NVIDIA® G-SYNC™ technology to synchronize the display's refresh rate to the GPU. This technology eliminates screen tearing, while minimizing display stutter and input lag to give you the smoothest, fastest and most breathtaking gaming visuals imaginable. Connectivity is simple, yet robust, with a single DisplayPort 1.2 port to enable NVIDIA® G-SYNC™ and dual USB 3.0 ports for convenience.The 23rd annual Screen Actors Guild went as expected — it’s an organization that has a habit of rewarding frontrunners and repeat winners, after all. So it came as little surprise that Emma Stone and Viola Davis took home trophies.
But the voters did manage to keep things interesting, with a few notable curveballs.
SURPRISE: “Stranger Things”
The retro thriller’s win was the upset of the night. Not only did the Netflix sleeper hit end “Downton Abbey’s” two-year long reign at the SAG Awards, but it also triumphed over Emmy champion “Game of Thrones.” With “Game” out of contention this year, the kids certainly now have the momentum.
SURPRISE: William H. Macy, “Shameless”
Even William H. Macy acknowledged he was shocked when his name was called over two-time reigning champ Jeffrey Tambor (“Transparent”). As we said in our predictions, there’s usually nothing SAG likes more than a repeat winner. But Macy’s Frank Gallagher on the Showtime dramedy does have his charms.
SURPRISE: Bryan Cranston, “All the Way”
To be sure, Bryan Cranston delivered a bravura performance as Lyndon B. Johnson in HBO’s gripping biopic — the role earned him a Tony as well. But like the lawyer he played on FX’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” Emmy winner Courtney B. Vance was widely expected to win here, too.
Related SAG Awards Winners: Complete List
SURPRISE: Denzel Washington, “Fences”
Casey Affleck had completely dominated the circuit leading into the night. But in the end it was “Fences” star Denzel Washington, winning his first-ever SAG award, who shocked in the best actor field. Only four times has the best actor Oscar gone a different direction from SAG, and the last time was 13 years ago. We officially have an exciting race here.
SURPRISE: “Hidden Figures”
The smart money was on “Moonlight” to claim the film ensemble prize, particularly as it’s seemingly been “La La Land’s” biggest competition for best picture all season long. But in the end, SAG pulled a fast one, honoring the cast of “Hidden Figures” and giving the film a wonderful opportunity to make its case for the industry’s top honor. Taraji P. Henson’s speech, part and parcel of a whole night’s worth of politically-leaning sentiments, no doubt earned the film a ton of votes.
SNUB: “Westworld”
HBO’s new sci-fi drama entered the night with a list-topping three nominations, but went home empty-handed. (And “Game of Thrones,” which also had three noms, had to settle for a stunt ensemble trophy.) The SAG voters just don’t like genre…. except when it comes in a ’80s package.
SNUB: “Downton Abbey”
The two-time winner for best drama ensemble was finally dethroned in its final season by those plucky kids from “Stranger Things.” Thanks for the memories, Grantham family.
SNUB: “Manchester by the Sea”
It wasn’t just Casey Affleck who went home empty-handed from the “Manchester” crew but every other nominee, too: Michelle Williams, Lucas Hedges and the film’s cast. That’s quite the dismissal of a movie built on incredible performances.Kingdom Hearts III Drops Luminous Engine In Favor Of Unreal Engine 4
By Sato. October 6, 2014. 9:55pm
Kingdom Hearts III director Tetsuya Nomura recently shared the latest on the development of the upcoming title, and according to the interview with Famitsu, it looks like Square Enix have dropped the Luminous engine and are going with Unreal Engine 4.
In our earlier report, it was noted that Square Enix were having some sort of design problems due to engine-related issues. The full interview reveals that this was a problem with the Luminous engine, which was dropped in favor for the Unreal Engine 4.
“The [development] is going steadily and according to the schedule,” said Nomura when asked about the development status of Kingdom Hearts III.
“Due to having switched to Unreal Engine 4 for various reasons, we’re having trouble on some parts as far as rendering goes, but with help from the folks at Epic Games, progress is going safely.”
While it may seem like a change of engine might be a big setback for Square Enix, Nomura reassures that the development is going fine and everything is still going according to schedule.
During the interview, Nomura also said that he’s currently working on the scenario scripts and choices for the worlds. He’s also working on the latest designs for Sora and Riku’s new outfits.
Kingdom Hearts III is in development for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.Students will learn about the benefits and potential dangers of online activity in Grade 1 and about "sexting" in Grade 4 under Ontario's revised sex education curriculum, which will be released Monday.
The Canadian Press obtained a copy of a "quick facts" guide for parents that will be released as part of the first update of the province's health and physical education curriculum since 1998 — before smartphones and sexting became part of our vocabulary.
The guide says students in Grades 1, 2 and 3 will learn initial searching skills and strategies for safe Internet use, including "how to get help for themselves or others if harassment or abuse happens either face-to-face or online."
Once a person sends a sext, they lose control of it. - Guide for Ontario parents on province's update to health and physical education curriculum.
The primary grade students will also learn the difference between real and fictional violence, in the media or with online games, and "respectful communications" in the gym, classroom and schoolyard.
Even some elementary school students have sent sexually explicit pictures of themselves to someone online, while 11 per cent of Grade 10 students and about 14 per cent of those in Grade 11 say they have sent a sext, according to a 2015 study, Young Canadians in a Wired World.
"As students get older, they are more likely to sext," the guide warns parents. "Many students are unaware of the potential effects and consequences of sexting."
Sex ed in digital age
Students in Grades 4 and up will learn more about using technology to support learning and improved communication, and about the dangers of online bullying.
Grades 4, 5 and 6 students will learn more specifically about the risks of sexting and protecting their privacy online and about the possible legal, social and emotional implications of sending sexually explicit digital images online.
"Peers, romantic partners or even strangers can pressure or coerce a young person to participate in sexting," the guide tells parents. "Once a person sends a sext, they lose control of it."
The guide advises parents that blocking Internet content is "typically ineffective" for older children and youth, and says the focus should be on helping kids develop skills for thinking critically about what they see online.
Government and education sources have confirmed Education Minister Liz Sandals will release details of the new sex ed curriculum at a Monday morning news conference at Queen's Park.
The Liberals abandoned an earlier attempt to update the sex ed curriculum in 2010 after protests by some religious groups, but Premier Kathleen Wynne, who warned it is "dangerously out of date," promised the update will be in place for the start of the school year in September.
The reintroduced curriculum is not expected to show a marked departure from what was proposed in 2010. It will teach kids about homosexuality and same-sex marriages in Grade 3, encourage discussions about puberty, including masturbation, in Grade 6, and talk about preventing sexually transmitted diseases in Grade 7, which could include information on oral and anal sex.
Wynne has said students should start learning facial cues and how to read body language as early as Grade 1 to give them the ability to understand the concept of consent.Season Two of CNN Original Series “Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown” begins Sept. 15
New Season of CNN’s Popular Weekend Lifestyle Series to Feature Tours of Spain, New Mexico, Israel, Copenhagen, Sicily, Detroit, Tokyo, and India
The CNN Original Series Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown, will begin its second season of eight episodes on Sunday, September 15, it was announced by Jeff Zucker, President, CNN Worldwide.
The new season of the weekend lifestyle series will explore the food, culture and history and parts unknown within Spain, New Mexico, Israel, Copenhagen, Sicily, Detroit, Tokyo and India. The program will again air on CNN International, reaching more than 271 million households around the world.
“Tony and Zero Point Zero Production have created a spectacularly beautiful, informative and entertaining series for CNN that has resonated with viewers in a profound way,” said Zucker. “In addition to its runaway ratings success, it is also quite the conversation starter, as anyone who follows social media can attest. We are so happy to announce season two, and I can assure you that audiences will love what is coming up on the show.”
Launch-to-date, Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown is delivering 389,000 viewers in the key Adults 25-54 demo, up 440% vs. the same period one year ago (72,000) and has ranked #1 in cable news on Sunday in each of its first three weeks on the air. In total viewers, the series is up 122% (872,000 viewers vs. 392,000 viewers) at 9pm vs. CNN programming one year ago.
Hosted by the world-renowned chef, bestselling author and Emmy winning television personality, the series debuted April 14 with an inside look at Myanmar (Burma), followed by Koreatown/Los Angeles on April 21 and Colombia on April 28.
Future episodes in the first season of Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown has Bourdain delving into the cultures of Quebec (May 5), Tangier (May 12), Libya (May 19), Peru (June 2) and the Congo (June 9).
Viewers can find updates, behind-the-scenes photos, and exclusive content from Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown by following the show’s Twitter account @partsunknownCNN, and accessing the CNN Parts Unknown Facebook page. During each show, viewers are invited to go to the live blog at CNN.com/partsunknown and join in the conversation using the #PartsUnknown hashtag on Twitter.
In addition to his work on Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown, the host is currently traveling the United States and Canada with his Guts & Glory” live tour, which culminates in Washington D.C. on May 13.
Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown is produced by Zero Point Zero Production with Executive Producers and Founders Chris Collins and Lydia Tenaglia, along with Executive Producer Sandra Zweig. The Emmy award winning Zero Point Zero Production has produced programs with Anthony Bourdain for more than a decade, including Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, The Layover, A Cooks Tour, and Decoding Ferran Adria.
CNN Worldwide is a portfolio of two dozen news and information services across cable, satellite, radio, wireless devices and the Internet in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. Domestically, CNN reaches more individuals on television, the web and mobile devices than any other cable TV news organization in the United States; internationally, CNN is the most widely distributed news channel reaching more than 271 million households abroad; and CNN Digital is a top network for online news, mobile news and social media. Additionally, CNN Newsource is the world’s most extensively utilized news service partnering with hundreds of local and international news organizations around the world. CNN is division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner Company.
-30-In the last post we talked about the top pricing strategies for your software as a service (SaaS) product. But before you can earn money from your customers, you need to entice them in. Today, let's look at a few of the marketing strategies companies use to attract customers, starting with the free trial and the demo.
Free Trials in SaaS Marketing
Many SaaS companies use a limited free trial to get potential customers to use the product. Some offer a full version of the product for a short time, while others offer a cut-down version of the product with a teaser to the additional features you can unlock.
One question to consider is how long your free trial should be. Most range between 7 and 30 days (with 30 as an average), though some may be even longer. The ideal length will depend on your customers, so you have to do your own research to figure out the ideal free trial length.
Another key question is whether you should ask people for credit card information before letting them have a free trial. Totango's research on this suggests you shouldn't. It shows that:
Out of 10,000 visitors, only 2% will sign up for the trial if you ask for a credit card. Of these, half will convert to paid customers, and you will retain 60% of those after 90 days.
If you don't ask for a credit card, 10% will sign up for the free trial, 15% will convert to paid customers, and 80% will still be customers after 90 days.
Best in class SaaS companies get 10% to sign up for the trial, 25% to convert to paid customers and 80% to remain at the end of 90 days.
The research suggests that the best approach is not to gate the free trial and then to focus on the people who are using the product. Lincoln Murphy agrees. Since the free trial is part of the marketing effort, it's important to market to customers throughout the trial, and not just at the end.
In other words, the free trial is part of the funnel that encourages customers to upgrade for additional features or storage. If you keep customers engaged with emails about tips and features, reminders about the expiry of the trial and options for extending the trial, that can have great results.
One thing that makes free trials fail, says Hubspot is when people can't test your software properly. From the user's viewpoint, a full featured free trial helps them truly understand how the product works, while limiting the features may also limit their interaction. It's also essential to support the free trial via content marketing and email marketing campaigns specifically geared to free trial users. Unbounce and Kissmetrics agree and suggest:
emailing users immediately and providing tips on getting started
using personalization and a clear call to action
sending multiple emails
using webinars
getting feedback from new users
providing discounts for new users
An automated drip marketing campaign can help with this.
Winning Users with a Product Demo
Back in the old days, vacuum cleaner salesmen would go door to door and show how their products saved time and picked up dust. It was the best way to make sales - and it's a method that still works. In fact, sometimes it's the only way to get customers to understand what your product can do for them.
Woopra has another analogy, urging SaaS marketers to learn from drug dealers and give potential customers enough of a taste that they want to try it again. Even if you don't like the analogy, the point is clear: there's a place for product demos in SaaS marketing.
So what are your options? Capterra outlines three:
Using product videos, such as a video library showing someone using the different product features.
Having a 1 on 1 call while sharing your screen
Creating a product walkthrough presentation.
And of course, you can also have an introductory webinar with multiple participants.
Like the free trial, the demo is part of the marketing funnel. Keys to success with a product demo include:
keeping it short. Most people don't want the time for long, complicated explanations. They want to quickly understand how your product will help them.
focusing it on the key features that matter most to the customer, highlighting those so they can try them themselves later.
identifying the benefits they will get from the product.
The goal is to get people to feel comfortable using the software so they will be interested in making a long-term commitment.
Support your demo in the same way as the free trial, with content marketing and email marketing resources before, during and after to help your customers.
No Trial, No Demo? Try Freemium
Free trials and demos are common, but there's a third option that's also popular in SaaS marketing: going freemium. That's got big advantages for users, but the benefits to companies aren't always so clear. For users, it means they get a great product that's basically free, but how does that help companies make money? Mostly, it doesn't.
As Justin Mares points out, freemium can be a bad idea because people who get your product for free don't upgrade, because they use up a lot of support resources and they cost you money. However, used wisely, he says, SaaS marketers can get something useful from the freemium model. Some benefits include:
a built-in testing program with a large user base. That helps you with product development
a way to figure out what will trigger upgrades (such as greater insight, improved security or increased storage)
a way to test your referral process
A large user base can also help SaaS creators looking to cash out early.
Of course, there's no reason why freemium has to stand alone. You can use different types of freemium models so you get some revenue and even combine freemium with other SaaS pricing models.
One last thing to note is that it can take a long time for users to convert from freemium to paid. With Evernote, for example, the average conversion period is a couple of years.
Which Should You Choose?
So which model is right for you? It depends on what you are looking to gain. Only you can decide whether you're looking to grab a large user base quickly with freemium, grow more slowly by targeting the right users via product demos or take the middle ground with a free trial. Let Lincoln Murphy have the final word:
"remove barriers to entry, reduce friction, and get your prospective customers to a point where they realize – or at least recognize the potential for – value as quickly as possible."
Which model are you using in your SaaS marketing?Description The aim is to bring together the community of Mozilla Mexico, is the first national meeting to be held, the Reps will be present, active members, supporters and sympathizers of Mozilla Mexico and employes of Mozilla.. On Friday it will give a conference to the general public in TelmexHub, on Saturday and Sunday (CCEM) in workshops on the axes of the community, as l10n, FirefoxOS (launch stage in Mexico), l10n, broadcast, indigenous languages, Webmaker, events, speakers and Webmaker.
Portions of this content are ©1998–2019 by individual mozilla.org contributors. Content available under a Creative Commons license.
So, you wanna join us?
The Mozilla Reps program is open to all Mozillians who are 18 years of age and above. Before you become a Mozilla Rep, you must complete a short but rigorous application process in order to demonstrate your interest in and motivation for joining the program. Are you ready to take on the challenges and rewards of advancing your leadership to the next level in Mozilla? If your answer is YES, apply to become a Mozilla Rep today!
Not sure if you're ready for Mozilla Reps? There are many other ways to take the lead in the Mozilla Community. If you're a student, register for the Campus Clubs program to gain experience leading projects at your school. And all of our contributor opportunities are available to you on the Get Involved homepage.
The Mozilla Reps application process involves three simple steps. Ready? Let's get started!
Thanks for your interest in making the Web better with Mozilla!NAMM 2017: Bastl KLIK keeps DAW and modular together
Approximate reading time: 2 Minutes
Bastl’s KLIK is a stunningly useful little box. It takes an old-school audio click and converts it into modular clock and trigger. This means you can send a pulse out from your DAW and your modular will keep perfect time with it.
KLIK
I know it’s not what I wanted. I had hoped this was going to be some kind of AC to DC coupling device for regular audio interfaces. It’s not that, it’s something just as useful that I hadn’t considered before.
There’s a growing disconnect between modular gear and the computer. Many modular users have rejected the computer entirely but as modular has become more accessible it’s finding its way to less “pure” environments. That means that people are looking for ways to use both computer and modular and have it all make sense. One of the problems is synchronisation – where does the clock come from? Even if you just want to record your modular onto a computer it’s very useful for further production to have it synced up to the DAWs grid. The DAW always wants to be the master clock and so how do you get a fully analog modular system to get in line with that?
Bastl believe they have the answer. KLIK is a little box that can take an audio pulse generated by a DAW and turn it into clock and trigger for a modular system. This doesn’t require a MIDI-to-CV interface or any magic crystals – just KLIK and an audio click from your DAW. It can handle two signals, one for clock and one for reset. There’s also a button on the top to manually reset, or re-sync your hardware or for sending manual gate signals. Because it’s audio all the latency compensation can be taken care of in the DAW which means that when recording your modular to the computer it will hit bang on the grid.
You can use any output on your soundcard – no DC coupling required.
The connection with Bitwig is that the new Bitwig Studio 2 has an audio click output device within the software. This is perfect for KLIK and sets up your sync. In Ableton Live Bastl have created a drum machine preset for sending out pulses. Theoretically, you should be able to do something similar on any DAW but they haven’t tried it out yet.
The Bastl KLIK should be available in March for €49 and they are taking pre-orders now. More information on the website.Get the biggest celebs 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
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It's not often you have a little cry and then punch the air while cheering a 16-year-old and his scruffy teacher.
But this clip from the final Educating Yorkshire is guaranteed to make you do exactly that.
If you want a life-affirming experience that makes your whole day a rosier, happier place, watch English teacher Mr Burton as he helps pupil Musharaf Asghar overcome a lifelong crippling stutter.
Preparing for a crucial GCSE test in which he has
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tons by 2018. E-waste is often highly toxic, leaching heavy metals and dangerous chemicals into the soil around landfills and releasing greenhouse gas and mercury emissions when burned.
“If we all just used our electronics for longer, it would definitely decrease the environmental impact,” LaGrange says.
When I first reached Gordon-Byrne, she told me I was catching her in a “moment of great frustration.” The Repair Association had introduced “Fair Repair” bills in four states—Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska and New York. These bills called for manufacturers to provide “fair access” to service information and replacement parts for owners and independent repair people. But by last month, it was clear that none of them were going to progress, dying in committee or when the legislative session ended. Right to repair advocates blame the manufacturers. Apple, for example, was found to have funded lobbying efforts to kill the Fair Repair bill in New York.
Gordon-Byrne says she’s still hopeful similar bills will pass in upcoming sessions. She and other right to repair advocates take inspiration from recent events in the automotive industry. In 2012, Massachusetts passed a bill forcing car manufacturers to provide independent repair shops with the same diagnostic tools they give authorized repairers. In 2014, the automotive industry, seeing that other states would likely pass similar legislation, agreed to make the same data available nationwide by 2018.
If Fair Repair bills begin passing in select states, right to repair advocates hope it will cause a similar sea change in the electronics industry.
“The manufacturers are not going to be able to keep this up forever,” Wiens says. “It’s just a matter of time.”A Series of Down Endings
By Steven Lloyd Wilson | Industry | August 5, 2009 |
Test audiences didn't like the ending of The Time Traveler's Wife, so they changed it so that it has a happy ending.
Director Robert Schwentke explained: "So we made the choice to say, 'OK, we know what we need to do. We're smarter now.' It's a process when you make a film. We hadn't been dated or anything, so we felt like, 'OK, let's do the right thing. Let's finish the movie properly.'"
Oh blind fury, how I've missed you. It's been a week or two since you last curled my hands into claws to rip furrows from my own flesh.
"Properly"? Really? You're going to go there? You've directed Flightplan and a single episode of "Lie to Me" and you're going to swap out the gut-wrenching final scene of a beautiful story because 30 people you found at a mall on a Tuesday afternoon didn't like being sad? It's a tragic love story you ignorant twat, it's not supposed to end with a warm and fuzzy "awwwwwww, how sweet." The only things that should have happy endings in Hollywood are massages and Disney films, and even Walt killed Bambi's mom.
Mrs. SLW pointed out The Time Traveler's Wife to me a couple of days ago because she knew I loved the novel so much. I'd seen the trailer and explained to her that I didn't hold out much hope for it as a movie because so much of the story is internalized characterization, which just doesn't translate well to the visual medium of the screen. Well, I gave the film industry too much credit. The film isn't going to suck because directors are incapable of translating internal characterization to the screen, it's going to suck because they're incapable of translating a fucking story onto the screen.
I flipped through SciFi Wire this morning and noticed a hilarious trend to the headlines over the last couple of days:
"God forbid you call Time-Traveler's Wife a sci-fi film."
"Hughes brothers: Don't call Eli a post-apocalyptic thriller"
"Park Chan-wook: Don't think of Thirst as a vampire movie"
Let's just generalize the meme: "don't think about movies as stories." They're not made for us to think about; they're just there to give our reptile brains two-hour hand jobs.
Steven Lloyd Wilson is the sci-fi and history editor. You can email him here or follow him on Twitter.
← Downey and Jude Law Make Out?
A Beginner's Guide to the Horror Genre →WASHINGTON (AP) — The House easily approved an election-year plan Wednesday to provide $170 million to help Flint, Michigan, rebuild its lead-poisoned water system, as Congress moved toward addressing a public health catastrophe that became an acrimonious partisan dispute.
Wednesday’s vote was 284-141 and came nearly a year after Michigan officials declared a health emergency in the poverty-stricken city. The vote came as lawmakers rushed to finish last-minute business and leave town until after the November elections.
“It broke my heart when this whole episode began,” said Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., who is from Flint. He said the problem threatened Flint’s “very existence.”
Federal, state and local officials blamed each other for the causing the contamination, an effort in Congress to approve aid bogged down and Democrats angrily accused Republicans of dragging their feet on the issue. A chief reason for the delay was conservative Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who objected to using federal money to address the problem.
A breakthrough occurred two weeks ago, when the Senate approved $220 million for Flint and other communities with lead contamination problems. The Senate included that money in a wide-ranging water projects bill.
The effort went nowhere in the Republican-run House until Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., struck a deal late Tuesday. Under that agreement, a plan to provide the Flint aid was included in a wide-ranging water projects bill.
Actual money to help Flint will have to be provided in separate legislation after Congress returns in November. GOP leaders pledged to craft legislation that will provide the money.
Because the Flint money was stalled, Senate Democrats voted Tuesday to derail a must-pass bill to avert a government shutdown this weekend. They relented and the Senate approved the bill financing federal agencies after Ryan and Pelosi reached their agreement on Flint.
Flint’s problems began in 2014, when the city switched its drinking water supply to the Flint River to save money.
That ended up contaminating the system with lead from old pipes. Officials have said up to 12,000 children have been exposed to lead in the water.
More than half of Flint’s 100,000 residents are black. Earlier this week, Kildee said during House debate that GOP leaders “don’t see American citizens” when they look at the people of Flint.
That prompted an angry response from Rep. Rob Woodall, R-Ga.: “We owe each other better than that. That kind of vitriol is not going to get us to where I know you and I both want to go.”Commuter students can apply for scholarships to cover parking costs starting Thursday.
UCLA Transportation and the Undergraduate Students Association Council Financial Supports Commission will award $100 scholarships to 10 students to help them pay for parking permits, which cost $243 during winter quarter, said Financial Supports Commissioner Aaron Boudaie. He added students will need to complete an application and will be selected based on financial need.
“The $100 scholarships are meant to help pay for parking permits, but could hypothetically cover other parking costs like off-campus parking,” he said.
The FSC’s Parking Advocacy Task Force, which advocates for improved parking and commuting options for students, created the scholarship during a meeting with UCLA Transportation earlier this month, Boudaie said. He added the task force will continue to have quarterly meetings with UCLA Transportation to make sure the administration hears commuter students’ concerns, which include difficulty finding spots to park in assigned lots and complicated permit application procedures.
Boudaie said he hopes the scholarship will increase parking accessibility for low-income commuter students.
The scholarships will be funded by the money UCLA Transportation collects from parking permits and tickets, said Lisa Koerbling, the UCLA Parking Services director for UCLA Transportation. She added Parking Services has transferred $1,000 to the FSC each year for the past few years to support commuter students.
“USAC is responsible for determining when and how they want to disburse the funds,” she said.
The FSC has used this money in previous years to create similar transportation scholarship programs. For example, an FSC scholarship program in 2015 selected scholarship recipients using a lottery system.
The task force plans to make the scholarship a quarterly program, and institutionalize it so that future FSC administrations continue to award the money to students, Boudaie said.
“It’s sad, but most programs only last a year, and then the person who started them is no longer involved and they end,” he added.
Boudaie said he thinks many commuter students have difficulty finding parking spots and do not have backup parking lots to go to if their assigned lot is full. He added that events sometimes take over many assigned parking spots, decreasing the amount of space for students to park in without prior notice.
Several commuter students said they do not think the scholarship will be effective in addressing high parking costs because its impact is limited.
Emilie Helfand, a third-year anthropology student who commutes 60 miles every day, said she thinks the FSC needs to do more to advertise the scholarships.
“Parking permits are a serious upfront cost, and a real stress,” Helfand said. “I’ll apply if I’m eligible.”
Mike Peters, a fourth-year geography student who runs the UCLA Commuters Facebook page, said he thinks the scholarship’s impact is negligible because there are more than 10,000 commuters on campus and the scholarship only helps 10 students.
“I appreciate that they’re trying to be helpful,” he said. “But it is a lot like giving a starving person a hamburger and saying you solved the world’s hunger problem.”
The tentative deadline for the application is Thursday of week nine, Boudaie said. He said his office plans to promote the scholarship through social media, including a video on the FSC Facebook page.“Buy this. Watch that. Lose weight. Gain weight. Wear this. Eat that. Make more.” The consistent message behind these suggestions is that you are not good enough, you do not own enough. These ideas are being delivered to us almost every waking minute. Some of it comes from marketing, some of it from our network, most of it from our own heads. We all need a complete guide to minimalism, because most of our days look like this:
Wake up and check our phone, laying next to our bed. Not enough texts, not enough likes. Check the email, so much to do. Pick out our clothes, so many choices. Is this still cool? Which color shirt?
Watch the news before work, which isn’t really news anymore, and learn about celebrities living in the spotlight. What an amazing life they have, we think.
Ignore the commercial in the background for six-minute-abs, telling us the secret to everything we’ve been searching for is in a set of DVD’s for only three simple payments.
Drive to work, bigger and better cars all around us.
Enjoy the same five songs repeated on the radio, no longer even trying to be clever, shouting “money, sex, booze”.
We still believe we aren’t paying attention to the radio commercials, but our minds still register the words. McDonalds has a new something for 99 cents, and now, here’s a man telling you that you didn’t buy nice enough jewelry for your partner. Luckily, they are having a sale.
Get to work, so close to that new reserved parking spot you always wanted. Eight types of donuts in the break room. Lunch wherever the boss wants to go. Amazon browsing in the afternoon.
On the drive home, world news. Mixed in between commercials, of course. War everywhere, everyone is racist, everything is dangerous. Pull into the driveway, say hi to the neighbors. What a nice lawn, I wonder what he buys. No time to cook, what are we in the mood for? So many choices.
Finally, a night at home. Yes Netflix, I am still watching.
I have to share this article, these 21 things. Now another, 11 things. This video is amazing. Look at what other people are doing. Crazy. No time to read tonight, it’s been a busy day. I can’t wait until new years, when I can finally start being happy, healthy, wealthy.
Better go to sleep, turn off the TV, bring the iPad into bed. Excited for tomorrow, a dozen goals to achieve. It’s the weekend soon. Drink specials. New episodes. Thoughts start racing, it’s 1AM.
I should buy this, watch that, lose weight. I should gain weight, wear this, eat that, BE more.
This is maximization. Consumerism. How absolutely exhausting.
THE DANGERS OF MAXIMIZATION
Maximization is a scientific process. It’s based on physical triggers that are deeply seeded in our brains. We are stimulated by bright colors and sounds, and are naturally competitive. We want to be safe, warm, and comfortable. It’s endless, profitable, and extremely unsatisfying for us all.
We are told, over and over, that the next big thing will make us happy and content. We are told by marketing messages and the people around us that we are not good enough. And when we hear these statements enough, we start to believe them. Our own voices begin to tell us that we need to be that, we need to do that. And when we do, there is something else around the corner. It’s the classic carrot on a stick.
All of those thoughts and things take up real space in our heads and our lives. Just like a computer, we only have so much memory and ability to multitask. Everything our senses absorb, consciously or unconsciously, uses our own personal bandwidth.
If we only have so much space, why would you let it be taken up by things that don’t truly matter?
The old zen proverb goes like this:
A horse suddenly came galloping quickly down the road. It seemed as though the man had somewhere important to go. Another man, who was standing alongside the road, shouted, “Where are you going?” and the man on the horse replied, “I don’t know! Ask the horse!”
Does any of this resonate with you? Perhaps you’ve always had this feeling in the back of your mind, and you might understand that this way of living doesn’t truly provide contentment. How would you like to take back control?
There is an alternative, that can potentially provide you with a sense of direction and freedom in many different aspects of your life. Stop getting told what to do.
ENTER THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO MINIMALISM
This isn’t about making space in your house. This is about making space in your head. Contrary to popular belief, minimalism isn’t just about getting rid of all your stuff. It’s a different way of approaching the way you live. It’s simplification in the name of efficiency, and making room for the things that really matter. This complete guide to minimalism is about being aware of the choices you make, and why you are making them.
You can become a minimalist much like how you can take up a new hobby. You can do a little research first, but you have to take action. Baby steps are just fine. Through constant review and check-ins, minimalism will spread into all the different areas of your life. The results will be extremely enjoyable.
BENEFITS OF MINIMALISM
The power of minimalism can be boiled down into the idea of choosing freedom. Freedom from attachment to physical objects, freedom from the messages being thrown at you all throughout the day. Freedom from your own self-doubt, and freedom from disorganization.
Minimalism provides you with the flexibility to do and be what you want. More thoughts, goals, and things result in more responsibility. The less on your plate provides you with powerful focus on the things you choose.
There is progress in minimalism. By making a choice on eliminating distractions, everything becomes a bit clearer. You have a much better sense on where you stand, what matters to you, how you can make improvements, and where you would like to be.
Obviously, you have more room. Less stuff in your home, car, computer, and bag means an open, organized, and streamlined day. Empty space is calming, and your mind will appreciate it.
Another disease of our over-stimulated world is stress. With less on the plate, enjoy your newly found breathing room. With a smaller amount of stuff to take care of, enjoy more efficient management of your life.
REQUIREMENTS OF MINIMALISM
Step one comes from awareness. You need to start noticing how the messages around you have an influence on your decisions. Start asking questions about what you really need, and what is really important to you.
Awareness is a powerful tool, and should be used at all times. If someone is speaking, listen. When you are cooking, cook. When you are working, work. By focusing in this way, those messages lose power.
Next is simplification. This is the most common step people associate with minimalism. Just get rid of stuff. Everything you have needs a purpose. This doesn’t mean you can’t have art, or nice things. The purpose of art is to bring you joy. But if there are things still in your life that don’t bring you that sense of satisfaction, toss it. Scrap the junk drawer. Sort the closet.
Simplification is not only about things.
Simplify your goals. Simplify your business and career, your habits, and your finances. With simplification comes clarity, and with clarity comes focus and productivity.
Now, be intentional as you move forward. When you shop, make smart decisions. When you bring something new into your house, maybe you should get rid of something old. Buy quality things that will last for a lifetime, as opposed to replaceable junk.
Finally, consistently review your new lifestyle. What is in the way? What can you get rid of? Where have you fallen off course, and how has it negatively affected you? Review is the key to progress.
SEGMENTS
As we already revealed in this guide to minimalism, minimalism isn’t just about reducing physical clutter. Here are just a few areas of your own world that can dramatically benefit from minimalism.
Goals.
Use the power of three, and don’t set any more than that. Start small, and do that one thing each and every day until it is permanently ingrained as a habit. Mark a big X on your calendar daily. Once goals become habits, true change is created.
Space.
Clean out your car, your house, your fridge. Keep what matters and what brings you satisfaction, donate what does not. You don’t have to sleep on a straw mat in the corner of a bare room. But don’t just organize junk elsewhere, get rid of it.
Fitness.
Run, lift heavy things, and stretch. Simplify your fitness to make sure you stay on track and consistently progress. If your only goal each day is to run a mile faster than yesterday, there isn’t much to get confused about. You are going to improve much faster than the new athlete overwhelmed with a 60 page 12 week training program.
Food.
Learn to cook, and make simple meals with simple macronutrients. Vegetables, protein, fruit. Have as much as you want. Plan your meals in advance, and eat out only for special occasions.
Digital Space.
Your computer is probably filled with old files from years back. Create folders and get organized. Delete what you no longer need, watch, or play. Get to an empty desktop and email inbox. Your computer is a machine, not a distraction.
Clothing.
Zuckerberg and Jobs wore the same thing every single day. While you don’t have to be that extreme, stop focusing on a new look every day and just wear something productive and comfortable. Lay it out the night before, and forget about it.
Learning.
Your learning should never stop. Read a bit of one book, every single day. Take notes, and file them away. Donate the book, and get a new one. Watch one new TED talk, take one new online course.
NEXT STEPS
The purge. You have the option of getting started slowly with minimalism, like getting rid of just one thing at a time. Instead, I recommend a weekend battle, where you cover all of the above segments at once. This way, you will experience this huge sense of relief and accomplishment that will provide you with motivation to stick with it.
This complete guide to minimalism is about freedom through choice. There is no need to be a monk in the mountains. If you are aware and intentional, you can make intelligent purchases that aren’t based on impulse. Another recommendation is to use those impulses to splurge on experiences instead. Book that ticket, go to that concert, have an adventure. Fill your head with those.
Finally, and where the true power of minimalism comes from, is in your routine. Make sure you stay organized. Use a daily planner and journal. Wake up without the phone, and read. Write and meditate. Take a walk. Have a dedicated time for entertainment in the evening. Put things back where you found them. Focus on your work when it is time to work. Learn to enjoy silence.
After all this, you might finally realize you are good enough and you do have enough. You can listen to the voice in your head again, one that is finally truly your own. Take back control. Good luck.
Leave a comment: Did this complete guide to minimalism strike a chord? How do you want to break free from maximization?The North Carolina senator said he had been trying to get on the phone with the White House “all morning,” adding: “Maybe they’re busy.” | Getty Burr to White House on Trump disclosures: Call me
The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee wants a briefing from the White House to explain President Donald Trump’s decision to allegedly disclose classified intelligence to Russian officials. So far, he’s been kept in the dark.
Sen. Richard Burr and his panel’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, gave a joint press conference on Tuesday in which they urged the White House to put them in touch with people who were in the room during Trump’s meeting last week with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister.
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“What we're attempting to do is to have a conversation with an individual or multiple individuals at the White House that were part of the meeting that the president had with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador,” Burr said.
Earlier in the day, the North Carolina senator said he had been trying to get on the phone with the White House “all morning,” adding: “Maybe they’re busy.”
“My major concern right now is that I don’t know what the president said,” said Burr, who is leading the Senate investigation into Russia’s meddling in the presidential election. “I know what I’ve read. I don’t go on anonymous sources or — I want to talk to people who were in the room.”
The fact that Burr has yet to hear from the White House is further evidence the administration is struggling to figure out its damage control strategy following the Washington Post’s report late Monday that Trump disclosed information that could jeopardize an important intelligence-sharing relationship. As intelligence chairman, Burr is often briefed by administration officials on sensitive issues and is given a heads up on major developments.
Warner added that he wanted the White House to turn over a transcript of the meeting, in which Trump reportedly disclosed extremely sensitive information received from with a partner country.
“There's been reports that there may be a transcript,” Warner said. “We don't know if there's a transcript. If there is we'd like to see it, appropriately redacted.”
Senior White House officials, including National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, have denied that Trump revealed sources and methods to the Russians, with McMaster calling the president’s conversation with Russian officials “wholly appropriate.”On Wednesday evening, Justin Charette tweeted his plans to attend Ole Miss. The commitment of a kicker -- even one rated 4.5 stars -- isn't particularly intriguing in itself. But here's what makes Charette so damn interesting: he's a kicker who never actually kicks.
That's because Charette played for Pulaski Academy, the whacky Arkansas high school that always goes for it on fourth down and usually onside kicks*, a radical risk-assessment strategy that the numbers actually back up (and also won head coach Kevin Kelley a bunch of state championships). Charette attempted one field goal during his entire high school career... and missed it. His 92 career kickoffs, most of which were onside kicks, netted an average of just 24.7 yards and only 10 touchbacks.
* PA also never returns punts, figuring the risk of a muff outweighs the chance of a big return. You taking notes, Hugh?
SO MANY ONSIDE KICKS.
So why is Hugh Freeze interested in this guy? Well it turns out Charette is pretty good at kicking the ball when given the chance. Let's hear from Kohl's, an organization that puts on kicking camps:
Justin most recently attended the 2015 National Showcase Camp, he showed once again that his FG's are up there with anyone in his class, still needs to continue to become more consistent on KO's in order to move up in the rankings. Justin attended the 2015 TX Spring Showcase Camp and had a dominate day kicking the ball. He charted 10 made FG's and won the FG competition. Justin was invited to compete at the National Scholarship Camp in July of 2014, his FGs are at a 4.5 star level, good skills to improve on and solid potential to become a very good kicker.
Charette is a pretty impressive athlete, having played wideout, defensive back and kick returner for PA. He was also on the state-champion basketball team and was an all-state soccer player.
Here he is showing off his catching and tackling skills:OAKLAND, Calif. -- NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday that there is little likelihood the league will move to reform some of the widely discussed issues such as intentional fouling and conference imbalance that have materialized this postseason.
Calls to ban the Hack-a-Shaq tactic, in which a team deliberately sends an opponent's poor foul shooter to the free throw line, have grown increasingly louder in recent weeks, but Silver said executives at the league's general managers meeting May 13 voiced opposition to modifying the rule.
"The data shows that we're largely talking about two teams, throughout the playoffs," Silver said. "In fact, 90 percent of the occurrences of Hack-a-Shaq involve the Rockets and the Clippers, and for the most part, it's two players. Seventy-five percent involve two players, DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard. So then the question becomes, should we be making that rule change largely for two teams and two players?"
Editor's Picks Silver and the wide, wide range of owners In the NBA commissioner's annual Finals pregame talk, Adam Silver noted that management/owners are one group that needs regular help from the league.
Silver said that while he harbors reservations about the aesthetic effect of Hack-a-Shaq, ratings suggest it has little effect on viewership. He added that "as a steward of the game," he had concerns that eliminating Hack-a-Shaq might provide a disincentive for young basketball players to practice foul shooting.
On the suggestion of seeding NBA playoff teams 1 through 16 rather than ordering the top eight in each conference, Silver said concerns over player health and the longer distances teams would travel during early-round matchups were a deterrence.
"I think ultimately where we came out is this notion of 1-through-16 seeding, while it seems attractive in many ways, because of the additional travel that will result, it just doesn't seem like a good idea at the moment," Silver said.
He cited the Golden State Warriors, who would have faced the Boston Celtics in the first round of this year's playoffs under such a scenario.
"This notion of, for example, this team would have played Boston in the first round under a 1-through-16 seeding and would have had to crisscross back and forth across the country, which does not seem like a good idea," Silver said.
The commissioner said the NBA will make adjustments to the schedule in 2015-16 to limit back-to-back games as another effort to reduce the grind of the season and reduce the number of injuries to players.
"I think the science over time zone travel has gotten much better, where moving four time zones we think may have an effect on players' bodies that we may not have understood historically," Silver said. "So this is all something we're taking a very close look at. We're working in conjunction with the players' association on this."
Adam Silver said eliminating Hack-a-Shaq might provide a disincentive for basketball youth to practice foul shooting. Alex Goodlett/Getty Images
The Warriors also came up in regard to how the NBA handles concussions. Golden State's Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson both sustained head injuries in the Western Conference finals, with Thompson later being diagnosed with a concussion.
"Our protocols were followed exactly as mandated in the case of both players," Silver said. "I've had discussions with the players' union as to whether there are other ways to do it, and my response has been we're all ears. Right now we talked to the other leagues. We've talked to medical advisers everywhere about the best way to approach this.
"As I said, we think the best way we're approaching it now is best in class in terms of medical and science information that's available to us."
Regarding world basketball, Silver said there has been "absolutely no suggestion" of any wrongdoing with basketball's international governing body like the scandal that has rocked soccer, expressing his confidence in FIBA and noting that the NBA has a seat on its board.
"Their financials are audited. They have open board meetings," Silver said. "And again, there's never been a discussion in our sport of any of the sort of taint that we're seeing right now in FIFA."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.The nearly year-long Standing Rock protest, which gained steam in the final months of 2016, as thousands of protesters traveled to the site from across the country, achieved its ends when the Army Corps of Engineers denied Energy Transfer Products (ETP) a permit to build a portion of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The Standing Rock Sioux allegedly feared the pipeline had the potential to contaminate the Missouri River, the source of the tribe's drinking water. Now they fear a new problem. The garbage left behind by the activists.
Bulldozers are pushing massive piles of garbage and snow into containment units at the former Standing Rock protest site, which will be taken to a landfill for proper disposal. Volunteers are also helping with the cleanup.
According to The Washington Times:
Those involved in the clean-up effort, led by the Standing Rock Sioux, say it could take weeks for private sanitation companies and volunteers to clear the expanse of abandoned tents, teepees, sleeping bags, blankets, canned food, supplies and just plain garbage littering the Oceti Sakowin camp.
Some protesters have remained to help with the cleanup, but not enough. Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault II urged activists to lend a hand:
"Please, once again, we ask that people do not return to camp...The fight is no longer here, but in the halls and courts of the federal government. Here at the camp, those who remain should be working together to help clean and restore the land."
This is a sterling example of the progressive thought process. Leonardo DiCaprio preaches about the cataclysmic dangers of climate change, then flies a private jet. Thousands of activists traveled to Standing Rock to protest about an oil pipeline they claimed would contaminate the Missouri River, then left a garbage wasteland behind, which, if not cleaned up in time, will contaminate Cannonball River and Lake Oahe.
Aside from the minute band of activists who are helping with the cleanup, where is everyone else? It doesn't matter. They proudly displayed their virtue, and so little details like cleaning up their own filth in the aftermath are irrelevant.
Above all else, progressives value being seen as virtuous. Whatever cause they promote or defend always comes second to everyone seeing them promote or defend said cause. Virtue signaling feels good--protests, blockades, signs, chants. Doing the real work is too hard for most.
The Standing Rock garbage mountain is a perfect portrait of that hypocrisy.Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson and Paul O'Neal (inset). View Full Caption DNAinfo/Ted Cox and Facebook
CHICAGO — Three Chicago Police officers were stripped of their police powers after top brass ruled they apparently broke department rules when they fired on two men in a stolen car, killing one of the suspects.
The move comes as Chicago Police face harsh criticism for past police-involved shootings, including the 16-shot slaying of teenager Laquan McDonald, a shooting caught on a squad car dash-cam camera that led to angry protests in the streets.
The latest police-involved shooting came Thursday evening when officers opened fire on a stolen Jaguar that side-swiped a squad car during a chase. At least three officers opened fire, leaving one man dead, police said.
Late Friday, the department said it was sidelining the officers because of apparently broken rules. The case is still being probed by the Independent Police Review Authority.
"While the chronology of events is complex and still under formal investigation by IPRA, the Superintendent spent most of this afternoon with top advisors and command staff reviewing the preliminary information from the incident," CPD said in a statement.
"CPD investigators determined 3 officers discharged their weapons in the course of their duties and given what is known thus far, it appears that departmental policies may have been violated by at least 2 of the police officers.
"As of now, the two officers have been relieved of their police powers and will be assigned to administrative positions within the agency pending the outcome of IPRA’s investigation and our continuing internal administrative review."
At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, officers saw a Jaguar convertible that had been reported stolen from suburban Bolingbrook, police said. Officers tried to stop the car near 74th Street and Merrill Avenue, but the driver sideswiped a Chicago Police car and another car parked nearby, police said.
Officers fired shots, hitting Paull O'Neal, 18.
Officers followed him and he was eventually taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, police said.
O'Neal lived in the 1700 block of East 70th Street, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. Another man in the car, who was arrested, was 17. He was not injured during the incident.
Several officers were hurt during the incident, police said, but their injuries were non-life-threatening.
O'Neal was a friend of Lamon Reccord, the activist wrote on Facebook.
"During the situation, he should've been detained/arrested, not experiencing death!" Reccord wrote. "Don't sit here and say, 'The police got a thug off the streets' because he is just like anyone else! He has a mind, heart and soul!"
Reccord organized a candlelight vigil for the man to be held 7:30 p.m. Friday in the 7300 block of South Merrill Street. Dozens of attendees lit candles and held posters, but a fight and argument toward the end broke up the event.
"Due to the fact of me losing my brother yesterday, the officers [have] now been relieved from law [enforcement], it is a start of equality justice," Reccord wrote on Facebook, also thanking people for their support. "I am dealing with [entirely] too much and I am at the point where I just don't know what to do. I need to leave Chicago for about a good week to clear my mind."
First Deputy Supt. John Escalante has ordered an internal investigation of the incident, and the Independent Police Review Authority will also investigate the police-involved shooting. The officers involved in the incident will be placed on leave for 30 days.
Officers who were involved were wearing body cameras, police said.
Just 40 minutes before the shooting in South Shore, police shot a man who they said had a gun and was running away after a robbery in Englewood.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:When I started university, I chose to study Mandarin in an attempt to adapt to how the world was changing and expand my language learning past the Romance Languages I had previously learned. Before I began learning it, I always felt that Chinese was spoken much more quickly than many other languages I had heard. However, I always wondered if that was because I didn't know the language or because Mandarin was really that much faster. Now, having some experience in the language, I still find that native speakers speak very quickly, but I realize the language is much slower as a whole than I originally thought.
The same cannot be said for my perception of Spanish.
I've recently moved to Sevilla for 6 months, wanting to find the best way to learn Spanish, but I moved here not knowing any Spanish. Though I grew up studying French and had some minimal exposure to Italian, Spanish was (and still is) an unknown to me. Upon arriving here, I immediately thought that Spanish speakers must not breathe. They speak so rapidly and intensely that they could not possibly pause for a breath. Having now lived here for almost 3 months, I still stand by that initial impression.This was the equivalent of a child getting his hand slapped when he tries to sneak a cookie off the plate.
The only difference is, it’s the child’s plate, the child’s cookies, and the person doing the slapping spent a lot of time leading them to believe they could have their cookies, whenever they wanted.
The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the White House is warning Israel to halt any talks of settlement building that is unilateral, or that “undermines” Donald Trump’s efforts to gain glory for himself put together some sort of peace agreement between Israel and Palestine.
Since Trump took office, Israel has announced plans for 5,500 new settlements along the West Bank.
Apparently, this was done without reaching out to the White House, first.
A White House official confirmed that they were not informed of the plans, and that Trump intends to bring up the matter when he means with Prime Minister Netanyahu on February 15, in Washington. “As President Trump has made clear, he is very interested in reaching a deal that would end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is currently exploring the best means of making progress toward that goal,” the official said. “With that in mind, we urge all parties to refrain from taking unilateral actions that could undermine our ability to make progress, including settlement announcements,” the official added. “The administration needs to have the chance to fully consult with all parties on the way forward.”
Up until this announcement from the administration, Israel has received mixed signals from Trump.
Since Trump became the leader of the party, mention of a two-state solution was removed from the Republican party platform.
Trump’s envoy to Israel has publicly supported settlements.
Trump has, however, repeatedly called peace between Israel and the Palestinians the “ultimate deal” –
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Company Contact Robert Farrell President and Interim CEO Phone: (888) 861-2008 Email: [email protected] Fantasy is one of the all-time classic game franchises, with a long career of critically acclaimed and very popular games. The title we’re looking at today, Final Fantasy XIII-2, has been out since 2011 in Japan) and 2012 on the consoles. Finally, it has arrived on the PC and we could be more excited. But we’re not. Because it’s 3 years late. In any case, let’s take a look at its performance.
Basic features:
API: DirectX 11
Vsync: No
Anti-Aliasing: Yes
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Locked FPS: Yes (60)
Mouse acceleration: No
Even with everything set to the lowest possible setting, this game’s FPS varies a lot, between 30 and 60. During cut scenes and combat, 60 FPS is rarely seen, varying between 25 and 55, with occasional drops and surges to 20 and under and 60 respectively. The FPS depends on the cut scene and the complexity of the environment presented. For example, in exploration mode, generally the maximum FPS I reached with max settings was 30, while in combat it hovered between 40 and 60. It’s extremely inconsistent, but one thing is clear: you will not reach 60FPS with any consistency regardless of your PC specifications. Knowing this, locking your FPS to 30 might improve your experience slightly, consistency-wise.
We have a few graphical options, AA and Shadow Resolution, which even for a port seems an incredibly small number. It’s time to look at what is being offered in terms of visual settings:
AA (only MSAA available): It has NO performance impact
Shadow Resolution: It has a VERY HIGH performance impact
AA has no impact whatsoever on the framerate of the game. It varied as much in and out of combat with the AA on its lowest and highest settings. The only thing that made an impact was the Shadow Resolution. Unlike the previous Final Fantasy game reviewed on this site, you can actually change the screen resolution.
If you want to know what these terms mean, check out the graphical settings glossary.
Be warned that when running anything else in the background, the FPS can drop even further, under 25 constantly even on the lowest settings. One last thing I should note is the stuttering problem some people have been complaining about. This can be easily solved by following these steps:
Right-Click Computer->Manage->Device Manager
Deactivate ALL devices which begin with HID-compliant
The only thing you can play with to find your perfect settings level is the Shadow Resolution. It warns you in the menu that the max setting is only for high end systems, so play around with it a bit to find your threshold. Also, this menu can only be accessed from outside the game, adding another black mark to this port.
This game uses about 800MB RAM, 350 MB V-RAM on the lowest settings and 2.1 GB on maximum settings.
Obviously the performance impact will vary from configuration to configuration, so the important thing is to identify which settings should be reduced first. Naturally you will reduce settings that have a “VERY HIGH” performance impact first and then go to “HIGH” and “MEDIUM” and so forth until you hit your desired framerate.
My Testing Machine Specifications:
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570
RAM: 8GB
OS: Windows 7 (64-bit)
Video Card: GeForce GTX 770 2 GB DDR5 (driver version 344.75)
Final verdict for PC quality:
Final Fantasy XIII-2: SHITE (shite, mediocre, good, excellent).Blockchain has the potential to transform our world, and for CFOs it has the potential to revolutionize the way the finance function works.
Tipped as one of the technologies set to revolutionize how business is done across a range of industries, blockchain has risen to prominence in recent years. In Gartner’s 2016 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, which listed blockchain as an “at the peak” technology, the firm estimated that it would take five to 10 years before there’s mainstream adoption of blockchain, demonstrating the high level of interest in its potential. But is it really all it’s cracked up to be?
Blockchain is a way of recording transactions in a distributed database or ledger that holds a continuously growing list of data records in real time. Each set of transactions is stored together as a block, in chronological order, and using a digital signature that makes them verifiable, permanent, and transparent.
It has three inherent traits that make it special. All transactions are verified by consensus from other parties on the blockchain; everyone who takes part in the blockchain has a synchronized record of all transactions that have ever occurred; and special rules, called “smart contracts” can be built into each transaction to create automatic responses to certain outcomes.
Why the Hype?
Blockchain has the potential to transform our world, and for CFOs it has the potential to revolutionize the way the finance function works. By removing duplication of effort and unnecessary processes and by guaranteeing greater integrity of data, blockchain could lead to a more efficient and secure way of doing business than ever before.
Much of the discussion about blockchain has focused on the financial services sector. But blockchain’s potential for transformational impact will redefine the role of the CFO across all industry sectors.
In fact, we’re already seeing high demand for the application of blockchain in the health care, life sciences, logistics and transportation, and power and utilities industries. That’s because it has huge potential to be integrated across both financial settlement operations and business operations, enabling more informed business structures and transactions.
The goal is to allow processes to be integrated across current business architectures. For example, there are smart contracts that automate payments when products are delivered, thereby transforming enterprise working capital requirements and administration costs.
That’s why blockchain, while still in its infancy, could drive new business models, improve risk mitigation, and provide greater predictability within business processes. With all parties in a transaction verified by digital signatures, new trusted networks, markets, and value could emerge. With credit risk reduced, there would be valuable cost and time-saving benefits that would help improve the speed and transparency of doing business.
How Will It Redefine the Finance Function?
Potentially, we could see an environment in which third-party transactions are shared on a public, private, or semi-private blockchain and verified for integrity. Blockchain could provide significant improvements in clarity of company information and allow companies to communicate how they are performing overall by creating an environment in which every transaction can be verified in almost real-time. Companies would be able to provide extensive verification and data instantaneously.
An evolution to the blockchain will happen step by step. Initially, companies could start to migrate suppliers and distributors to blockchain using smart contracts. They could also manage such processes as billing and tax declarations through the technology.
Internally, finance departments could also start to capture some transactions via blockchain, allowing for more consistent, accurate, and up-to-date reporting across the business and with external stakeholders, including investors.
Further into the future, blockchain could enable the continuous, real-time auditing of accounts, with transaction history reported instantly. With transactions executed and automatically validated in real-time, investors and auditors would have an accurate snapshot of a company’s finances at any given moment. This would provide greater transparency, confidence, and trust, while increasing efficiency for all involved.
If it fulfills its early promise, blockchain will have significant implications for the role of the finance department, the CFO, and the wider business. With the ever-evolving risk landscape, new business models, the changing nature of competition and increased business complexity, blockchain presents a huge opportunity to increase the efficiency and value of the finance function, while freeing up staff to focus on more value-added activities.
What Kind of Assurance Will CFOs need?
Even with the high level of security promised by blockchain, CFOs will need assurance regarding the systems and processes involved before implementing this relatively untested technology. At a fundamental level, they would need to be confident about the existence and accuracy of all the users in the blockchain network and would require checks to verify the digital signatures and counterparties involved.
Standards regarding financial accounting and reporting would need to be introduced, providing guidance on how blockchain transactions should be managed. From a legal perspective, CFOs also will likely need guidance on how existing laws and regulations would apply to the use of the technology.
There would be an increasing need for cyber and software auditing to help ensure blockchain transactions have the necessary security and encryptions. Similarly, the integrity of IT systems, applications, and controls would need to be verified through governance and risk assessment. Third-party providers also would have to be thoroughly vetted and audited to help ensure they are trusted and compliant.
With new demand for assurance, blockchain could also change the nature of auditing, reducing the auditor’s role in checking and validating account transactions and moving them further up the value chain. Auditors would be able to provide further counsel about overall business processes while designing the audit strategies to be used in complex technology systems.
What do CFOs Need to Do?
Ignore blockchain at your peril, since blockchain will have a useful impact in every business. CFOs have a unique opportunity to define the blockchain agenda and embrace the hype – albeit in a controlled and risk-balanced manner – before it’s forced upon them.
Companies must not, however, focus only on how this technology fits into their current business and operation. Instead, they should also look at what their products and services look like in a blockchain-enabled world moving forward.
Jeanne Boillet is EY’s global assurance innovation leader.This religious freedom bill has been in the news a lot in the past couple days. Opponents say it discriminates against the LGBT community,while on the other hand, proponents typically say that people who are against haven't actually read the bill and that it doesn't solely discriminate against them.So of course, I had to look into it myself.What caught my eye was how EXTREMELY vague the bill was and how ridiculously wide open to interpretation it is.What people who support these types of religious freedom don't seem to realize, in terms of the US government, religion doesn't just mean Christianity, it means EVERY and ANY religion.Right after this bill came out, I noticed this story going around....Marijuana is completely illegal, both medically and recreational, but because these stoners called themselves a church,they were able to grow and smoke the stuff despite the laws in Indana due to the Religious Freedom act!Of course this comic is a gross exaggeration of the law, the spirit of the comic is still accurate in a legal sensewww.Facebook.com/HGWIZARDCOMIXThe other day we lost Chicken 22 to old age. She was clucked out, but had a fun and free life after we rescued her from battery farm hell. A lovely lady and one of the oldest we had.
At the same time 22 reached her final days, a friend of a friend told Chris that she was moving house and needed someone to take on her hens. Yes, it writes itself… The hen numbers are back to where they were a few months back. Lovely pets, and these two new girls are stunners!
Avid readers of this blog (ha!) will probably have realised by now that we are animal mad…
It just got madder.
Chris picked up a new family member at the stables the other day. An injured bird had been hanging around for a few days, so with our birdy experience, Chris decided to nurse it back to health.
Gregory Peck joined the madhouse.
Now we know chickens are clever, but this guy is worlds apart. You can see him think… he looks at one thing, then moves on, then back to the other thing…. and you see the thought process… He’s not the largest crow I’ve seen, but he’s still a big lad.
He’s been in a fight. Maybe another bird, birds, fox… car? and he has an old scar across his back under his feathers and his head is half bald. This scar may be pulling his skin when he tries to fly, as he doesn’t seem comfortable getting airborne, even though his wings are fine.
He has a mild chest infection, and is a bit bug infested, so he is going through some bird nutrients and a bathing ritual to clean him up. He already looks a lot better.
Corvids are among the most intelligent, if not the most intelligent, of birds. Peck has shown this by completely accepting us as friends. Day one and he was very wary and pecky to us. Day two, after food, bath, blow dry and mite powdering he is easy to handle and no fuss at all. It is said that crows have very good memories and facial recognition, so if you cross one or mistreat it, it won’t forget. From a shy, scared and pecky wreck, he now sits on my shoulder with out a care.
More photos HERE.
.(CNN) If you can't get through your day without a coffee break or two, here's good news for you: What scientists know so far suggests coffee may help you stay healthy.
As usual with medical research, the operative word is "may."
It's hard to know for sure whether coffee is really causing good effects -- lifestyles or behaviors associated with coffee consumption may also influence health. Also, different people have different tolerances for coffee -- it can have short-term side effects that make people steer clear of morning brews.
So, doctors aren't quite convinced enough to prescribe coffee -- but they probably don't need to, because so many people indulge in it anyway.
The point is: In general, regular coffee drinkers won't be discouraged from continuing the habit, although there are exceptions.
"For most people, for people who don't experience the side effects, the benefits far outweigh the risks," said Dr. Donald Hensrud of the Mayo Clinic.
Why would coffee be good?
More is known about the overall association between coffee and positive health effects than about the mechanism behind it, said Dr. Alberto Ascherio, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Antioxidants are one potential reason that good outcomes are seen from coffee. Our bodies produce oxygen radicals, which are damaging to DNA. Antioxidants prevent them from doing damage, Ascherio said.
Although antioxidants are found in fruits and vegetables, research has shown that coffee is the top source of antioxidants for Americans
Caffeine itself may also contribute to coffee's positive effects on brain health. That may be because caffeine is an antagonist to adenosine receptors. These receptors normally slow down neural activity when the chemical adenosine binds to them, producing a sleepy feeling. But if caffeine binds to the receptors, the activity of neurons speeds up.
What good it may bring
The evidence is fairly strong for coffee preventing type II diabetes and Parkinson's, and reasonably good for antidepressant effects, too, doctors say.
Just in the last few months, several new studies have been published highlighting other possible benefits of coffee. Again, none of them prove that coffee causes any effects at all; they are just associations.
People who drink two 8-ounce cups of coffee daily appear to have an 11% lower risk of developing heart failure, compared to noncoffee drinkers. That's according to a meta-analysis published in June in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation: Heart Failure, based on pooling the results of five studies. The researchers did not take into account the strength of coffee, what time of day it was drunk, or whether it was caffeinated -- factors that could be related.
Coffee drinkers may also be protecting themselves against basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer, according to a July report in the journal Cancer Research. Other caffeinated beverages also seemed to reduce the risk of this slow-growing cancer. But scientists don't yet know why this effect was observed.
Increased coffee consumption also is associated with longer life, according to Research in the New England Journal of Medicine. Again, no one knows what about coffee would make people live longer, but Ascherio theorizes it could be the protection against type II diabetes, Parkinson's, depression and suicidal tendencies.
Some of the strongest evidence comes from studies on type II diabetes. According to a 2009 meta-analysis, the risk of type II diabetes goes down with each cup of coffee consumed daily. Additionally, a 2007 meta-analysis found a correlation between increased coffee consumption and lower risk of liver cancer. But it's not enough to tell anyone who doesn't already drink coffee to start.
There have not been any large randomized controlled trials regarding coffee's health benefits, or even to see whether caffeinated or decaf is better for you. Without this kind of research, there will be uncertainty.
While perhaps scientifically interesting, such an investigation hasn't happened because of the economics involved, Ascherio said. A trial could cost in the tens of millions of dollars. Pharmaceutical companies aren't in the business of selling coffee, and coffee makers don't need a study to market their products -- people who like coffee buy it anyway.
The optimal daily dose of coffee varies widely, depending on the person. Some can't drink it at all. Others tolerate six to eight cups a day.
As common sense might suggest, the greatest overall benefits appear to be in people who drink coffee at moderate levels: two to three cups a day. But there are exceptions: A May 2011 study found that men who drink six or more cups a day had a decreased risk of fatal prostate cancer.
The bad stuff
Coffee hasn't always been hailed as such a great thing. It's also not for everyone.
Doctors may never consider coffee a standard recommendation because of individuals' varying susceptibility to side effects, said Hensrud.
Those include headaches, insomnia, heartburn and palpitations, not to mention urinary urgency. People who get fast heartbeats may need to steer clear of caffeinated coffee, too. Others don't drink coffee because it irritates their stomachs.
Famously, coffee got a bad reputation from research in the early 1980s connecting it to pancreatic cancer. But more recent studies have not found the same link, according to the American Cancer Society
Some studies in the past did not take into account the connection between drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, which do contain carcinogens, Hensrud said.
Different people metabolize caffeine differently, so some people can have a cup of coffee at night and fall asleep right away, while others need to keep their distance from java for several hours before bedtime to avoid insomnia.
Coffee that's boiled -- popular in Scandinavia, for instance -- will increase bad cholesterol; espresso has the same effect, Hensrud said. But filtering regular coffee reduces those cholesterol-raising substances.
Also, of course, if you don't drink black coffee, cafes will gladly charge you for all kinds of additives to dilute the bitter flavor and strength.
Some milky, sugary coffees may contain upwards of 500 calories -- particularly if they begin with the sound "frap." So, if you think you're doing your body a favor with these treats, health detriments of the added calories and fat may cancel out coffee's magic.
The bottom line
While all the evidence taken together suggests benefits from coffee, the burden of proof still isn't quite strong enough, because these are associations, not a demonstration that coffee causes anything.
"For a public health recommendation, you've got to be pretty darn sure," Hensrud said.
If you don't particularly like coffee but you're thinking about starting to drink it, beware: A sudden change from no consumption can trigger bad consequences, just like doing a really hard workout after you've been a couch potato, Ascherio said. Both situations -- going from nothing to a lot -- can increase risk of heart attack and stroke.
So, if you do feel like trying coffee, start gradually, Ascherio said. It may be that people who experience negative side effects from coffee won't reap the same long-term benefits from it, anyway.
"If you consume coffee, enjoy it," Hensrud said. "But I wouldn't necessarily recommend taking it up if you don't like it."Mixed Reality is a recently more popular addition to the current XR trend. The very first marketing material of the HTC Vive included Mixed Reality scenes to communicate Virtual Reality - and it makes a whole lot of sense!
VR and AR are currently in a funny state where all enthusiasts want to create content but it doesn’t sell at all. One major reason is communication of the experience - just showing a first person view is very unnatural and the last well known motion video failed horribly (but not for that reason), which was the trashy Doom movie. And that was just a small anecdote to its origins.
Full disclaimer: I wrote my bachelor thesis about building a general purpose mixed reality pipeline, this is a summary of it. You can access the thesis on my personal website.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
Virtual Reality (VR) is no shared experience. Without putting a headset on yourself it’s almost impossible for someone how the experience feels like to be in VR. As someone who works a lot with VR and AR devices, I’ve got a good feeling how an application works and how it feels with just watching the first person view - but that’s not so true for an executive you’re trying to tell that you’re worth his investment. Additionally, if you ever went to a VR exhibition, you’ll see a bunch of headsets and monitors - it’s downright boring to observe a VR user.
One way of fixing this issue is Mixed Reality (MR) - we simply recontextualize the current user with the virtual surrounding and create an image composition not only what someone sees in a virtual world, but how someone slips into a completely new world.
The presented pipeline is on a single system, is variable in its application and has a reference implementation. It causes a significant performance impact, which has to be considered while developing first.
Prerequisites
We have a few components that are vital in building this:
a green or blue screen
a camera depending on your camera type, you’ll need an input converter a camera tripod is advised
a VR headset with 6DOF tracking (ie. HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Acer MR Headsets, etc)
a recent PC, my system features an Nvidia GTX 1080 with 8GB VRAM
Talking about parts, the green screen is probably the most important one. There are cheap initial setups on Amazon, which you can get for about €80. In general you want a matte green fabric with a bit of stretch with some strain on its mounting points as well as lights for your VR actor and lights on your green screen. There’s a great book from Jeff Foster going deep into detail how to, build and work with green screens, if you want to build a really great set, but in general this schematic should suffice for most purposes:
Your choice of camera is pretty open. In my case, I’ve used a Lumix GH2 paired with an external INOGENI4kUSB3, which takes any HDMI signal and converts it as webcam signal - which integrates well into most applications, since webcams are easily managed by all major systems. Any recent webcam would suffice for a demo, if you want a fancy option, Owlchemy Labs deploys a Zed Stereo Camera.
Otherwise your primary goal is to get a noise-free1 signal from a video source into the system you’re running the VR application on. And from there into your engine.
Otherwise you will need either a tripod or a controller / tracking point of your VR solution. HTC is offering Vive Tracker and Oculus has additional tracker support but not available hardware yet - however, you can hack your own.
Finally you need a PC - since Mixed Reality is mostly a GPU heavy tasks, you need to have some hardware to support that. I’m using a Nvidia GTX 1080, which is sufficient. In general you’re rendering four important cameras, where as two render the stereoscopic view for your headset, one is rendering everything in front of the user and one is rendering behind him. Also you’ll need to store a few framebuffers, so have a few hundred MB of VRAM left.
Assumptions & Considerations
Due to the lack of depth information, you’ll have to assume the actors depth as a plane which is orthogonal to the inverse of the cameras view direction. This means in edge cases, that clipping through geometry will occur - a simple fix for that is to put some work into your shaders and exposing a global depth value in your graphics pipeline.
Doing Mixed Reality is a problem on multiple fronts. One begins with video capturing. You’ll notice a offset between real time and the footage your system received. The general latency is between 50ms - 500ms, which is, assuming 29.97fps content capture, between 2 - 16 frames.2 This is between noticeable to very noticeable ranges.
Finally you should have an artistic vision. Mixed Reality is sometimes unfitting for some applications. Fantastic Contraption decided, that an additional avatar representation is very fitting. The very colorful artstyle is appropiate with a similar stylized avatar instead of a human being. In the end you’re trying to tell a story from a third person view rather than first person, so you might not even need to implement a Mixed Reality pipeline to achieve that goal.
Building a Mixed Reality Pipeline (finally)
Good job on making it that far. Let’s get to the real meat. First of all, here’s a visual representation of the pipeline:
All following headings marked with an * are optional and enhance the visual performance of the final pipeline. You can skip them for an initial implementation.
Virtual Projection Parameters
The missing virtual projection parameters are as following:
Position of the real world camera relative to the tracking volume
Rotation of the real world camera relative to the north direction of the tracking solution
Distance between HMD and real world camera
Vertical Field of View (vFoV) of the real world camera
Solving for the former two is easy if the camera is mounted on either a controller or a tracker. You probably want to apply an offset to the transformation since you’re solving for the position of the photo sensor inside the camera, which is slightly displaced from the trackers position.
Reconstructing the projection parameters is actually pretty easy, however figuring out the initial variables is hard. For example have most DSLR cameras a cropping factor that is usually not found in specifications. vFoV is calculated with following formula:
// verticalSize is the vertical size of the camera sensor // focalLength is the length of the cameras focal length var fov = 180.0 / Math. PI * 2.0 * Math. Atan ( verticalSize / ( 2f * focalLength ));
Latency Correction
It won’t matter what camera setup you will use, at some point or another you’ll have to deal with a latency between the received frame of your camera and the real time virtual world. One very simple and feasible solution is to store framebuffer for as long as needed until a camera capture frame is received. This operation is relatively cheap, but costs you a good amount of memory on your GPU to hold these framebuffers. This calculator should give you an impression how much data it is you need to hold temporarily on your GPU:
[( Color Buffer ARGB 8 ARGB 16 ARGB 32 2A 10R 10G 10B 5R 6G 5B + Depth Buffer Disabled 8 Bit 16 Bit 24 Bit ) x 3840 x 2160 (4k) 1920 x 1080 1280 x 720 ] x ( Front + Back + Lightning )
= 0.00MB per frame
fps x ms x 0.00MB
= MB
In your best case, you’ll need a ring buffer with a fixed size, since the input latency should be a fixed amount of time that you can simply measure. By looking up your cameras specifications you can use following formula to calculate the number of needed framebuffers.
var numBufs = Math. Ceil ( fps * ( latency / 1000 )); // Latency in ms
Thanks to smart usage of the ring buffer, you can now allocate a fixed amount of frame buffers on your GPU and swap them at any time - this creates no excess bandwidth and allows for a fixed memory budget that you’ll be able to measure and access. All that’s left to do is telling your application when to swap and binding the frame buffers in your shader - both of which can be done on the same frame.
Now you’ll need to access two buffers at the same time:
The active frame buffer in which your data gets written into
The display frame buffer that gets bound into your shader to generate the Mixed Reality composition
Doing that is pretty straight forward - whenever it is time to swap a buffer, you can get and set the buffers accordingly - the next frame buffer after the current index is actually the oldest frame buffer:
index = index % buffer. size ; camera. targetBuffer = buffer [ index ]; var frameBuffer = buffer [( index + 1 ) % buffer. size ]; material. SetTexture ( fieldName, frameBuffer );
Camera Stencil *
One of the most limiting factors in production is the actual recordable space. Even on professional sets you always have stuff in your way, which will give you at most a box with three sides, bottom and top. On amateur sets you usually have one to two sides and only the bottom. The problem arises once the camera films outside the boundaries, resulting in non-greenscreen pixels - literally garbage pixels. Luckily you’re already in a real time 3D engine, which allows you to rebuild the boundaries of your set. Since OSVR and other libraries usually assume that 1 unit = 1 meter, you can rebuild your real world set and the real world environment easily. Add the set to a culling layer and clear the camera on RGBA(0, 0, 0, 0). Every pixel which will be inside your greenscreen will have an alpha value of 1, which lets you transfer that alpha mask directly onto your camera image:
Sampler2D cameraImage ; Sampler2D alphaMask ; fixed4 frag ( v2f i ) : SV_Target { fixed4 cameraPixel = tex2D ( cameraImage, i. uv ); fixed alphaPixel = tex2D ( alphaMask, i. uv ). a ; cameraPixel. a = alphaPixel ; //... other stuff }
In Unity such a setup would look like that:
Chroma Keying
Alright, so we have done a bunch of easy tasks now - but let’s get to one of the main parts to solve for on your GPU. The basic problem is, that we have three color channels in our input signal and want to pull the alpha matte from it.
This is most easily done by having a keying background color and taking that as reference for our alpha value. So we’re approximating a fourth color channel by taking all of our input channels and trying to extrapolate a completely new one.
Most commonly this is done with help of CIEDE1976, as it is very cheap computational wise and yields very similar results than CIEDE2000. It is slightly incorrect from what the Color Consortium currently suggest for calculating color distances - but it’s good enough for our purposes.
The most basic and brief theory for that you need to know:
We have a three-dimensional vector RGB, which is influenced on how humans perceive colors. It is possible to calculate a normalized three-dimensional vector in the Lab color space, that resembles the “real” color more closely.
Then you take the distance between your green (in Lab) to the pixel color of the camera image (in Lab, too). From there you assign all distances between a lower and upper limit between 1.0. Et voilà, you have alpha values for each discrete pixel in your image.
The HLSL implementation can be found in this public gist. Note that even if we have already figured out that the camera stencil gives an alpha value of 0, it is necessary to run the chroma operation, since there is no early out for this operation.
Explore the differences in color rooms with this handy tool by @franciscouzo:
Color Operations *
By now we have enabled an alpha-mask for our camera image. Hopefully all pixels that depict the background are removed, so it’s a good time to modify the camera image to fit better into the scenery. Since we’re compositing way beyond the 3D pipeline, we have to do these transformations manually per pixel. Luckily all these operations are not so complex.
Spill Removal
Sometimes the green background will spill onto the actor, giving the pixels a green tint. By using an HSV color wheel and shifting all pixels towards the opposite direction of the keying color, you will reduce the tint while not rotating all colors. Otherwise you would fix the tint by rotating, which would make most of the actors clothing look different than what you perceived as “normal”.
float3 spillRemoval ( float3 rgb, float3 targetColor, float weight ) { float2 target = rgb2ycgco ( targetColor. rgb ). yz ; float3 ycgco = rgb2ycgco ( rgb ); float sub = dot ( target, ycgco. yz ) / dot ( target, target ); ycgco. yz -= target * ( sub + 0. 5 ) * weight ; float3 col = ycgco2rgb ( ycgco ); return col ; }
Brightness
This one is easy, since it just increases each color channel by a value b :
float3 brightness ( float3 rgb, float n ) { return rgb + b ; }
Contrast
The color channel will be decreased by half and multiplied with a contrast factor c :
float3 contrast ( float3 rgb, float c ) { return ( rgb - 0. 5 f ) * c + 0. 5 ; }
Saturation
To (de)saturate an image, you will need to calculate the color intensity and then lerp it with a saturation factor s :
float3 saturation ( float3 rgb, float s ) { float3 intensity = rgb * float3 ( 0. 2126 f, 0. 7152 f, 0. 0722 f ); return lerp ( rgb, intensity, s ); }
Sort & Composition
In compositing an image there is a choice between accuracy and compatibility. Deferred shading can easily change depth- and alpha maps for correct projections and therefore are invalid for the assumption we make in compositing the image. The options we have here are:
Replace Masking:
A front plane is displayed, after it follows a chroma-keyed video and then the virtual background. This is the most accurate image generation, if the front image is generated correctly and not modified by post effects or deferred shading. Alpha Masking:
A front alpha mask of the geometry is being generated, then the actor is mixed with a full render image of the scenery’s background. The resulting image has inconsistencies with alpha-blending but this method works with all rendering setups.
Replace Masking
With a generalized matting equation, we’re needing an alpha-transparent front, the extrapolated alpha-matte from the video feed and the background, which we then can mix as following:
float4 mixCol ( float4 upper, float4 lower ) { // total alpha value after mixing both layers float mixAlpha = median. a * ( 1 - front. a ); return front * ( 1 - mixAlpha ) + median * mixAlpha ; } sampler2D frontTex, webcamTex, backTex ; fixed4 frag ( v2f i ) : SV_Target { fixed4 front = tex2D ( frontTex, i. uv ); fixed4 webcam = tex2D ( webcamTex, i. uv ); fixed4 back = tex2D ( backTex, i. uv ); /* do all previous steps, including chroma keying and then... */ // squash the front and camera together on the front front = mixCol ( front, webcam ); // and finish the composition return mixCol ( front, back ); }
Alpha Masking
Alpha masking is basically rendering the front geometry and clearing the camera in similar fashion like the stencil projection. This will yield an alpha mask of all front pixels, which can be transferred to the webcam footage, thus allowing us to mix the background with the webcam - while the background already consists of the virtual foreground. Most noticeable is that transparent geometry will be incorrectly mixed with the webcam footage.
sampler2D frontTex, webcamTex, backTex ; fixed4 frag ( v2f i ) : SV_Target { fixed front = tex2D ( frontTex, i. uv ). a ; fixed4 webcam = tex2D ( webcamTex, i. uv ); fixed4 back = tex2D ( backTex, i. uv ); /* do all previous steps, including chroma keying and then... */ // transfert the inverted alpha mask: // + geometry will have an alpha value of 1 // + webcam should have then an alpha value of 0 webcam. a = 1 - front ; // and finish the composition return mixCol ( front, back ); }
Light Reproduction
One final step before finishing the composition is left: Light reproduction.
Since we already agreed, that the actor is flat as a plane in 3D space we can use that assumption to build a light-capturing white plane, place it inside the the scene with the depth of the headset and yield a rendering of the current lighting environment at the planar space where the actors video footage will end up. This increases immersion and makes a natural fit for mixed reality.
Since we reconstructed the depth between real world camera and real world headset before, we can simply calculate a plane big enough to fit inside the camera frustum:
var pos = camera. position + Z * camera. forward ; var scale = 2 * Mathf. tan ( camera. fov / 2 ) * Z ; var localScale = new Vector2 ( scale, scale * 16f / 9f );
Now we can use our shader again, bind another sampler2D and have a untainted capture of the lighting environment. This one can be multiplied to the webcam signal after all color operations have been done on it.
Finishing the shader
Now we can assemble all pieces with all previous methods, hiding all the less
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It is up to your client script code to ensure that this is setup properly. Here’s how the interaction works:
When you request the login page, two cookies are sent back by the server. The second cookie is used in a custom header ( X-XSRF-Token in this case, but it could be anything) for subsequent requests from the browser. The server checks for the existence of the custom header and checks the value against what was sent for that page.
Similar to the Synchronizer Token approach, an external site trying to spoof a page and trick you into submitting data to an active session, would fail as it would not be able to set the custom header for a site at a different URL.
Origin header check
All browsers, including Internet Explorer 9 and later, send an Origin header in their requests. This header is not allowed to be set by Javascript, which gives you a high degree of confidence that the browser has the right information in that header. The server can then explicitly check that header and verify that the base URI matches the server’s. If the server is set to reject browser requests where the base URI in the Origin header does not match the expected value, then a third-party site trying to spoof the look of your page would be foiled as the Origin set in the browser would be different than what was expected.
Here’s what it looks like:
When I submit the form to register for a Stormpath account, the browser automatically includes the Origin: https://api.stormpath.com header. Stormpath’s servers can check for that header and reject the request if the value of the Origin header is something else.
This section on the remedies for Cross Site Request Forgery has focused primarily on securing the browser. We are next going to look at session IDs themselves with an eye to the server side of the interactions and how we can secure them.
Session ID Challenges
The session IDs we’ve been looking at so far, usually managed in the form of cookies, have a number of challenges associated with them. Of primary importance is that as your infrastructure grows, you may find it difficult for your session mechanism to grow with you.
Imagine you start out with one application server. It manages sessions by saving them to a local datastore, such as redis. Your service takes off, and you need three application servers to handle the load. Now, you are in a situation where the application server a user connects with to start their session may not be the same application that user connects with to continue their session. You may find yourself needing a whole centralized session id de-referencing service. That is, a service to ensure that all sessions are kept in sync across all of your application servers. This is a challenging issue at scale.
Even on a single application server instance, there’s a cost with session IDs. The user and session data associated with that id has be stored. It also must be referenced on each and every interaction with the application server. This can be costly in terms of slower resources, such as persisting sessions to disk or in the memory required to keep this data cached.
Session IDs have no inherent value other than as a unique identifier. A client, such as your web browser, cannot inspect the session id to find out what you are allowed to do in the application. Separate requests are needed to get that authorization information.
This is where Token Authentication comes in.
Use Token Authentication To Secure Your Single-Page Application
In the sequel to this post, we’ll dive into how Token Authentication can be used to address these issues and more. We’ll focus on how JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) can not only be used as a session identifier but also contains encoded meta-data and is cryptographically signed. We’ll see this in action in a Java code example.
Java developers can see these techniques in action in my tutorial on Token Authentication for Java Web Applications – it covers how your Java app can benefit from token auth and walks through a Java example available in the Stormpath Java SDK repo, and show you how to use tokens in your own Java application.
Feel free to drop a line over to email or to me personally anytime.
Like what you see? Follow @goStormpath to keep up with the latest releases.Last American nuclear bombs leave Britain after half a century of protest
America has withdrawn the last of its nuclear weapons from military bases in Britain, it was claimed yesterday.
The remaining 110 freefall nuclear bombs are understood to have been removed from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk on President George Bush's orders.
News of the apparent withdrawal emerged in a report by the Federation of American Scientists, a group set up in the Cold War by U.S. physicists.
Controversy: The removal of U.S. bombs from RAF Lakenheath brings protests like this to an end
But author Hans Kristensen, a leading expert on the U.S. nuclear arsenal, said it was unclear exactly when the last bombs were removed from Lakenheath.
All movements of such weapons are shrouded in secrecy and the Pentagon has long adopted a policy of refusing to 'confirm or deny' the presence of nuclear warheads at any of its bases around the world.
But a U.S. Air Force document dated January last year, setting out details of safety inspections at American military nuclear sits, lets slip that a series of emergency drills are 'not applicable to Lakenheath.'
The last remaining weapons at Lakenheath are reported to have been relatively primitive B-61 freefall bombs, designed in the 1960s to be dropped from long-range bombers onto targets into the Soviet Union.
Mr Kristensen said the presence of such bombs in Britain was 'not very relevant any more', with America focusing its nuclear presence in southern Europe - particularly at Aviano in Italy and Incirlik in Turkey.
American warheads were withdrawn from Greece in 2001, he said, and the trend undermined the case for continuing to keep an estimated 250 U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe - which analysts believe now fulfil more of a political than a military role, in maintaining America's close ties with its European Nato allies.
America's silence over the withdrawal was 'puzzling', Mr Kristensen added, as the news could help reassure Russia and achieve matching cuts in its own nuclear stockpile.
America first based its nuclear weapons in Britain in 1954, and at one stage had hundreds of warheads stored at UK bases.
The arrival of 160 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles at Greenham Common and Molesworth in the early 1980s sparked huge protests, which continued at each site for years - even long after the weapons were withdrawn from Britain under the terms of an arms reduction treaty with the USSR.
Britain's own remaining nuclear deterrent has for the last 10 years been limited to the Trident missiles carried by four Vanguard class Royal Navy submarines based at Faslane, near Glasgow.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament welcomed the report yesterday, but warned against replacing American warheads with interceptor missiles as part of America's fiercely controversial missile defence network.
Chairwoman Kate Hudson said: 'We would like official confirmation from the government that this has happened and believe an open admission will be a confidence-boosting measure for future disarmament initiatives.
'However, withdrawal of the tactical nuclear weapons from Lakenheath should not now give way to the installation of interceptor missiles for the US Missile Defence system - a proposal Tony Blair put to the U.S. last February.
'To withdraw the Cold War weapons but still pursue U.S. Missile Defence would replace one historical arms race with another, with Europe again at the centre.'Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Maduro or Blair? Newsnight's Evan Davies challenges Chris Williamson on his political philosophy
A Labour MP close to Jeremy Corbyn has criticised the US's decision to impose sanctions on the Venezuelan president.
Chris Williamson said it would be "better to facilitate talks" between the government and opposition amid ongoing political unrest and violence.
The Labour leader is under pressure to condemn President Nicolas Maduro, after voicing support for him in the past.
Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said concerns of growing "authoritarianism" must be addressed.
More than 120 people have died during months of anti-government protests in the country.
Two opposition leaders who boycotted a controversial election to create a new constitutional assembly - denouncing it as an attempt by the government to strengthen its power - were put in a military prison on Tuesday.
A statement from shadow foreign minister Liz McInnes on Monday called on the government of Venezuela to recognise its responsibilities to protect human rights, free speech and the rule of law.
And a spokesman for shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry went further on Thursday, saying President Maduro had to address the international community's legitimate concerns "about his increasingly authoritarian rule".
"The election must not be treated as a mandate for further repression and violence," he told the Guardian.
Mr Corbyn is currently on holiday and not expected to make any comment until he returns next week.
But Mr Williamson, a close ally of the leader, told BBC Newsnight on Wednesday that "clearly it can't be right, can it - in a situation where there is a massive crisis in Venezuela - to impose sanctions on the country."
Under the sanctions, announced on Monday, US firms and individuals are banned from doing business with President Maduro.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Your video guide to the crisis gripping Venezuela
"Surely it would be far better to try and bring the sides together, to facilitate talks and to encourage the right wing opposition to stop these protests on the streets," Mr Williamson added.
Venezuela's 30 million citizens are suffering shortages of food, basic goods and medicines.
Families of UK diplomatic staff in the oil-rich country have been temporarily withdrawn from the country as anti-government protests continue.
Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan condemned the "disgraceful regime", adding: "If the United Nations were to apply sanctions, we would be part of that."
'Talk not guns'
Mr Corbyn has previously supported the Venezuelan government under both socialist president Hugo Chavez and his successor Mr Maduro.
As a backbencher Mr Corbyn attended a 2013 vigil following the death of Mr Chavez, hailing him as an "inspiration to all of us fighting back against austerity and neo-liberal economics in Europe". He also shared a platform with Mr Maduro in 2006.
Asked whether his political philosophy was closer to President Maduro's or Tony Blair's, Mr Williamson declined to answer but said: "When a government is doing good things, as they certainly were under Hugo Chavez...that's surely a good thing that we should celebrate."
But Graham Jones, the Labour MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on Venezuelan, said he expected Mr Corbyn to comment on the situation in the Latin American country when he returns from holiday.
"It's down to each individual what they say and when they say it," he told BBC Radio 4's Today.
"As far as the party's concerned, you know Liz has made this statement. I think it was published in all the press. I would have gone further and I think more needs to be taken."
The GMB union said it would continue to support the Venezuelan Solidarity Campaign, a UK-based organisation to which 18 unions are affiliated, as its purpose was to defend the rights of ordinary people.
"We need to see an end to the bloodshed, of course, we need to ensure the government respects human rights, but we must have talking and not more guns," the union's general secretary, Tim Roache, told Today.ESXi 6.0 Update 3 is now available. This update is significant for vSAN customers as there are a number of performance related issues addressed. The KB article detailing vSAN performance improvements can be found here, and the ESXi 6.0 U3 release notes can be found here. I wouldn’t necessarily write a blog post to highlight a KB or update release, but I think the improvements that have been made to vSAN performance in this update are very significant.
Improvements include enhancements to the way that we do logging. In vSAN, every I/O operation is logged before being processed. We have now made logging much more efficient in this update. We also improve the way large file deletes are handled. Since the I/Os involved in processing the delete operations are also logged, this can make the log can grow very large, very quickly depending on the size of the file being deleted. Preemptive destaging of data, along with the improvements to the logging mechanism, now make the delete process much more performant. This is especially noticeable when data services such as deduplication and compression are enabled. Finally, this update to vSAN has several enhancements that makes the checksum code path more efficient.
There are a number of additional improvements unrelated to performance. You can find them in the vSAN section of the release notes.At the end of his just completed four-state bus tour, Mitt Romney stood on the courthouse steps in Chillicothe, Ohio, this week to accuse President Barack Obama’s campaign of making “wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the presidency.” Departing from the notion of chilling out in Chillicothe, Romney also declared, “His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then cobble together 51 percent of the pieces. If an American president wins that way, we all lose.”
Stop right there. The easy course--as Richard Nixon, the past master of guttersnipe politics might put it--would be to sort out in Solomonic fashion the misleading, the malicious and the mendacious claims on both sides. But some days (alert: major journalistic confession ahead) it seems too dispiriting to try to clean the muck out of the Augean stables of the 2012 campaign. So, instead, let’s focus on the provocative question embedded in Romney’s comments.
Is there a direct connection between the way you run for the presidency (or re-election) and the way you govern from the White House? Do the American people automatically lose when a president is elected after a campaign so dishonest that it would embarrass Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall?
The easy course (memo to self: stop channeling Nixon) would be to state flatly that character counts and a campaign style inevitably will be carried over to the Oval Office. Nixon provides the classic example. But there is also a conspicuous exception to this rule--and that bygone political season has eerie similarities to the Obama-Romney race.
Since I began covering presidential politics more than three decades ago, the worst campaign in terms of both morality and truthfulness was the one waged by George H.W. Bush in 1988 against a hapless Michael Dukakis. It was marked by blatant racial appeals (Willie Horton, a released African-American violent criminal, became a symbol of Dukakis’ permissiveness), sneering cracks about his rival’s patriotism (Bush pointedly visited a flag factory) and even a whispering campaign hinting that Dukakis was mentally ill (President Reagan on his vice president’s opponent: “Look, I don’t want to pick on an invalid”).
Bush, a sitting vice president who preferred foreign policy to the awkward rituals of politics, subcontracted his campaign to brass-knuckled campaign strategist Lee Atwater and brash media consultant Roger Ailes, who later created Fox News in his own image. As Roger Simon memorably put it in “Road Show,” his chronicle of the 1988 campaign, “Roger Ailes and Lee Atwater were the perfect Good Cop/Bad Cop team, but with one twist: there was no Good Cop.”
Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts, was the perfect foil with an aversion to fighting back. If Bush disdained politics out of a sense of patrician detachment, then Dukakis embodied the anti-politics of the good-government crusader. Yet when it came to substance, Dukakis was at Romney levels of vapidity, promising little more than “good jobs at good wages.” As liberal journalist Sidney Blumenthal wrote in “Pledging Allegiance,” his 1988 campaign book, “Dukakis had become the standard-bearer of the oldest political party on earth by saying as little as possible.”
Throw in Dukakis in a tank and the most inflammatory presidential debate question in history: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” The result was inevitable: Bush carried 40 states in a landslide.
But once elected, President Bush displayed little resemblance to Candidate Bush, who had put his integrity in a blind trust administered by Atwater and Ailes. Rather than a take-no-prisoners partisan warrior in the Oval Office, Bush governed through a mixture of civility, compromise (he was a Republican who raised taxes) and competence (he deftly handled the collapse of the Soviet Union). In his 1988 convention acceptance speech--a soft moment in a harsh campaign--Bush called for a “kinder, gentler nation.” During his one term as president, he tried to achieve it.
What makes the 1988 campaign so relevant today is that Obama and Romney are the first pair of presidential candidates since Bush and Dukakis who behave as if politics are beneath them. Watching Obama you have the sense that he would rather read a book or a stack of position papers than spend three days on a bus touring Iowa. Romney seems to have two styles as a candidate--stiff and wooden. Although their backgrounds are diametrically different, both Obama and Romney appear to wish that the keys to the Oval Office were awarded after acing an exam or honing an oral argument rather than mastering the messy populist rituals of the campaign trail.
Without an inherent respect for politics, Romney and Obama are not afraid of dishonoring its traditions in the quest for power. Romney, in television ads that he authorized and in speeches, has repeated the blatant falsehood that Obama has enacted a plan “to gut welfare reform” by removing its work requirement. Obama’s favorite Super PAC, the only one that he encouraged his donors to support, has been running on the web a deceptive ad in which a laid-off steelworker blames Romney and Bain Capital for his wife’s death from undetected cancer. The story is sad, but the woman died five years after the steel plant closed and had health insurance for part of that period.
America in 2012 faces problems of unprecedented complexity, from the moribund global economy to a never-ending shadow war against terrorists. But our political dialogue seems to ban any thought more complex than can be expressed in a 30-second attack ad. In the midst of the most depressing presidential campaign in nearly a quarter century, the only hope is that the victor in November--Obama or Romney--will transcend the distortions and the untruths that got him elected, as George Bush did back in 1988.Explore the far corners of the world in the age of discovery, outsmart your rivals, campaign for fame and become the most Renowned Explorer of the 19th century
Live your own adventures; get to know your explorers with their own character traits, skills and quirks, manage their progression while hunting for the most prestigious treasures
Prepare your treasure hunt; collect Insight, Research, Gold and Status on your expeditions to acquire supplies and support for the next adventure
Attitude-based gameplay; choose the best course of action by engaging your opponents physically and mentally using charm, deception, intimidation or a show of force
There is always something new to discover in the thrilling procedurally generated expeditions, where your reputation opens up new opportunities
Take command of a hand-picked group of diverse explorers and travel across the globe in search of legendary treasures while staying ahead of your rivals. Earn prestige in the International Society and become the world's most Renowned Explorer!Visit lost temples, forgotten cities and untamed wilderness to discover magnificent treasures. Find your way past wolves, smugglers and angry locals to become known as a fearless explorer. Every expedition has challenging encounters and your nemesis Rivaleux will take any chance to thwart your efforts.Select your band of adventurers carefully! Each of the 20 explorers has their own expertise and character traits when dealing with conflicts. Choose among Fighters, Scouts, Speakers and Scientists and find out the best way to use their talents.Acquire knowledge, get rich, or become famous by completing procedurally generated expeditions. Use these resources to get the skills, support and equipment you need for your next endeavor.Approach the locals consciously when running into a conflict;- Fight them with Melee, Ranged and Area of Effect attacks,- win them over using Cheers, Charms and Compliments,- or scare them away by Insults, Taunts and HumiliationEvery encounter is a new challenge with many solutions and it's up to you to build a reputation. Are you a diplomat, a schemer or a fighter..?Start your adventure now!National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) chief Gamaliel Cordoba on Wednesday urged lawmakers to impose a million peso fine on telecommunication firms that fail to provide faster internet speed to consumers.
During the appropriations hearing of the proposed P3.503-billion budget of the newly created Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and its attached agencies, Cordoba said one of the major stumbling blocks to faster internet speed is the stringent requirements from the local government unit to build more cell sites.
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READ: Dep’t of Information and Communications Technology created
“One of the reasons we’re having problems is that we’re having problems with some of the local government units, some of the LGUs asked for 32 permits before payagan magtayo ng cell sites, while we only give one,” Cordoba told members of the appropriation committee at the House of Representatives.
The NTC is an attached agency of the DICT.
Cordoba said the Public Service Act, a Commonwealth-era law that regulates public service, impose a measly penalty of P200 per day of violation against public service providers that fail to comply with the terms and conditions or regulations of its service.
“In the Public Service Act, the penalty we can impose is only P200 pesos for violation,” Cordoba said.
Cordoba said based on the computations of the National Economic Development Authority, the P200 penalty in the 1936 law if adjusted to current inflation is now worth P1.76 million.
“Lumalabas po na yung P200 is now P1.76 million a day per violation. Kung yan ang i-impose based on the power you can give us, magagamit natin ang imposable penalty na ito,” Cordoba said.
Because of the measly penalty that would be too ridiculous to impose, the NTC has resorted to a “shame campaign” by publishing the names of errant telcos in newspapers, Cordoba said.
“Ang nangyayari, their stocks which are traded internationally and in the Philippine stock market ay bumabagsak tuwing nilalabas namin yun. Kaya napipilitan silang maglabas ng capital expenditure,” Cordoba said.
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Cordoba also lamented that the Philippines has not spent a single centavo on telco infrastructure compared to Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, Myanmar and Afghanistan.
He said other countries invest heavily on internet infrastructure because every 10 percent increase in internet penetration translates to a 1.23 percent increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“In the Philippines, if you would ask us how much the government spends on telco infrastructure, the answer is zero. Countries spending so much in telco infrastructure know it will affect bottomline the GDP,” Cordoba said.
DICT Secretary Rodolfo Salalima told the lawmakers of the need for a comprehensive broadband network plan to connect even the most rural areas.
Salalima said he could not believe the reports which state that the Philippines has one of the slowest internet speed in Asia.
READ: PH internet growth slowest in past 2 years—report
He cited the efficient business process outsourcing services that the country provides using an internet connection.
“All these reports, we need validation… I cannot believe [we are] the slowest in internet speed, given that our BPOs is the number one in the world,” Salalima said.
Asked by Kabayan Rep. Harry Roque how the government could avoid another graft-ridden national broadband network project like the anomalous ZTE deal during the Arroyo administration, Salalima said bidding would be subjected to an electronic portal bidding so other countries could post their bids.
READ: Arroyo denies graft charges in broadband deal with China firm
For his part, Negros Oriental Rep. Arnulfo Teves urged the DICT to take on the mandate of regulating social media to weed out dummy accounts that only serve to bash people online.
“Sobra na ang paninira ng tao sa social media. Ang request ko lang, sana i-regulate natin, walang pwedeng fake account,” Teves said.
Salalima said the DICT only has mandate over the technical side such as infrastructure but not over the content on social media.
“Na-control nga ng China social media nila, bakit hindi natin magawa?” Teves asked.
“Kung ayaw may dahilan. I think it’s doable if we really want to do that,” he added.
–
Read Next
LATEST STORIES
MOST READSTUDY OBJECTIVE:
To show a new technique using narrowband imaging for the detection of endometriosis.
DESIGN:
A step-by-step illustration of the difference in visualization of endometriosis using a visible light spectrum laparoscope compared with a narrowband imaging light source.
SETTING:
Radical excision of endometriosis is considered the best treatment to control the disease extent and symptoms of endometriosis. Therefore, it is imperative that all endometriotic lesions are recognized and identified in order to thoroughly remove them. A narrowband imaging system enhances the visualization of capillary vessels and microstructures containing blood hemoglobin on the mucosal surface. It makes use of 415- and 540-nm filters that are strongly absorbed by blood hemoglobin. In this manner, microvessels, which are not clearly seen by conventional light, are enhanced. With the inherent neovascularization noted in endometriosis, endometriotic lesions may be more recognizable. Clear vesicular lesions of endometriosis are glandular excrescences, which are early signs of recurrent inflammation from endometriosis with accompanying angiogenesis. These are more pronounced under narrowband imaging.
INTERVENTIONS:
The use of the visible light spectrum contrasted with narrowband imaging that changes the normal color contrasts of the endoscopic image in the different areas of the pelvic cavity.
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS:
Narrowband imaging is helpful as an additional modality for the identification of endometriosis. In particular, clear vesicular lesions of endometriosis, which are not as evident under the visible light spectrum, are more pronounced under narrowband imaging. Its strength lies in its usefulness in the treatment of patients with endometriosis with symptoms of pain. It is especially useful for those with marked symptoms but, on first glance at laparoscopy, seems to have minimal disease. Narrowband imaging enhances the endometriotic lesions and makes it easier to visualize and identify them, knowing that these subtle lesions may well be the cause of the pain. However, its usefulness is decreased if performed after the initiation of surgery because of the bleeding incurred from dissection, which makes it difficult to distinguish between the red blood cells and endometriotic lesions.
CONCLUSION:
Narrowband imaging can be used as an adjunct to improve the detection of endometriosis.
Copyright © 2015 AAGL. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Keep updated on all the injury news and roster moves from around the NHL with daily Ice Chips.
Toronto Maple Leafs
Head coach Mike Babcock announced that defenceman Roman Polak will make his preseason debut Saturday when the Leafs host the Detroit Red Wings. Polak badly injured his leg in Game 2 of their opening round series against the Washington Capitals last spring, forcing him to have off-season surgery in the summer. The 31-year-old signed a professional tryout with Toronto a couple weeks ago.
Babcock also said Roman Polak will make his preseason debut in Saturday's game at Ricoh — Kristen Shilton (@kristen_shilton) September 28, 2017
Thursday's Practice Lines - Kristen Shilton, TSN
Forwards
Hyman-Matthews-Nylander
JvR-Bozak-Marner
Marleau-Kadri-Komarov
Martin-Aaltonen-Brown
Fehr-Moore-Leivo
Defence
Rielly-Hainsey
Gardiner-Zaitsev
Marincin-Carrick
Borgman-Rosen
Montreal Canadiens
Defenceman David Schlemko remains out day-to-day with a hand injury. Head coach Claude Julien says things haven't progressed as quickly as expected. The team also called up forward prospect Nikita Scherbak from Laval. - Team Tweet
Canadiens recall forward Nikita Scherbak from Laval. #GoHabsGo — Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) September 28, 2017
Head coach Claude Julien says that David Schlemko remains day-to-day. Things haven't progressed as quickly as expected in his case. — Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) September 28, 2017
Thursday Practice Lines - John Lu, TSN
Forwards
Pacioretty - Drouin - Gallagher
Hudon - Plekanec - Lehkonen
Galchenyuk - Danault - Shaw
Byron - De La Rose - Hemsky
Carr - Holland - Mitchell
Martinsen - Froese - McCarron
Defence
Jerabek - Weber
Alzner - Petry
Mete - Benn
Gelinas - Davidson
Morrow - Streit
Goalies
Price
Fucale
Winnipeg Jets
The Jets have assigned goalie Eric Comrie to the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League. - Team Tweet
#NHLJets assigns goaltender Eric Comrie to the @ManitobaMoose. — Winnipeg Jets (@NHLJets) September 28, 2017
Minnesota Wild
Veteran Wild forward Zach Parise may not be ready to play the season opener next Thursday against the Detroit Red Wings with a back injury, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune. After missing the first week of camp, the 33-year-old practiced with his team on Wednesday, but was forced to leaves 15 minutes early.
“Well, I’m sure that’s his goal if you ask him,” general manager Chuck Fletcher said when asked if he'll be ready for opening night. “To me, it’s an 82-game season. You know, I’d take 70 or 75 games right now.”
The forward scored 19 goals and added 23 assists over 69 games with Minnesota in 2016-17, his fifth year with the team.
In other injury news, defenceman Matt Dumba, who hurt his ankle during a game on Tuesday, skated with the Wild on Thursday and should be ready for the opener. - Dane Mizutani, Pioneer Press
Matt Dumba is back on the ice this morning so that "tweaked" ankle seems to be doing fine. He won't travel tonight for the #MNWild. — Dane Mizutani (@DaneMizutani) September 28, 2017
Boston Bruins
Backup goalie Anton Khudobin returned to the ice on Thursday after missing Wednesday's practice with a lower-body injury. - Joe Haggerty, CSNNE.com
As Bruce Cassidy expected, Anton Khudobin back out on the ice today after missing practice w/a lower body injury yesterday — Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) September 28, 2017
Anaheim Ducks
The Ducks have cut centre Sam Carrick from their training camp roster and assigned him to the AHL. - Team Website
Philadelphia Flyers
2017 second overall pick Nolan Patrick as well as forward Oskar Lindblom have done enough to likely make the opening night roster, according to CSNPhilly. Patrick, 19, has two assists over five preseason games. - CSNPhillyI've started to wonder if Novell or IBM has explained to SCO's Chapter 11 Trustee Edward Cahn how the GPL works. It cuts through all the other ways SCO is bound to lose, in my view. Then, I thought: why not just explain it myself? You never know. It might prove useful to put it all in one place. So, here goes, SCO and the GPL. As you may recall, if you've been around since 2003, SCO's position on the GPL has been that while it may have distributed its code under the GPL, it didn't mean to do it, that it never knowingly distributed Unix or Unixware code under the GPL. I'd like to briefly explain why that excuse doesn't matter to either Novell or IBM. IBM of course has always taken the position that it hasn't infringed any copyrights, no matter who owns them. But let's take SCO's words at face value, and pretend that they are true. Then how does the GPL moot their claims?
So you can try to prove me wrong, if you are so inclined, before I begin, I'll point you to Groklaw's permanent page on the GPL, where you can find resources to a great deal more information on all versions of the GPL. I'll be focusing here on GPLv2, the license that Linux code is distributed under. What SCO Said: Here's how then-SCO executive Chris Sontag explained SCO's position to CNET in June of 2003: And LinuxTag said in a statement, "Until a few weeks ago, SCO itself distributed the Linux kernel...as a member of the UnitedLinux alliance. Thus, even if SCO owns parts of the Linux kernel, it has made them into Free Software by distributing them under the GPL." Not so, counters SCO's Sontag. "The GPL requires the intentional act of the legal copyright holder to affirmatively and knowingly donate the source code to the GPL," Sontag said. "You can't inadvertently GPL your code." Leave donation out of it. Think distribution. There is no "I didn't mean to do it" with distribution under the GPL, or at least no way to go back to Go as if it never happened. Let me show you what I mean in a minute, but first, here's an answer SCO gave in a Supplemental Response to an IBM interrogatory, back in 2003: Insofar as this interrogatory seeks information as to whether plaintiff has ever distributed the code in question or otherwise made it available to the public, SCO has never authorized, approved or knowingly released any part of the subject code that contains or may contain its confidential and proprietary information and/or trade secrets for inclusion in any Linux kernel or as part of any Linux distribution. The link will provide you with evidence Groklaw collected on each item of the big four SCO listed as allegedly infringing in the IBM case, evidence that it was indeed knowingly released. As for the ABI files, here's why that won't work for SCO. And as for missing copyright notices on header files, here is why I don't think that will work. SCO also claimed that the GPL was unConstitutional, to peals of laughter, but they dropped that later, sort of dropped it. Even if that were so, it's the license SCO, as Caldera and then later as SCO in the UnitedLinux distribution, chose. SCO, as Caldera, also donated code under the GPL to the Free Software Foundation, we learned in 2003, when Bradley Kuhn, then at FSF, was interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald and said this: "SCO was not merely a distributor of the kernel named Linux; they were the distributor off the entire GNU/Linux system, which includes Linux as well as the core components of the GNU operating system, such as glibc, GCC, GDB, etc. "Most of the core GNU components are all copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation and distributed under our auspices under GPL. SCO's right to redistribute them, and Linux too, is the GNU GPL and only the GNU GPL." The GPL is the General Public License under which the Linux kernel and large numbers of software programs are released; it allows people to see and modify the source code, and requires that they give similar rights to others if they distribute the software. Kuhn said: "SCO now claims that their 'trade secrets' were added by IBM to not just Linux - but to many parts of the GNU/Linux operating system. While SCO's documents say only 'Linux' in most places, they are propagating the same confusion that we have often brought to people's attention: Linux is one part of the whole system. Kuhn said SCO would not have been permitted to distribute the GNU/Linux system under GPL and related licences if they knew that there were other legal claims (such as trade secrets) that were not licensed to the world under GPL-compatible terms. "Section 7 of the GNU GPL talks about this matter. Thus, we wonder why SCO ever distributed GNU/Linux if they believed that it contained SCO-proprietary trade secrets." He said: "Ever since the day that SCO made their claims public through their court filing against IBM, we have been asking SCO to tell us precisely what FSF copyrighted code they believe contains their trade secrets (or for that matter, infringes on their copyrights or patents). SCO has refused to answer us or give us any details. As far as we know, there are no such claims. "Indeed, FSF holds documents from SCO regarding some of this code. SCO has disclaimed copyright on changes that were submitted and assigned by their employees to key GNU operating system components. Why would SCO itself allow their employees to assign copyright to FSF, and perhaps release SCO's supposed 'valuable proprietary trade secrets' in this way? Good question. And here's another: exactly when did the GPL become unConstitutional in SCO's eyes? Later, faced with the knowledge of how the GPL works, SCO claimed compliance. In its memorandum in support [PDF] of a still pending motion for summary judgment, SCO wrote: I. SCO DID NOT BREACH THE GPL IBMs Sixth and Seventh Counterclaims fail as a matter of law because SCO did not breach the GPL. First, where SCO has copied and re-distributed Linux, it has done so in compliance with the requirements of the GPL. Second, nothing in the GPL which by its very terms is limited to copying, distribution and modification of Linux precludes SCO from issuing licenses to its UNIX software. Well, as I'll show you later, it could do that, but not with Linux, not the way it did it, not with the code integrated into Linux. IBM answers SCO's assertions very clearly. The license has to be respected, and SCO didn't do so, no matter what it says. Finally, SCO claimed that the GPL represents an antitrust violation, but that issue was shot down in flames in the Daniel Wallace attempt to prove the same thing. SCO never did pay attention to all my attempts to help it understand the GPL, and it's too bad, really, because they are truly in a GPL pickle now. So, how does the GPL work? How the
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reckon — Think about the people who own it for about a second — I know you got your problems but brother they got theirs," he raps.
The video ends with an XXXTentacion monologue seemingly calling for an end to all racism and racially-sparked violence.
"I can go on forever about the fact that murder is murder and whether you’re black or white, you should always feel free to voice our opinion,” he says. “But to act out on these irrational thoughts on every shape or form is disgusting. You cannot, as black or white, call yourself the supreme race when moved out of your comfort by the opposition’s color, their skin color. That is no form of being or demonstrating being a supreme being."
The rapper is also well-known for his misogyny. For instance, here are some disturbingly sexist lyrics from XXXTentacion:
I took a white b***h to starbucks
That lil' b***h got her throat f***ed
I like to rock out, I'm misfit
My emo b***h like her wrist slit
Curly hair b***h like I'm Corbin
Got like three b***hes, I'm mormon
S***t on your main b***h's forehead
Don't want your p***y, just want head
Moreover, court documents recently revealed a litany of domestic violence allegations against XXXTentacion, made by his on-and-off-again girlfriend, with whom he has a child.
Per court documents, as reported by UPROXXX:
When XXXTentacion got out of jail, they moved back in together in North Miami. (On September 16, 2016, court records show, XXXTentacion agreed to house arrest, and was released.) He told her he knew she had cheated on him. He put a knife to her neck, strangled her “a little bit,” and called her a “ho,” she said. That night, he woke her up and told her to go outside, where he picked up an empty glass beer bottle and demanded that she tell him the truth or, “I’m going to fuck you up.” She replied that she already was telling him the truth, that she had cheated and was sorry. He dropped the bottle, slapped her, and let her go back to bed. [...] About a week later, she and XXXTentacion moved to an apartment in Sweetwater, Fla. In two incidents there, XXXTentacion grabbed her by the neck, strangled her, and forced her down on the bed before another person who lived there came to the rescue. “I’m like scared,” she said, recalling how she felt. “It’s like he’s going to like end up killing me or something.” [...] In early October 2016, she found out that she was pregnant by XXXTentacion. The pregnancy was planned by both of them. On the afternoon of October 6, he told her to move from the bed they were lying on. He then went out onto the balcony, where she could still hear him, and called up the person she had slept with while XXXTentacion was in jail, demanding to know everything. When XXXTentacion returned inside, he told her, “You need to tell me the truth right now or I’ll kill you and this jit.” She said that “jit” was slang for the unborn child. He then started elbowing, head-butting, and punching her. He strangled her until she almost passed out. He took her to the bathroom and demanded one last time that she tell him everything or he would kill her in the bathtub. She couldn’t even recognize her face in the mirror — it looked “distorted” — and her left eye was completely shut and “leaking blood.” She was losing vision. She vomited.
Denying the recent accusations of domestic violence, XXXTentacion claimed, "I only beat the p****."
Watch the video, here:The New Nintendo 3DS handheld system released in Japan just last month, and it has been very well-received since.
Having been advertised by Japanese model and singer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, the handheld saw an Australian release but still awaits an American and European date.
In the newest commercial, Pamyu Pamyu returns to display some Nintendo 3DS titles like Pokemon Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, and a few unique hardware face plates that the New Nintendo 3DS can have!
You can view the commercial above. Nintendo has a plethora of games available for those still looking to buy holiday gifts, and this Christmas-themed commercial highlights some pretty appealing ones.
What do you think of the rather upbeat and catchy commercial? Leave a comment down below and share your thoughts!Eleven years ago today—in fact, at this very minute (12:05 am ET)—NASA's Opportunity rover touched down on Mars for what was supposed to be a 90-day mission. Since then, Opportunity has proven to be an engineering marvel by traveling almost 26 miles on the Martian surface, more than any other off-Earth surface vehicle.
Yes, a human-built craft has almost traveled a full marathon on the surface of another planet.
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For this special occasion, NASA's Jet Propulsion Labs put together a short video, detailing some of the rover's landmark achievements.
Opportunity's rover brother, Spirit, landed on Mars three weeks before but NASA lost contact with that vehicle in 2010. Until the more instrument-laden Curiosity landed in the summer of 2012, Opportunity continued working overtime, exploring the giant red rock first at the Victoria Crater until moving toward the Endeavor Crater.
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And Oppy is still ticking, snapping this panorama on Jan. 6, which NASA released just a few days ago:
But that doesn't mean Opportunity hasn't seen its fair share of scrapes. The rover has had mechanical problems during its 11-year mission and was even trapped in a big sand dune, which it wriggled free from back in 2005. NASA's biggest problem now is that Opportunity is showing signs of amnesia because of faulty memory. Although this doesn't threaten the Opportunity mission completely—the rover can use RAM to store information—NASA wants to reformat the faulty hardware so Opportunity can keep trucking.
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NASA also knows Opportunity is on borrowed time as the project lead John Callas recently told Discovery News:
"It's like you have an aging parent, that is otherwise in good health - maybe they go for a little jog every day, play tennis each day - but you never know, they could have a massive stroke right in the middle of the night. So we're always cautious that something could happen."
But at this exact moment in 2004, NASA landed its second rover in just one month, and everything was jubilation. You can relive the exact moment of Opportunity's touchdown (with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Al Gore in attendance) and the transmission of the rover's very first images through the power of the internet:
Thanks, Opportunity. Curiosity has a lot to live up to.The early solar system was, for lack of a better term, a chaotic hellscape. Everything we see today, from Mercury on out to the inner Oort Cloud, was a product of a series of collisions that accumulated into moons, asteroids, and planets. And perhaps one of the most violent blows came when a planet roughly the size of Mars smashed into a fledging planet called Earth. At the end of the cataclysmic event, two bodies were left standing: Earth itself, and a fragmentary, molten piece of the two planets that coalesced into the Moon.
But there's been a debate in the planetary science community: Did that early small planet, Theia, side-swipe the Earth, or did it run into it full-on? For a while, all signs seemed to point to Theia landing a glancing shot at Earth, resulting in the orbits and speeds we see today.
But recent analysis of material taken from the Apollo 12, 15, and 17 missions tells a different tale: that of a violent head-on collision, one that left the Earth forever scarred with the fragments of Theia, and that left the Moon with the same ratios of material. The results of this study were published today in Science.
"The collision was so vigorous, so powerful, so rich in energy that it probably mixed the whole system very thoroughly," said Edward Donald Young, lead author of the paper and a professor of Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at UCLA.
The proof is in the oxygen isotopes: that is, the Moon share the same oxygen isotopes in the same ratios as Earth, and preliminary results of tungsten isotopes shows about the same thing. In other words, the Earth and the Moon are made of the same materials. In the "glancing blow" model, the Moon would primarily have contained material from Theia with some admixture from Earth.
But analysis of salt-heavy lunar rocks and soil show it to be virtually identical to the floor of the ocean. As you can see from the map below, the Apollo rocks all came from vastly disparate parts of the Moon, but the ratios in each region remain the same.
Wikimedia Commons
The only outlier is a sample taken from the Northern Highlands of the moon, but Young says that owes to being an entirely different rock type. The rock, Young says, is likely to have more in common with the Bushveld Igneous Complex, a deposit of subsurface materials jutting through the crust in South Africa. The geochemical processing in each of those regions is likely to have remained the same, Young says.
"I think this will motivate impact modeling in [the head on collision] direction, so people will be forced to abandon the glancing blow model," Young says. "People will keep looking with better and better analytic precision."
To Young, this is a closing of the book on the glancing blow hypothesis. Now it's time to figure out how Theia and the Earth went from a head-on collission and became the Earth-Moon system we see today. There's a lot to account for, like how the Earth and Moon established their present rotations and orbits. But one of the bigger parts of the mystery is, to Young and his colleagues, solved.
"My view is that the issue of Theia content is more or less settled," Young says. "Now it's in the hands of the modelers."This year has been an extremely eventful one in regards to the meetings and changing dynamics between the various parties of the SSP Alliance, Anshar, SBA and myself.
This year has been an extremely eventful one in regards to the meetings and changing dynamics between the various parties of the SSP Alliance, Anshar, SBA and myself. A larger update is under development right now, though I am being pushed to put out a very basic summary in the meantime. I am going to barely touch on these topics and then go much deeper into them in the coming days. I had a meeting yesterday morning and again this morning with both the Anshar and Raw-Tear-Eir. I will include a little of the most recent information below, but the majority will be released shortly. Corey Goode (Check back here for updates) Update bullet points Reports came in for approximately 6 weeks detailing “huge spherical craft” in geostationary orbit above the continent of Antarctica. These reports came from 5 different sources and described the spheres as being huge, metallic, shiny with one row of portholes going around the sphere. One speculated that these craft were of Russian origin.
Reports came in for approximately 6 months that high level syndicate groups were moving huge amounts of personal items and supplies to South American underground bases most noted in Brazil. More recent reports stated actual family members and high ranking syndicate members were pouring into these underground bases like ants before a storm. Gonzales later confirmed that these people and supplies were in many cases being transported to Antarctica via “Black Submarines” that were “EM Driven” and the “size of container ships”. The water filled subterranean rift systems are so incredibly enormous that they have no trouble on their journey. Furthermore, the reports stated that the rift caverns had been modified into massive arched tunnels in ancient times.
Military abductions conducted by operatives of one or more unacknowledged programs occur. Chemical interrogation tactics are implemented. Body fluid and hair samples were taken, words and phrases were read off of a tablet to attempt to ascertain if I was a current asset of a known UNSAP. A tablet with a camera was held in front of my face and academy type military photos were shown to me. The camera monitored my eyes and marked a photograph when it was detected that I recognized the person. This incident caused the outing of 3 high ranking SSP Alliance individuals and caused a further rift between myself, Gonzales and the SSP Alliance. Because of the chemical interrogation and the attempted blank slating of my memories of the incidents, I didn’t remember the full details until I was informed later of the security breach.
Alliance individuals and caused a further rift between myself, Gonzales and the Alliance. Because of the chemical interrogation and the attempted blank slating of my memories of the incidents, I didn’t remember the full details until I was informed later of the security breach. Gonzales had been staying with the Anshar for weeks with no explanation. I was receiving briefings from both Gonzales and Kaaree during this timeframe. One of these briefings included information about a couple of recent trips that Gonzales and Kaaree made to an “Outpost” of working “Ancient Builder Race” technology below the surface of Venus. Gonzales was turned away by the beings that inhabited that outpost. They then traveled to a temporal anomaly and embassy type space station in the vicinity of Saturn that I had attended Super Federation meetings at in the vicinity of Jupiter. There were no craft or occupants on this station other than the same beings encountered at the Venus outpost. Gonzales was turned away from there too. Later Kaaree informed me that Gonzales had worked to make sure I was disinvited from these two trips. It was soon after this that I found out that Gonzales was one of the 3 people that was revealed during my chemical interrogation.
I was then completely out of communication with Gonzales for weeks after finding out about his identity being outed in my interrogation. Even though I was chemically interrogated and technology used eye muscles to identify who I recognized among the dozens of photographs, Gonzales was still upset at me. In one of our most recent meetings he would barely make eye contact with me. I had been delivered to the same base (By Kaaree’s vessel) where the recent meeting occurred between the Anshar and the Guardians.
One of the most interesting things that came out of this briefing was that there had recently been reports of 6 large cruisers (Teardrop Shaped) were in the process of leaving the atmosphere after breaking the surface of the ocean near the coast of Antarctica. Dozens of “Unknown Chevron Craft” swarmed these cruisers and attacked them causing massive and shocking damage. The cruisers broke off their attempts to leave orbit returning to below the surface of the ocean where they came from.
There has been a major uptick in conflicts just outside and within our atmosphere between craft of various groups that have involved the shoot down of a number of craft.
Gonzales reported dozens of underground/ocean conflicts that have involved the use of exotic weapons as well as an uptick in the use of weather modification weapons by both the various syndicates and elements of the Earth Alliance.
Kaaree informed me that Gonzales had informed her that the Anshar request for a meeting over requested ratifications to a treaty that was agreed to by all of the major ET players in the Solar System including those we would consider negative. This meeting is said to be occurring imminently.
Kaaree takes me to visit the Working Ancient Builder Race Outpost on Venus. We arrive and are met by a giant, long narrow craft that had a blast shield over the windows of what would be the bridge of their craft. We sat there for about 20 minutes before Kaaree told me we had been turned back. As I looked I could see several other of these large narrow craft around Venus with their noses pointed down toward the surface and the rear of the vessels pointing away from the planet into space. While waiting Kaaree and I spoke about a few individuals as well as how concerned the Anshar are with people actively reaching out for them mentally yet receiving contact from other beings. The reason the Anshar requested the meeting to make changed to the treaty is that they were considering a more active role with the surface populations. They are keeping an eye on the highly programmed nature of humanity and our response to knowing the Anshar exist. They have been troubled by some of the signs they have seen and some of their group has raised these concerns in their recent council meetings.
Usage Policy: Please post 1/3 of this article and a link back to this page for the remainder of the article. Other portions can be quoted from. It would be appreciated if all those who re-post this information would follow this standard.Ruby Rai (left), 17, topped Bihar's Class 12 exams in the Arts stream.
Highlights Bihar Class 12 toppers get basic questions wrong on camera Government says they must retake exams within a week Cheating obvious, admits Education Minister, blames'mafia'
News of large-scale cheating in the state triggered the introduction of new penalties including a six-year jail term for adults found guilty. (AFP Photo)
On camera, Ruby Rai, 17, who topped Bihar's Class 12 exams in the Arts stream, says political science, a subject she virtually aced, teaches cooking. Another student from her junior or intermediate college, who placed as Bihar's Science topper, was not able to answer elementary questions like the link between water and H20.The students were interviewed by local channels after their results were declared last week.So the 10 toppers among the nearly 15 lakhs students in Bihar will now take a new exam within the next week, an embarrassed government has said. Education Minister Ashok Choudhary conceded that it appears that either proxies took the exam for the students, or that answer sheets submitted by students were replaced later with better ones.More signs of cheating - the toppers are disproportionately distributed- most belong to the V N Rai College in Hajipur, just 20 km from the state capital of Patna.The minister admitted this points to signs of flourishing "education mafias" which organize everything a student needs from admissions to, well, assisted exam-taking. Last year, photos of adults scaling the walls of an examination centre to pass cheat-sheets to Class 10 students made international headlines, triggering the introduction of new penalties for cheating including a six-year jail term for adults found guilty.$\begingroup$
Many of the physical features associated with a feminine appearance, like protruding breasts, exist because of men and are in no other way helpful for survival (breasts are helpful, but their current size in humans is massively more than what is biologically necessary for holding milk and feeding young. Also they are present even when a women isn't lactating). Whatever option you choose, your resulting women must also be lesbian ( and find the current-species feminine secondary sexual characteristics attractive) or any option that relies on change over evolutionary time will also remove a lot of what is currently considered a 'feminine' appearance. The technologically-performed gender revolution and the secret male options thus are the ones which are viable. However, you mention that the persons in the society 'act' female. This is not really possible in the revolution scenario as over 4 thousand years of time cultural fragmentation is all but certain, and what gender ("acting feminine") means is largely a cultural construct. 4000 years of time passed with the technologies you are talking about and ample space and, consequently, resources should result in populations spread over most of the globe.
In order for a process to end up with the results you want, we need a society that:
lasts 4000 years or eliminated all other differing societies in the past
breeds and has bred women to look 'feminine'
Culturally enforces gender roles for women, despite having no (visible) men.
Of the options mentioned, I think the hidden males option is the most likely to work, but the implementation you suggest is unfeasible as it would result in male mate choice not being a selection factor in breeding. Culture is a very strong force, and a cultural ban against looking male in public would have the same effect.
Humans also all like the look of attractive women, whereas only females like the look of attractive men (Homosexuality notwithstanding). Thus a culture that encourages men to look and act like women so we can all get along is fairly plausible.
Alternatively, women have been historically oppressed by men in many societies and some humans in behaviorally modern society seem to seek to restore the former, strictly patriarchal, gender paradigm. Given the cataclysm you are describing it is possible that such a former minority might take control and lead the society into a sort of anti-Feminism. Provided the male leadership secures the means of production and technological research, they could probably keep the female population under control indefinitely, assuming they aren't opposed to infanticide to keep the gender ratios optimal and kill off any males with pesky egalitarian notions. One of the horrors of modern technology is that it allows power to be concentrated easily in the hands of a few, so while such a distopia would not be possible in the Stone Age, it would not be terribly difficult with Post-Industrial Revolution technologies. Because the males in such a society would originally represent a much smaller percentage of the population than the female and would need to maintain such a ratio in order to keep the male population from benefiting from female choice, and because such a society needs constant technological advancement in order to stay incontestably ahead of the females' attempts at rebellion, and because only males can be trusted to serve as scientists, political leaders, military brass, and other positions capable of overthrowing the patriarchy, and because direct interaction allows the possibility of assassination or lynching, the males of such a distopia would not be publicly visible.NSW Fair Trading cracks down on real estate trust account theft; millions stolen to pay gambling, drug debts
Updated
A Sydney real estate agent has been jailed for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from her client's trust accounts, as fair trading authorities crack down on what they say is a growing problem.
Louise Catherine Sultana admitted to siphoning $330,000 from the accounts of a Century 21 agency between 2010 and 2012.
The pregnant 25-year-old was handed an 18-month jail term with a seven-month non-parole period and is appealing the sentence.
She is the latest of a number of agents around the country to be prosecuted for stealing tens of millions of dollars from the trust accounts of unwitting clients.
Agents hold money in trust accounts on behalf of buyers and the bank accounts cannot be used for any other purpose than for holding funds until they are needed to complete a sale or transaction.
But authorities around the country say trust account fraud is on the rise.
NSW Fair Trading commissioner Rod Stowe told the ABC his agency had recently changed its policy to crack down on the growing practice.
"It was our view that there was not a strong message going to people in that industry that they wouldn't get away with it," he said.
It was our view that there was not a strong message going to people in that industry that they wouldn't get away with it. NSW Fair Trading commissioner Rod Stowe
"While we were taking their licences away, we weren't stopping them from making a living."
Mr Stowe said they were actively seeking criminal prosecution and penalties, including jail terms and fines.
"I think this is a much more effective way of dealing with the crime and also demonstrates to the industry that we are fair dinkum, so that people have a fear of finding themselves in prison if they touch a trust account," he said.
Agents stealing cash to buy drugs, pay gambling debts
Court documents show some agents caught dipping into trust accounts had drug addictions or gambling problems.
In August last year, former LJ Hooker agent Patrick Scott was jailed for 16 months after siphoning around $800,000 from trust accounts to feed his gambling habit.
The court heard Scott bet sums as large as $77,000 in a single day and lost almost $600,000 over a two-year period.
One of his victims, Eleanor Glenn, lost $50,000 after Scott took the money being held in a trust account for her.
Like most victims of the fraud, she was eventually reimbursed by an industry compensation fund, but she stills feels disappointed by the experience.
"It just amazed me that it was going on," Ms Glenn said.
This crime ruins lives and the penalties are reflecting the serious damage it causes. Consumer Affairs director Claire Noone
"We had a real estate agent who was all fresh-faced and very professional and really nice when they were showing our place, and behind our back they were siphoning off money from everyone's deposits and rental money.
"[It] was a bit startling that someone would be like that."
Authorities also say many agents take the money to prop up their own business accounts, with every intention of repaying it, but in the end never do.
Illawarra couple Roger and Gordana Ocvirk were jailed late last year after stealing $1.4 million from trust accounts.
The court heard the husband and wife team were running at a significant loss and frequently accessed the trust accounts to pay their debts.
In the past year, NSW Fair Trading has prosecuted six real estate agents for trust account fraud.
It has another 16 cases under investigation and five cases before the courts.
Just last week, another Sydney agent, David Michael Johnson, was sentenced to 16 months' jail after he fleeced two wealthy clients of $980,000.
He handed himself in to Fair Trading, admitting he misappropriated $480,000 from one client and $500,000 from another after selling their multi-million-dollar homes on Sydney's north shore.
The former LJ Hooker agent avoided a jail term, instead receiving a suspended sentence after he told the court that he used the money to buy illegal drugs for his sick wife.
Watchdog warns tempted agents 'you will be caught'
It is a phenomenon that is being seen around the country.
In Queensland last year, the Office of Fair Trading investigated 145 agents for breaches of trust account laws. Of those, 95 faced enforcement action.
The office prosecuted 14 of the most serious cases, with only one being found not guilty.
In June, a Brisbane agent was jailed for five years after he was convicted of misappropriating over $400,000 from trust accounts.
In Victoria it is a similar story. Consumer Affairs Victoria says three agents have been jailed in the past six months and a fourth sentenced to a community corrections order.
Two weeks ago, Daniel McNamara was jailed for 12 months for fraudulently using about $150,000 in trust money.
McNamara had been a licensed agent with First National Real Estate in Numurkah.
Consumer Affairs director Claire Noone said the state's account inspection program sent a clear message to those agents tempted to abuse the trust placed in them: you will be caught.
"Victims are often Victorians making the biggest purchases of their lives, a family home," Ms Noone said.
"This crime ruins lives and the penalties are reflecting the serious damage it causes."
Do you know more? Contact us at [email protected]
Topics: law-crime-and-justice, crime, fraud-and-corporate-crime, police, housing-industry, courts-and-trials, australia, nsw, vic, qld
First postedFollowing politics can be tiring, but Google's new tools could make fact-checking candidates easier than ever.
During the final Republican debate this week, Google will debut features that let viewers compile and compare each candidate's comments in real time.
Google estimates that political searches surge by as much as 440 percent during a debate, and thus hope to make information easier to sort through by giving each candidate a specific place to post content to the public directly through Google Search.
In this experimental feature, candidates can publish longer responses, to include images and video, to flesh out a point that they wouldn't otherwise have time for in a televised debate.
Google Trends will also be implemented to track the search popularity of each candidate, as well as conduct special polls with the audience.
Fox News is slated to air the results of Google Trends' findings after the debate, adding an element of interactivity to the night's proceedings besides reading up on each potential president's platform.
Not only will each candidate become ranked, but trending keywords and issues will also be measured to see exactly who — or what — the public latches onto.
Additionally, three YouTube personalities will make an appearance as guest moderators — Nabela Noor, Mark Watson, and Dulce Candy — who will each ask a question based on issues that matter to them.
This won't be the first time YouTube has gotten involved with political debates. The video site's partnership with CNN has intertwined politics with the web for nearly a decade, having users submit questions directly to the presidential hopefuls.
To participate in Google's coverage of the Republican debate, simply search "Fox News debate" this Thursday starting at 7pm ET, with the prime time debate beginning at 9pm ET.
While its unsure if Google will succeed in making politics easier to follow, but any effort to modernize the process (or just bolster voter turnout) is a-okay in our book.0
It’s been mysteriously quiet in Poster World over the past week. Indeed, it seems like many collectors are holding their breath in anticipation of…something…doesn’t it? Rumors are circulating and strange bits of gossip are swirling around, all of them indicating that 2013’s first blockbuster print is on the verge of being dropped…but when?
Today’s announcement from the Mondo crew tells us they’ve got two snazzy-looking prints dropping this week, but neither print seems to fit the rumors we’ve heard. That shouldn’t matter, though: we may have to wait a little longer for something that fits the “blockbuster” description, but in the meantime this Thursday’s Lord of The Rings prints from Mike Sutfin and Paolo Rivera will do nicely. Read all about ‘em after the jump, folks.
This may be the most slowly-moving news week in Limited Paper history, but it looks like the Mondo guys are still following their schedule: they’re right on track with a Thursday drop featuring not one, not two, but three new Lord of The Rings prints (three if you count the variant, which we do). Let’s take a look:
Precious Cargo by Paolo Rivera
24×36”
$50 regular edition of 330
Servants of Sauron by Mike Sutfin
24×36”
$50 regular edition of 285
Servants of Sauron by Mike Sutfin
24×36”
$75 variant edition of 155
Boom, there they are. As always, you just need to stay tuned to @MondoNews tomorrow to find out when the Mondo store will update with these prints, and then get through the checkout process before…oh, about two or three hundred of your fellow collectors. Anyone unfortunate enough to make it through the checkout process by then will be met by a stark white screen and an audio file that causes “THOU SHALL NOT PASS!” to thunder out of your speakers.
Good luck to all who are going after these! As is always the case around here: if you’re an artist or gallery with artwork you’d like to see featured on Limited Paper (or if you’re just some lucky bastard who happened to overhear a bit of poster-related gossip while standing in the bushes outside Martin Ansin’s house) we wanna hear from you! Email Limited Paper directly at [email protected], and be sure that you’re following us on Twitter via @LimitedPaper for ongoing commentary, news updates, giveaways, and more!It’s oddly perfect that Cole Sprouse is one of the leads on Riverdale. The prime-time CW drama is based on the gleefully shallow teens of Archie Comics, which indirectly begat the bouncy antics seen on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, the Disney Channel vehicle that made Sprouse and his twin brother Dylan into child stars. Much as the Archie mythos has grown up into something shadowy and unsettling in Riverdale, the 24-year-old Sprouse is trying to grow up into an actor worth taking seriously.
He plays Jughead in Riverdale — not as a hamburger-eating goofball, but rather as a cynical outsider and ominous narrator. Sprouse is one of the standout performers in the series, eternally dour yet endearingly vulnerable. He also happens to be smart as a whip. Vulture caught up with Sprouse inside the full-scale diner set constructed for the show in a Vancouver suburb, where he discussed the show’s similarities to Rian Johnson’s 2005 indie hit Brick, what Riverdale means in the age of Trump, and why he’s such a fan of the comics’ recent decision to make Jughead asexual.
I have to say, this is a very convincing diner.
It was, brick for brick, wall for wall, taken from a diner that we shot in for the pilot. This is a functioning diner. If we wanted to turn it around off-season and make a little cash, we could! We actually had an 18-wheeler pull in, thinking this was a legit diner.
Come on.
Yeah, recently! That’s how you know you’ve built a convincing set.
Better than an Emmy.
Yeah, really.
How did you get a handle on Riverdale’s weird tonal mashup of Archie Comics and sinister small-town drama?
By the time the audition process had ended, I was already pretty firm on what the show was going for. I talked to Roberto [Aguirre-Sacasa, the showrunner] about it in the very first audition. I was in a weird place and I had come off a binge of The Twilight Zone, so I had just come off this Rod Serling narration every episode. I walked in and, at first, you’re like, Okay, so how much of this “Goll-ee, Arch!” stuff is this gonna be? When I asked Roberto if I could read it like Rod Serling, he was like, “Uh, yeah, of course!” I got a good idea of where we stood then. But when we shot the pilot, I really knew where we stood, in terms of the film noir elements and the darker tone. That’s when I knew this was a show I was really excited to do. Because I had just come off a Disney background.
The stuff you were doing is, actually, closer in tone to the classic Archie style.
Precisely right. And that’s an interesting parallel: The classic, sitcom, goofy-hijinks stuff that my brother and I were doing in The Suite Life is what I wanted to stay away from, frankly, when I was reading for this part. And Roberto wants to, as well. What we’ve got now is something that’s not that. It manages to still be relevant and manages to still harken back to this beloved kind of Archie. I think those were really my only two worries: that it was gonna be a Scooby-Doo movie, or it was gonna do too much damage to the characters. Once those two were crossed off the list, I knew, Okay, this sounds like a fun project.
Did your experience on on The Suite Life inform how you approached this Archie story?
Oh, of course. Especially when it comes to acting or professionalism or artistry or anything like that. In terms of how much of that I take to this in terms of tone? Very, very little. In terms of working for my whole life and the professionalism demanded on a stage and so on and so forth? All of that stays with me. All the technical stuff stays, but the tone stuff is really not here.
Who is Jughead? I didn’t read these comics growing up, but in doing so now, I’m struck by how unique of a fictional character he is.
He’s a bit creepy in the comics. I’m sure some people would take offense to that, but he’s this sardonic, sarcastic, oftentimes cynical character who, if it wasn’t obviously stated that he was a real member of the town, you would probably think was fashioned by Archie in his imagination. He’s almost an imaginary friend, not like a real character. But in this, we still very much try to deal with Jughead as this cynical, sardonic, objective character. He’s very much on the outside. And, much like real comedians or real jokesters or real cynics, Jughead has a troubled past. But we still keep the fundamental basis of Jughead strong. He’s a very nonsensical character and he has a unique philosophical take.
How can you make him nonsensical while also being a cynical outsider?
Y’know, it’s funny: You oftentimes think of joking around as a very loose, comical thing, but the way I originally saw him, and the way I think we’re taking it now, is that comedy is a shell he’s using to approach the world. He’s using this lighthearted joviality as an attempt to either gain information or defuse situations, and I think it’s still coming from a place of hurt. Which is interesting.
How would you characterize the Archie/Jughead relationship?
Much more sibling than friend. The way Jughead talks to Archie and vice versa is very much the way I would talk to my twin. It’s one of those things where, if someone is doing something wrong and they’re your close friend, you’re close enough to them to be like, “Cut it the hell out. You’re really being destructive.” But they’re also childhood friends who have carried childhood understandings of morality into this darker period of their lives. They’re trying to accept this fluctuating version of their friendship while simultaneously retaining those strong morals of childhood.
Much like a sibling, Jughead would defend Archie from others, even if the two of them were on the outs.
I think that’s the important distinction: The fights that they’re having or the tension they are having is more temporary than it seems, but still legitimate. They are consistently trying to define their place in the world based on how their moralities and their biases are changing.
Why is Jughead the narrator?
He’s more objective than the rest of the town. He is now, especially within this universe, a character that fits on the outside of his society, and I think that gives him an interesting perspective on the inner workings of it. It gives him the perfect point of view to say, “This person’s crazy, this person’s not crazy.” But I also think he’s the narrator because it flatters him. I think Jughead’s a selfish character. I think he really is. I really do feel like Jughead tries to influence people based on his own understanding of what they should be and his own understanding of himself. It’s quite vain to think, I’m so cool and on the outside of society that I can write about everybody. That’s not common at all among teenagers
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coffee are more likely to be psychopaths. According to Yahoo, "Psychology researchers at Innsbruck University in Austria found that people who expressed a preference for bitter tastes (like coffee) were more likely to be vain, sadistic and enjoy manipulating and hurting others."
The researchers surveyed nearly 1,000 people for the study (PDF warning), split into two groups: students and prison inmates. The groups self-reported on their taste preferences and also completed personality questionnaires. The researchers claim that the recently published study "provide[s] the first empirical evidence for the hypothesis that bitter taste preferences are linked to malevolent personality traits," particularly "everyday sadism and psychopathy." There, now you know why your evil boss likes black coffee so much.
The researchers also included other items like tonic water, radishes, and celery in their grouping of bitter foods, so it's probably time to start pre-screening your Tinder dates for their cocktail and vegetable preferences. Recently, another study revealed that toddlers in Boston drink a surprising amount of coffee, so what does that say about the state of America's youth?Just 85 percent of the self-identified Democrats said they would “certainly” or “probably” vote. Ninety-five percent of Republicans said they would “certainly” or “probably” vote. Fifteen percent of Democrats said they were 50-50 — four times as many as Republicans. And you can see how that moves the numbers: The registered voters who participated in 2010 or 2012 — or were newly registered since 2012 — identified as Democrats by a 35 to 33 margin. Among the likely voters, it’s Republicans by 34 to 32.
Q: I noticed that the polls, particularly the R.D.D. poll, offered some pretty bleak figures for the Democrats among Hispanic voters. As you know, there’s a long discussion about whether polls are doing a good job of sampling Hispanic voters, or at least the most Democratic-leaning Hispanic voters. There’s also a theory that Democrats have tended to outperform the pre-election polls in states like Colorado for this reason. Is there anything you’re looking at that gives you confidence in your sample of Hispanic voters?
A: I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a good sample of Hispanics. It’s a real challenge. It’s a tough population to poll.
There’s a decision at the outset: Are you in a position to offer your clients bilingual interviews, and are they able to pay for polling both in Spanish and in English? When we give our clients the bilingual option, many decline for cost reasons. When they accept it, like Nevada in 2012, where all of our polling was bilingual, I don’t know that we got one micron closer to the Latino population than had we polled in English only. Our data was criticized at the time for being too Republican, for being at odds with common sense. I get that criticism; I understand it. And the Hispanic data that you’re looking at in Colorado, that shows a Republican ahead among Hispanics, is also at odds with common sense. So I can’t defend it except that we give people the opportunity to self-identify as Hispanic, and we record it.
We have been accused in the past as having blacks who are not “black enough.” I get that criticism. Our black respondents, instead of being 90-10 Democratic, are sometimes 67-33. Do I think it turns out that way on way on Election Day? No, I think we’re too Republican on black voters, just as we are sometimes too Republican on Hispanic voters. This is not unique to SurveyUSA.
Are there people who specialize in Latino polling who conduct elaborate studies and then in turn prove, to their satisfaction and probably mine, that the Latino population is overwhelmingly Democratic? Yes. Is there something that we can do better? I’m sure that there is. At the moment, though, it is what it is. It’s what the respondents tell us when we give them a chance to identify as Hispanic and we ask them for whom they’ll vote.
Q: If you think that your surveys systematically understate Democratic margins among nonwhite voters, how should poll consumers think about your results? Do you expect that your polls tend to understate Democrats, as many polls have in recent cycles? Or do you think that there’s some countervailing, pro-Democratic bias among white voters that happens to cancel it out?
JL: Poll consumers should look at SurveyUSA’s entire body of work — which goes back 20 years and is the largest of any state-level pollster. Seven-hundred-and-twenty-two of our recent statewide election polls were analyzed by FiveThirtyEight. They found across our entire body of work a Republican bias of 0.2 percentage points. That means our polls would have been more accurate, on average, had you taken away a tenth of one percentage point from the Republican candidate and given that tenth of one percentage point to the Democrat. I don’t think the polls we publish need to be unskewed any more than that.A 45-year-old massage therapist was charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting “numerous clients” at a Sherman Oaks massage parlor.
Hong Quiang Shi, also known as Steven, was charged with one felony count of sexual penetration by foreign object and three felony counts of sexual battery by fraud, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Shi was arrested on March 30. He was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday but the hearing was continued to May 14. He was currently out on bail.
The Alhambra man was accused of sexually assaulting three women between March 18 and March 28 during their appointments at Super Relax Massage on Ventura Boulevard, the DA’s office stated.
Detectives believe Shi may have sexually assaulted other victims who have not come forward. They were asking for the public’s help in locating them.
If convicted as charged, Shi faces a possible maximum sentence of 11 years in state prison.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Det. Mendoza of LAPD’s Van Nuys Division at 818-374-1924 or 818-374-0040.
During non-business hours or on weekends, tipsters are asked to call 1-877-527-3247. Those wishing to remain anonymous should call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.The Oakland Raiders played one of their better games of the season against San Diego Sunday, keeping the contest close until the final drive of a 13-6 Chargers victory.
The loss, which brings Oakland’s record to 0-10, officially eliminates the Raiders from the playoffs, not that a seven-game winning streak to end the season would have made a postseason berth all that possible anyway.
The Week 11 exit is the earliest a team has been mathematically out of playoff contention since the 2004 Miami Dolphins did so after falling to a 1-9 mark.
With an interim coach, a 16-game losing streak and rumors that the team could potentially relocate back to Los Angeles, it’s a particularly disheartening time to be a member of Raider Nation.
The objective for the silver and black at this point has to be to avoid being only the second team in NFL history to achieve an 0-16 season, as well as hope that rookies Derek Carr and Khalil Mack can put together some positive individual momentum heading into their second NFL seasons.
If only the Raiders played in the NFC South, they’d still technically be in the running for a division title.Berkeley police arrested three men and a woman after a robbery at a Southside Berkeley market Monday evening.
Police got a report at about 6:45 p.m. about a robbery at the shop, in the 2200 block of Durant Avenue, not far from the UC Berkeley campus.
According to Berkeley Police Sgt. Andrew Frankel, several people went into a shop and stole numerous items.
“When they were confronted by the employee, one of the male suspects threw a can of Red Bull at her,” Frankel said.
The group fled in a 90s-model Nissan sedan.
A responding officer spotted the car at Bancroft Way heading west toward Fulton Street.
Police initiated a felony car stop on Shattuck Avenue just north of University Avenue in downtown Berkeley. (Several readers witnessed the stop and asked Berkeleyside to find out why so many officers were on the scene.)
Frankel said police found items from the store in the Nissan.
Police identified its occupants as Terenia Richardson and Tyger Livingston, both 18, 20-year-old James Hamlin and 21-year-old Elonzo Reed. Richardson and Hamlin are from Antioch. Livingston and Reed are from San Pablo.
Hamlin and Richardson remain at Berkeley Jail on $50,000 bail on suspicion of robbery. Livingston is being held at Berkeley Jail with a bail of $75,000 on suspicion of robbery and bringing a controlled substance into the facility. And Reed appears to have had an outstanding $50,000 warrant related to carrying a loaded firearm in public. He is also being held on $50,000 bail in connection with the robbery.
Their next court appearance was not listed in Alameda County sheriff’s office records online.
Have a question about a local public safety incident? Write to [email protected]. Photographs and videos are always appreciated.
Follow Berkeleyside on Twitter and Facebook or get the latest news in your inbox with Berkeleyside’s Daily Briefing. Email us at [email protected]. Support independent local journalism by becoming a Berkeleyside member.It’s the question that keeps anthropologists up at night: Who had sex with whom, and when? Now, an ancient femur bone (pictured above) is helping them get closer to the answers. Uncovered from an eroding riverbank near the village of Ust-Ishim in western Siberia, the femur belonged to a man who lived 45,000 years ago. His DNA was so well preserved that scientists were able to sequence his entire genome, making his the oldest complete modern human genome on record, the team reports online today in Nature, following up on a meeting report in March. Now for the sex: Like present-day Europeans and Asians, the Ust-Ishim man has about 2% Neandertal DNA. But his Neandertal genes are clumped together in long strings, as opposed to chopped up into fragments, indicating that he lived not long after the two groups swapped genetic material, as Science reported from the meeting. The Nature paper uses further analysis of the length of the strings to propose specific dates: The Ust-Ishim man likely lived 7000 to 13,000 years after modern humans and Neandertals mated, dating the mixing to 52,000 to 58,000 years ago, the researchers conclude. That’s a much smaller window than the previous best estimate of 37,000 to 86,000 years ago. But what does the Ust-Ishim man tell us about post-Neandertal sex—I mean, population dynamics? He’s equally related to two other ancient skeletons: a 24,000-year-old boy from Mal’ta, also in Siberia, and an 8000-year-old man from La Braña, Spain. That means he probably belonged to the population of modern humans that first moved out of Africa and spread across Europe and Asia. However, among present-day populations, the Ust-Ishim man is more closely related to East Asians than to Europeans. This adds support to the idea that living Europeans inherited some of their genes from a different, unknown source, presumably a population that left Africa later in a separate wave. Whom they had sex with once they arrived is a question that scientists are only beginning to answer.If you live in a city, your future apartment may be inside a parking garage. Yesterday, a team of designers from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) unveiled prototypes of new studio apartments called SCADpads –tiny units that each fit inside a single parking space.
Why build in a garage? Overcrowded cities are struggling to find places to build affordable housing, and since fewer and fewer people are driving cars, maybe it’s a natural step. Already, most parking garages are only used about half of the time, and they tend to be located near downtown areas, exactly where many people want to live.
“Parking decks are a building type that’s often overlooked, but it may actually be the next frontier for adaptive reuse,” says Christian Sottile, dean of the SCAD School of Building Arts. “When we think about the impacts of demolition and reconstruction, we can either watch these existing assets sort of grind their way into obsolescence or we can enable them to evolve into other things.”
Over the last 10 months, dozens of students worked on every aspect of the design–from architecture, furniture, appliances, and textiles, to interactive features, like a smart lighting system that turns on lights automatically when someone comes home and dims when they’re ready to go to sleep.
Each unit is fully equipped with a kitchen, bathroom, and a flexible living space that can be used for sleeping, eating, working, or play. “They’re entirely self-sufficient–it’s small living with no compromises,” Sottile says. The three prototypes, currently installed in a parking garage on the SCAD campus in Atlanta, were also designed with private outdoor spaces that take advantage of the parking deck’s view of the city skyline.
The installation also includes a community garden, lit with a daylight-harvesting system installed on the roof, and a maker space where the apartment’s occupants can 3-D print specific accessories for their new home. Three students will be testing them out by living in them for the next three months.
“SCADpad is designed by millennials for millennials,” says Sottile. “And that provides this really interesting laboratory for experimentation. You’ve got this enormous population group–78 million plus–and 88% of them want to be in an urban setting. Affordable, efficient housing is important to them, along with mobility, and not being tethered to a car, and having collaborative living environments.”Today, Statsbot announces integration for Slack’s newest feature — Message Menus. We’re happy to say that Statsbot was chosen as one of a limited number of partners build an integration for the new feature.
Below we discuss this feature’s uses and advantages according to our own experience.
Clean interface
Check out how the Statsbot Dashboard has improved with Message Menus:
Message Menus allows many variations in one form. Previously, we used Slack Buttons to ease onboarding and help to make our user interface more readable and convenient. Now, with Message Menus, our UI is even better.
Buttons allow the app designer/developer to use up to five buttons in a single message. Before, we needed to use several rows of messages in one command to get the most out of this feature.
However, Message Menus bridges the gap between a clean interface and diversity in options. This new feature frees up message space for us to use.
Mobile version
Replacing buttons with one control element is definitely great for using Statsbot via mobile. A touch-friendly user interface makes it much easier to find exactly you are looking for.
That’s how Message Menus looks in mobile version
Quick search
Often, when drop-down lists have more than 10 options it’s difficult for users to scan and navigate. However, Slack Message Menus offers a search field so the list can be as long as needed. It’s a quick way to find the option you’re looking for, and opens new possibilities in interface development for apps like Statsbot.
Dynamic content
Content inside Slack’s Message Menus updates сontinuously. This means the feature can be used in different ways depending on the specific app. For example, at Statsbot we include our most popular metrics in Message Menus, which could change in real-time depending on usage. We believe this will help companies that are unsure what are the most important metrics to track.
ASO in Slack Directory
There is now a special featured category in the Slack App Directory for apps utilizing the Message Menu update. This has the potential for added marketing outreach for particular apps. At Statsbot, many of our new customers come to us from a Slack Directory search.Anyone can create mediocre content. Creating content that has been published, republished, reworked, and repurposed a million times is easy.
But creating valuable, relevant, quality content is hard. It takes time, effort, energy, resources, and knowledge. Most of this—in small businesses—is wrapped up in the expert owners who are also tasked with running the business, serving the clients, and managing the marketing and outreach.
Plus, let’s face it. Just the thought of content creation can make many business owners cringe in horror, and they’d rather make that extra cocktail.
Writing and content creation, especially if you’re out of practice, is not fun. Then when you add on the pressure of making it something your audience will drool over and share on social media—it can be incredibly intimidating.
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Want to use Click to Tweet on your blog?
If You're Not Using Content Marketing As A Primary Strategy To Reach Your Audience, You're Already Behind
Take a look at these stats:
Your audience and prospects are using social media, they click links, read blogs, watch videos, listen to podcasts, subscribe to newsletters—and they share the high-quality, high-value content with their friends.
Consumers buy when they're ready to buy, not when you're ready for them to buy.
If you're not there, top of mind, when your prospects are ready to buy, know that your competitors will be.
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The Problem Most Small Businesses Face Isn't Creating Amazing Content
It's creating amazing content consistently and sustaining it over time.
The most common complaints and excuses I hear from business owners avoiding content marketing are:
I have no time left in my schedule for one more task.
I have other internal items that I need to create and focus on before I create extra marketing content.
I need to shore up my business systems and processes before I invest even more in my marketing.
I don't know what to even write about or what people would care about.
How do you overcome these beliefs? How do you create valuable content and do everything else you have to do, let alone sustain it over time?
Here's the bad news: If you want a quick, easy solution—and you don't want to do any work—you aren't going to like anything I have to say.
Here's the good news: Creating a sustainable content creation process will elevate your business and build your expert status—and it's easier than you think.
There are systems and tactics you can employ to drastically increase the results gained from your investment in content creation. It just takes some planning...
Step 1: Assess Where Content Creation Could Improve Experiences, Value, Profitability, And Systems
Before you start creating content, you need to know why you are creating content. This is where we do a deep dive with clients into the inner-workings of their business, identifying all areas that could benefit from content creation.
The most common areas needing content creation include:
Customer education
Client onboarding
Client training
List building offers
Income stream diversification (information products and courses)
Marketing and blogging efforts
Speaking/presentations
Creating systems and processes
Employee training
When looking at this list, most business owners realize they are severely lacking in the content department. They see that they don't have any client educational materials or they have no processes for their services, and they start to feel very overwhelmed.
If this is you right now, it's okay. Hang in there with me and I promise I'm going to make this seem much easier and much more doable.
Step 2: Brainstorm Types Of Content And Topics For Each Category Identified In Step 1
Once you have list of each category or area in your business that could benefit from content creation, brainstorm every bit of content that could be created to reach your goals.
Let's use list building offers and client onboarding as examples.
Here are several ideas for new list building opt-in offers:
Checklist or tips sheet (for general interest and expert positioning)
Whitepaper on what prospects should do before hiring you (to create more qualified prospects and expert positioning)
Industry-targeted done-for-you tool or resource (for expert positioning)
A special report teaching people about what you do (to create more qualified prospects and expert positioning)
Other educational materials
Here are several different pieces of content that could be created to improve your client onboarding process:
Welcome email/message/video
What to expect email/message
Overview of your process
Tips for getting the most out of their investment with you and having success
Things you need from your client/things you need them to do
New client questionnaire with instructions and an overview of why you're asking these questions
Overview of what will happen next
Glossary of industry terms or guidebook
Educational materials like e-books, whitepapers, or simple checklists that will help them work with you and communicate more clearly
Step 3: Identify Content Overlap Between Categories And Content That You Can Repurpose
Now here's where the magic starts to happen.
Now we examine the list building offers list, which contains mostly marketing-related content, and the client onboarding list, which contains mostly business building, internal content.
It's easy to see that focusing on the client onboarding content will positively impact your business, improve client experience, and streamline your process (say hello to automation). It's doable.
But when you add the content that needs to created for marketing and list-building purposes, things start to feel overwhelming and definitely not doable.
Here's the thing.
It only feels overwhelming because you're looking at them as two separate areas of content—when they really are the same. Yes! You can create the content needed to run your business and the content you need to market your business at the same time!
For example:
You could turn your list of tips for getting the most out of their investment with you and having success that you create for your onboarding process into a list-building tips sheet or checklist.
You could repurpose your list of things you need from your client/things you need them to do before you get started into a whitepaper on what people should do before investing in the service you provide.
You could turn your new client questionnaire into a done-for-you industry resource that others in your industry would opt-in for (making you a leader).
You could turn the overview of your process that you give to new clients into a special report teaching people about the service you provide, how it works, and what they should expect.
The glossary of terms or any other educational resource that will help your clients will also help your audience, so publish that content on your blog, too.
In each of these scenarios, you're moving your business forward, adding value for your clients, providing helpful resources to your audience, and positioning yourself as an expert in your industry.
Want to use Click to Tweet on your blog?
I know you're thinking that clients won't see the value in paying you for content that already exists for free on your blog or in an opt-in offer. But you're wrong.
The magic comes when you put your content in front of your audience or clients at the right time—exactly when they need it.
A new client who needs to know more about topic XYZ will be frustrated if they have to search through your blog archives for each individual blog post on the topic. But if you combined the blog posts into one special report and provided it to them at the exact time they need that information, your content immediately becomes more valuable.
Step 4: Map Out Your Content Creation Plan
Many business owners have great intentions. They want to blog once a week or twice a week, they start out strong, then slowly fade away. Or they start tons of content pre-scheduled and when it runs out, they completely disappear.
A content creation plan is the key to ensuring your efforts are sustainable and not a "blitz and disappear" act.
Content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Success requires focus, resources, and commitment for the long haul. The idea is to base it on the core content you need to improve your business and then repurpose the content so you get the biggest returns on your efforts.
Want to use Click to Tweet on your blog?
Here's what you need to do:
Identify what content is your top priority (make it one that will help improve your business, like creating your onboarding process)
Write down how much time you'll need to create, proof, and design each piece of content needed
Decide how you will repurpose the content you're creating (like turning the overview of your process into a special report teaching people about the service you provide, how it works, and what they should expect)
Write down how much time you'll need to create, proof, and design the new items
Write down any other ways you can repurpose the same content (like turning it into a blog post)
Get a blank month-at-a-glance calendar
Review all of the content you want to create and how long each piece will take. Give yourself deadlines and write them in your calendar.
Some tips to make this process easier:
Don't bit off more than you can chew! Be realistic with your deadlines and timelines. Don't base your milestones on the requirement that you work nights and weekends to get it done, because chance are you won't. Trying to do everything at once will cause stress, frustration, and burnout.
Make quality the priority! It's better to produce content less frequently and ensure it's awesome, than publish mediocre content often
Consider the order in which you create content. For example, instead of creating all of the content for a new on boarding sequence first then repurposing it, create once piece of the process, repurpose it into a list building offer, then publish a portion of it as a blog post that promotes the list building offer.
Consider tackling one "chunk" of content each month, so one piece of the onboarding process, one list building offer, and one blog post gets done each month.
Want to use Click to Tweet on your blog?
Step 5: Include Supplemental Marketing Content In Your Creation Process
With your marketing calendar and content creation plan in hand, it's time to add some supplemental content. After all, publishing one blog post a month isn't going to get you very far if your competitors are posting two, three, four, or more times every month.
The supplemental content could be articles, videos, or audios. It could be commentary of current events or another article you read, or a recap or review of a tool or resource you found.
First, choose two pieces of supplemental content to add to your marketing calendar for each month. Consider choosing one quick easy post type and one more involved, like an article and a review, or an article and a commentary piece.
Second, reach out to podcast hosts, radio shows, event hosts, and entrepreneurs who host teleclasses and webinars about being a guest. Set a goal to do one interview or speaking engagement per month, then write a blog post promoting it.
Wrap Up: You've Got A Sustainable Content Creation Process
Once you complete these exercises, you'll have a marketing calendar with a sustainable content creation plan in place—one that guarantees each month you'll have:
One piece of content to move your business forward
One free resource or list building free offer
Three blog posts (one repurposed from the content above, one article, and one short-form post)
One interview recap, positioning you as an expert
Plus, numerous social media posts can be created from the content, too
That's one blog post each week! Considering business-to-business companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who don't blog, the argument for content marketing is pretty much a no-brainer.
Stay Focused, Stay Committed, And Stay Consistent
It's true that the more content you publish, the more traffic you'll enjoy and the more leads you'll receive.
But don't get swept up in the need to blog every day. Unless blogging is your business, daily blogging isn't a must.
And don't get sucked in by the claims that quantity is better than quality. Publishing something awesome once a week will trump publishing lots of mediocre crap.
Want to use Click to Tweet on your blog?
Content creation isn't just about long-form articles. It can mean video, audio, articles, interviews, infographics, slide decks, commentary, reviews, and more.
Mixing up the type of content you share makes it easy to share more often and makes it more fun for your audience to engage with your content, too.
Focus on creating content that will not only make an immediate difference in your business, your systems and processes, and your profitability, but also your marketing and expert positioning.
Commit to your marketing calendar and content creation plan, making sure it is achievable and realistic—otherwise you risk falling behind your goals, getting frustrated, feeling overwhelmed, and abandoning it.
Stay consistent in your efforts. Again, content creation is a marathon not a sprint. If you need help, don't be afraid to ask for it.
Hire a content manager
Leverage a transcription service and speak your content
Hire an editor to clean up and finesse your rough drafts
Hire a copywriter
Create an evergreen content bank to pull from in a pinch
Ask your assistant to interview you about a topic and write you up a recap—it's easier to edit than start from scratch
When it comes to content creation, it's easy to start and stop, to get motivated, write a bunch, then get busy and publish nothing for weeks or months at a time.
Creating a sustainable content creation process that you can stick to over time is harder. It requires work and effort, but the rewards far exceed the effort.
Remember—if it was easy, everyone would do it. All you need to worry about it doing it more than your competitors.She doesn’t spin on Shabbos.
Ping-pong prodigy Estee Ackerman, an 11-year-old from Long Island, was disqualified from her final event at the 2012 US National Table Tennis Championships in Las Vegas last Dec. 21 when her match fell on the Jewish holy day of rest and she chose not to play.
“I advanced in my round robin and then we looked at my schedule and saw the next match would be during Friday night, which is our Sabbath, so of course I’m disappointed,” Estee told The Post.
“I practiced and trained for six months for this,” the sixth-grader from West Hempstead said. “Ping pong is important to me, but my religion of Judaism is also very important to me.”
Estee is currently the No. 4 ranked player in the 8-to-11 age bracket, although in the world of competitive ping pong she often challenges and whoops players in their 20s and 30s.
“She had a Shabbos-over-sports moment,” said her father Glenn Ackerman, a funeral-home director. “She had to withdraw from the event as tournament officials would not reschedule it for after shabbos.”
Ackerman spends hours almost daily training with his daughter, whom he bills as one of the country’s biggest up-and-coming Jewish athletes.
“Hopefully, other Jewish athletes will also look to Estee to pursue their dreams in whatever sport they choose,” he said.
Neither Glenn nor Estee hold ill will toward USA Table Tennis, the sport’s governing body, because there were nearly 800 players to schedule over the five-day event.
“We clearly try to be inclusionary in the manner in which we run our events,” said Michael Cavanaugh, CEO of USA Table Tennis. “Estee entered eight events and played to completion in all but one of them.”
Fortunately, the last event she had to miss had little impact on her ranking.
Since she was little, Estee has practiced almost daily — except on the Sabbath, of course — while attending a local yeshiva.
Her big break came in July during a tournament in Grand Rapids, Mich., when she was discovered by professional player Biba Golic, the top celebrity endorser of the Killerspin line of ping-pong products.
“She’s the real deal, that’s for sure,” Golic told The Post. “We were looking at prospective kids and suddenly noticed this little girl. She instantly caught our eye. You could see her character immediately.”
They saw her play an adult man.
“Tactically and strategically she has a natural sense for the game,” Golic said. “When you start to play against a 30-year-old guy the natural reaction for a girl is to get scared and she was not taken by fears. She was just playing her game and beating this guy.”
At her tender age, Estee now has a sponsorship from Killerspin and is an official member of the “Killerspin Krew.” The company has flown her around the country for exhibition events and Golic is mulling sending her to China for a summer of intense training.
Already, Estee has her eyes on joining the US Olympic table tennis team — an event that the US has never once medaled in.
“I hope to try out for the Olympic team and one day bring back a medal for my country,” Estee said.Responders with the Atlantic Large Whale Disentanglement Network work to remove entangling gear from whales when it is determined to be life threatening. The Network operates under federal authority. (NOAA Fisheries)
A massive blue whale has been entangled and in distress off the southern coast of California since at least last weekend. Rescuers made an attempt to free the majestic marine mammal earlier this week that ended in failure. It was the first effort that had ever been made to disentangle a blue whale — the largest animal on Earth.
Fisheries experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration think the whale got caught in a crab trap line farther up the coast in Northern California and was unable to free itself. The whale was spotted off the coast of San Diego over the weekend, and by Monday had made the 65-mile trek back north to the Orange County coastline.
It was located by a whale-watching company off the coast of Dana Point, Calif., on Monday morning. But as the rescue team tried to get close, it became more and more agitated.
“The whale got disturbed and began diving for longer periods,” said Michael Milstein, a spokesman for NOAA, in a phone interview. NOAA attempted to attach a telemetry buoy to the gear that was attached to the whale so that if they lost the animal, they could continue to track it. Unfortunately that endeavor also failed.
“Essentially it was dusk, and night was coming, and the whale was becoming harder to follow,” Milstein said.
This process was made all the more difficult by the creature’s size. Blue whales can grow to about 100 feet long and can weight as much as 135 tons. The whale’s tongue alone can weigh over two tons.
Milstein said that the rope is certainly causing the animal severe pain. “The whale is essentially towing both the line and the [crab] trap attached to it,” he said. “It’s constant pressure. It’s wrapped around the head in some way, and depending on how its entangled it’s cutting into the whale’s flesh and blubber.”
NOAA collected this underwater video using a Go
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to kick in when the Bush tax rates expire at the end of the year, will “restrain economic growth this year and significantly restrain growth in 2013,” according to CBO. But it says the fiscal prudence will help growth in the out years.
It is unclear whether the Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire. Republicans want all of the tax rates to be extended, and the White House wants Bush tax rates for families with annual income below $250,000 to be extended.
Gross federal debt would rise from $14.8 trillion at the end of 2011 to $21.7 trillion under CBO's projections.
The CBO uses a “current policy” baseline that assumes the Bush-era tax rates will not be extended after 2013, however.
The deficit will be much higher if Congress takes several actions that many expect.
If the Bush tax rates are extended, for example, the deficit would rise.
It would rise if Congress patches the Alternative Minimum Tax, which lawmakers have routinely done to prevent higher taxes from being imposed on middle class taxpayers.
It would also rise if Congress continues to pass the “doc fix” that prevents a cut to Medicare payments to doctors, something that Congress has done on a near-annual basis.
Finally, if Congress does not follow through on cuts mandated by the failure of the supercommittee, the deficit will grow. Lawmakers are already talking about canceling scheduled cuts to the Pentagon’s budget.
In the “alternative fiscal scenario” where these things happen the gross federal debt rises to $29.4 trillion by 2022.
Elmendorf noted that allowing the lower tax rates to be extended or for the triggered cuts to be dodged would boost short term growth by as much as 2.9 percent in 2013 and lower unemployment to as low as 7.4 percent.
But he said such a choice would come with a steep price, with $400 billion added to the deficit in 2013 alone.
“There is no plausible scenario where the alternative fiscal scenario is sustainable,” he said.
Elmendorf noted that extending all the Bush era tax rates and patching the AMT adds $5.4 trillion to the deficit. He said that just ending tax reductions for the wealthy could contribute about $1 trillion to deficit reduction.
Despite political rhetoric that focuses on discretionary spending, Elmendorf made clear that the bigger driver of the deficit increase are entitlement programs.
“Clearly the deficit will not be brought under control without changes in either revenues or Social Security and federal healthcare programs,” he said. “The gap that has opened between what we are used to getting from the government and the revenue that we are used paying into the government has widened and will only get wider in the coming decade.”
Obama will release his 2013 budget request on Feb. 13. He is expected to included in it recommendations for reducing the deficit by $4 trillion over a decade and to call for the end of Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy.
By the end of March, House Republicans plan to vote on their alternative budget, authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Five takeaways from McCabe’s allegations against Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Sanders set to shake up 2020 race MORE (R-Wis.). Ryan hopes to release a budget similar to his 2012 budget, which included changing Medicare into a private insurance system for future retirees.
"With four straight years of trillion-dollar deficits, no credible plan to lift the crushing burden of debt, and a Senate majority that has failed to pass a budget for over 1,000 days, the president and his party’s leaders have fallen short in their duty to tackle our generation’s most pressing fiscal and economic challenges," Ryan said in reaction to the CBO report.
This story was posted at 10 a.m. and last updated at 12:43 p.m.Two of the three wolves that remain on Michigan's Isle Royale. Photo by J. Vucetich and R. Peterson/Michigan Tech Isle Royale Wolf and Moose Project
ISLE ROYALE, Mich., April 22 (UPI) -- A wolf population unique to Michigan's Isle Royale, an island in Lake Superior, is almost gone. Last time biologists checked, only three wolves remained; the youngest of which was reported to be deformed and unhealthy -- the product of inbreeding.
Open wilderness, rich with prey -- that's what all hunters are looking for. Wolves, especially, need lots of space to subsist. But mammal populations also need genetic diversity to survive. Choose a location too isolated from other wolves, and too few new genes will enter the pool.
Just as predator populations hemmed in by roads and development struggle to branch out, leading ultimately to inbreeding, so too do groups that venture too far from the general population.
That seems to be the case on Isle Royale, which is actually closer to Minnesota and Canada than it is to Michigan.
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In a statement put out last year by the Isle Royale National Park, officials wrote: "There is still a chance of nature replenishing the gene pool as wolves are able to move to and from the island when ice bridges form."
But one wolf has left since then, leaving just the three, researchers confirm in a new report, and visitors that came across on ice bridges from the U.S.-Canadian border this winter declined to stay.
"There is now a good chance that it is too late to conduct genetic rescue," John Vucetich, an associate professor of wildlife ecology at Michigan Tech, said in a press release.
Officials had considered introducing new wolves, in the hope of replenishing the population with new genetic material, but there's no guarantee new specimens would even be interested in Isle Royale wolves.
Vucetich and his colleague, research professor Rolf Peterson, say there's little that can be done. The writing is on the wall. What was once a population of 24 just a few years ago, is now only three.
But why do new wolves decline to repopulate the island? Vucetich has the same question: "Everyone wants to know: What does this mean?"
The researchers suggest fewer and smaller ice bridges may play a role. Development on the mainland may also hinder repopulation.
While wolves may be on their way out, moose remain abundant on the island. At last count, there were more than 1,250.
"If that was money in the bank, you'd get rich in a hurry," Vucetich says. "Soon we'll be moose rich."
But too many moose isn't good. Overcrowding can disrupt the ecological balance on the island, drastically altering the natural vegetation. But without wolves to keep the population in check, it's likely moose numbers will continue to rise.by Brandon Richard
It's a bit of a slight to reduce the latest offering from Yohji Yamamoto's Y3 line to a comparison. After all, a sizable portion of the footwear industry has spent the past few years pulling cues from the designer's footwear. But it's hard to look at the Hayworth Guard High and not see 1) a Batman boot and 2) Kobe Bryant's last two Elite Nike high-tops.
With that said, the fashionable hoop sneaker may be one of the year's most interesting silhouettes. The sleek, but sporty aesthetic is executed with air net mesh construction, complemented by premium leather details. TPU flanks secure the fit and give the shoe a high-tech identity, while waxed laces maintain its upscale appeal.
The Hayworth Guard High retails for $560 at select boutiques like KITH.The trouble with old bones is that they can’t tell you a whole lot about metabolism and the temperature of blood. We used to think that dinosaur metabolic rates were slow, that they just lumbered across the landscape, making giant thuds as they went. But then we saw them chasing Jeeps... so which is it? According to a new study, their metabolic rates weren’t slow like salamanders, and they weren’t fast like finches -- they were somewhere in between.
Endotherms like us and birds are so-called warm-blooded animals; we keep our body temperatures constant. If we lose excess heat, metabolism increases to make up the loss. Ectothermic animals (often imprecisely labeled as “cold-blooded”) need external sources to regulate their body temperature: On a hot road, a snake can strike fast, but throw it on ice, and it’ll just chill out.
But it doesn’t have to be dichotomy. There’s a middle path, and dinosaurs may be the earliest group to display this intermediate energetic profile -- called mesothermy, or maybe “lukewarm-bloodedness.” Some mesotherms we see today include tuna, leatherback sea turtles, spiky egg-laying echidnas, and lamind sharks (which include great whites and some of the fastest-swimming sharks in the ocean).
A team led by John Grady from the University of New Mexico devised a new way to analyze the metabolism of extinct animals by looking not only at their growth rate, but also at estimates of metabolic rates based on changes in body size as the animal develops from a baby to an adult. They used a comparative dataset with a wide spectrum of extinct and living vertebrates -- 381 animals, 21 of which are dinosaurs -- to analyze the relationship between growth and metabolic rates.
To determine growth rate for extinct animals, they looked at the yearly growth rings in the fossils; like tree rings, but in bone. (Below is a diagram of comparative growth rates in vertebrates.) Then they demonstrated that animals who grow faster require more energy and have higher body temperatures. Based on growth estimates, the team was able to calculate dinosaur metabolic rates.
According to their findings, dinosaur metabolism is closest to existing mesotherms who rely on internally-generated metabolic heat to maintain their body temperatures in various weather -- but only to a point. They aren’t entirely endothermic and don’t regulate their body heat at a constant temperature. Echidnas, for example, rely on their metabolism to reach about 31 degrees Celsius, but they can vary plus or minus 10 degrees. Meanwhile tuna stay up to 20 degrees Celsius warmer than their surrounding water, but when they dive deep, their metabolic rate also plunges.
Interestingly, feathered dinosaurs and primitive birds grew slower than their descendants, modern birds. The first bird, Archaeopteryx, took two years to reach maturity, whereas a red-tailed hawk about the same size takes just 6 weeks. While dinosaurs didn’t grow as fast as modern birds or mammals, they did grow significantly faster than modern reptiles. “This higher energy use probably increased speed and performance,” Grady says in a news release. “Mesothermic dinosaurs were likely faster predators or better able to flee from danger than the large reptiles found earlier in the Mesozoic.”
Mesothermy in dinosaurs may have helped them become ecologically dominant and probably helped them become so massive. “A lion the size of a T-Rex,” study coauthor Felisa Smith of UNM says, “while a frightening thought, would quickly starve to death because it would be so hard to find enough food.” A medium-powered energetic strategy likely conferred an advantage over slow-moving reptiles, Grady explains, but without the high overhead costs of modern birds and mammals.
The work was published in Science this week.
[University of New Mexico via Nature, National Geographic]
Images: John GradyThe top five of my 2014 must-watch list:
It is no secret that Quebec Premier Pauline Marois is looking to make Quebec identity the ballot box issue of the campaign, writes Chantal H�bert. ( Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo )
1. Kathleen Wynne: Until premier Wynne talked about running her first election campaign on a made-in-Ontario pension plan she was third on my list. But if Wynne is serious about going it alone in the face of the federal refusal to improve the CPP, the next Ontario campaign will unfold in prime time nationally. Public policy wonks and political strategists alike will be watching to see whether it is doable, in this day and age, to sell voters on a plan that would force workers and their employers to set more money aside towards an expanded social safety net.
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If other provinces buy into the plan; if Quebec agrees to synchronize its own pension plan with Ontario, Queen’s Park would essentially have bypassed the federal government of the day on the way to pension reform. Whether that amounts to a modernization of the national leadership role that Ontario long assumed in the past or to a full-fledged embrace of a more balkanized social Canada is an open question. But there is little doubt that on Stephen Harper’s watch, the choice increasingly comes down to provincial leadership of the federation’s social union versus no leadership. 2. Pauline Marois: It is no secret that the premier is looking to make Quebec identity the ballot box issue of the campaign. Quebec has had identity-centred campaigns in the past and the issue has usually favored the PQ. But the proposed charter pits Marois against predecessors like Jacques Parizeau. No PQ leader has ever gone to the election barricades on an issue that has deeply divided its own ranks. If the PQ succeeds into turning its secularism charter into a ticket to a governing majority, the latest cooling-off period on the Quebec-Canada front will come to an abrupt end as Ottawa and Quebec collide in court over the charter and in the political arena over the sovereignty agenda. 3. Stephen Harper: Even if the Conservative party were running high in the polls there would still be a political deathwatch on the prime minister in 2014. The mid-point of a third mandate is when the pre-retirement clock starts ticking on virtually all government leaders — regardless of their ratings.
If a prime minister or a premier is popular, it is argued that he or she should want to leave on a high note. And if — as in the case of Harper — public support has consistently softened, then the argument becomes that he or she will eventually come around to the decision to retire rather than to risk going out on a defeat. For the record, in the past few leaders have opted to stay on after three mandates and a decade at the helm. 4. Jason Kenney: The flip side of the speculation as to Harper’s future is real or perceived pre-leadership manoeuvring. Over the second half of 2013, Kenney managed to have his name come up in every post-Harper conversation.
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He strayed from the PMO-issued talking points on the probity of former chief of staff Nigel Wright. He called on Toronto mayor Rob Ford to step down. That resulted in public frictions with Jim Flaherty. The finance minister is not only Ford’s leading champion in cabinet or the political minister for the GTA. The Canada Jobs Grant initiative that Kenney — as minister of human resources — is tasked to get off the ground was the centrepiece of his 2013 budget. The clash earlier this month between Flaherty and his provincial counterparts over the CPP will do little to make the provinces more amenable to Kenney’s overtures on the labour training front. It may be wise to not invite these two ministers to the same year-end party. It would also be nice to be a fly on the cabinet wall when it resumes meeting in the new year. 5. Nigel Wright: So far, Harper’s former chief-of-staff has been discreet as to how far into the loop the prime minister really was regarding Wright’s dealings with suspended senator Mike Duffy. Should Wright face criminal charges, it will be hard for him to mount a full legal defence without filling in some of the blanks that have surfaced between Harper’s version of events and what transpired in some of his top aide’s emails..
Read more about:Last week The Ryersonianreported on an incident that involved two first-year journalism students who were turned away from an event organized by Racialized Students' Collective because they are white. Since then there has been a lot of commentary on the piece and a lot of debate -- a lot of the criticism is valid.
There are two sides to the story: 1) the media has a right to attend public events and report on matters that are in the public interest. The student media needs to cover initiatives that are happening on campus so that we draw attention to them and in turn create awareness (The Ryersonian reported that one student said he was covering the meeting for an assignment). 2) Marginalized groups have a right to claim spaces in the public realm where they can share stories about the discrimination they have faced without judgment and intrusion from anyone else.
I am a person of colour and a journalist and so there are two conflicting voices inside my head. But in this case one voice, that of a person of colour, is louder and my conscience does not allow me to be impartial. I have to take a side.
The organizers of the event, the Racialized Students' Collective, should have done a better job of labelling this event as a safe space on the Ryerson Students' Union online calendar. They should label safe spaces clearly and maybe even host events that educate the public on what they mean. Doing so will help the public and the media have a better understanding of the purpose and value of these spaces.
However, the point to note is not that two white students were asked to leave the event, but rather that this was a safe space and that we as a newsroom, as a campus and as a society are not as knowledgeable as we should be about what these spaces mean.
It's not just important, but it's essential, for marginalized groups to have safe spaces on campus to engage with people who understand what they go through. Though this group is funded by Ryerson's student union, it works to serve a particular group and a particular purpose. Many students at Ryerson have encountered racism in their life that is impossible to forget and many are exposed to discrimination on a daily basis. This group and these sort of events allow people of colour to lay bare their experiences and to collectively combat this societal ailment. These spaces are rare places in the world not controlled by individuals who have power, who have privilege.
These spaces, which are forums where minority groups are protected from mainstream stereotypes and marginalization, are crucial to resistance of oppression and we, as a school and as a society, need to respect them.
Earlier in the week a newsroom colleague and I went to an ad-hoc committee meeting on sexual assault policy. When we arrived we were told it was a safe space, and that we would not be able to report on anything that would be discussed in the meeting.
We understood the value of these sorts of events, where people can share their common struggles. Our understanding let us attend and contribute to the conversation, even if we couldn't report about it.
We understood the people there had a right to privacy. They had a right to collectively work through the challenges society had imposed on them. They had a right to claim parts of the campus, parts of the world, for a few hours in hopes of creating broader social change.
The two students who tried to enter the RSC meeting said that they were embarrassed when they were asked to leave and that the group was being counterproductive in sectioning themselves off. Similarly, some of the comments on the piece written about these students speaks to the idea that excluding certain people from these events, this dialogue, is encouraging racial tension. Their embarrassment isn't as important as the other issues involved here.
Segregation was imposed on people of colour by people of privilege, not the other way around. The very fact that individuals organizing to help each other get through social barriers and injustices are being attacked and questioned for their peaceful assembly is proof that they were right to exclude those students.
Racialized people experience systemic discrimination on a daily basis, on many levels, and in ways that white people may never encounter. The whole point of these safe spaces is to remove that power dynamic. That's partly what makes them spaces for healing.
The presence of any kind of privilege puts unnecessary pressure on the people of colour to defend any anger or frustrations they have, to fear the outcome of sharing their stories. The attendees are trying to move forward by supporting each other and they should not have to defend themselves, they should not fear the consequences of raising their voices.
Instead of focusing on why those students were asked to leave, we should be thinking about the history of oppression that makes these kinds of groups and these kinds of places so very important. We should be focusing on how to be aware and respectful of the rights of both the press and marginalized groups. We have to find a way to coexist peacefully.
The West has a history of oppressing people of colour: from Africans who were enslaved and brought to the New World, to native people whose land was stolen by Europeans. This kind of oppression is still witnessed today, in the way the black community is treated in the United States, in the state of African nations trying to recover from the collapse of the previous colonial rule, and in the continuing struggles of indigenous peoples.
White people may experience occasional and unacceptable prejudice, but not racism. They do not experience the systemic racism that makes it hard for them to find jobs, housing, health care and justice in the legal system.
Racism is not personal, it is structural. Unlike the arena of mainstream media, the educational system, religious institutions and judicial systems that reinforce hurtful stereotypes, these spaces remind the oppressed that they are human, that they deserve respect.
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Photo gallery 9 People Who Think Casual Racism Is Ok See Gallery Ethnic Minorities Deserve Safe Spaces Without White People 1 / 9
9 People Who Think Casual Racism Is Ok 1 / 9As the manhunt for the so-called Long Island serial killer intensified this week, it's become clear that officials are searching for a crafty criminal who has carefully covered his tracks – but who felt invincible enough to reportedly taunt one victim's family using the missing woman's cellphone.
The remains of at least eight bodies have been discovered since December along beaches of New York's Long Island – at least four of them believed to be victims of one killer. FBI planes and hundreds of agents have joined the all-out hunt, but experts say progress is as likely to come from an unexpected break as from a piece of hard evidence.
So far, there are no actual crime scenes to scour. The victims were killed elsewhere and their bodies deposited along the coast afterward, discovered after extended periods of lying exposed in thick beach scrub. As a result, much of the physical evidence has eroded. Moreover, the murderer has displayed both cruelty and cunning, making it more difficult for police to crack the case, say criminologists.
"Why cases like this are so difficult to solve and why there are unsolved slayings of prostitutes all around the country is that police have very little to go on," says James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, in Boston. "What they have are some remains that they found at a beach, and they're having a hard time figuring out who the victim is, much less who the killer is. Generally in a case like this, police have to get lucky, and they haven't yet."
Since that initial discovery of four sets of human remains in New York's Suffolk County, investigators have found another four or five along similar stretches of beach highway in Suffolk and Nassau counties. The latest two sets of remains were found Monday.
So far, four victims have a unique tie: They were all female prostitutes who advertised on Craigslist. Moreover, they were all killed within the past two years. (Some of the bodies were deposited there earlier.)
The killer may have been seen. One witness on Long Island described seeing a frightened woman, later identified as Shannon Gilbert, scream for help outside his house before she disappeared last May, police say. The witness called the police after she ran off. Minutes later, the witness confronted a man who was looking for the woman. Ms. Gilbert remains missing. The search for her is what led police to find the bodies of the killer's victims.
The killer has also been heard. On Friday, the family of one of the slain women revealed that the presumed killer had called them seven times using her cellphone.
"The fact that he called the family was because he felt he could," says Mr. Fox. "The fact that he didn't use his own cellphone, but the victim's, means he's got to have a certain degree or street smarts or cunning. Since one of the victims was abducted two years ago, he can be pretty smug right now about his ability to evade apprehension."
But as in the case of Joel Rifkin, a Long Island resident who killed at least nine prostitutes in New York City between 1989 and 1993, serial killers are often caught on a fluke or a small blunder. In Mr. Rifkin's case, his car's license plate fell off, leading to a police chase in 1993, after which he was apprehended. In the case of famous serial killer Theodore Bundy, he began to act erratically and was finally caught while driving a stolen Volkswagen van.
"When they remain at large for weeks, months, even years, they can indeed feel superior to the police, so much so that they cut corners a little bit," says Fox.
Local police say they have made some headway. This week, they combed a laptop belonging to a pimp who knew Megan Waterman, one of the victims. They have also questioned guests at a hotel in Hauppage, N.Y., from where she disappeared after traveling there to meet clients for sex.
Without much physical evidence to go on, it's crucial for police to flush out any surviving victims who may be scared to come forward.
"The No. 1 way serial killers are apprehended is by a surviving victim," Louis Schlesinger, a forensic psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, at City University of New York, tells Time. "Especially early on in a killing series, where the offender has not yet perfected this technique... somebody may survive."Income inequality is the U.S. is gargantuan. It is the highest ever since 1928, right before the Great Depression.
One proposal to narrow this gap is to raise the minimum wage. Currently, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour for most sectors. For restaurant workers, it’s only $2.13 per hour, with the expectation that tips will make up the rest. Could you live on this wage—even with tips? The unlivable wages in the fast-food industry have spurred protests, proposals to raise the minimum wage, and talk of unionization.
Now, a handful of the nation’s most innovative restaurateurs are pushing a manifesto to encourage a “thrive-able wage” in the food-service industry. You can read the entire text, written by Paul Saginaw, who co-founded Zingerman’s cluster of Ann Arbor-based businesses 31 years ago. But here are three of the most provocative sections:
“I reject the argument put forth by many in the restaurant industry that livable wages and profits are mutually exclusive. Our experience at Zingerman’s proves exactly the opposite and I am not convinced we are exceptions to any rule. …
“Our success stands in direct opposition to the false claims about livable wages and profits that have dominated the debate for decades. We are uniting to prove to the rest of the industry investing in our employees has been a driving force to our growth and success, not an impediment. To those who argue raised menu prices will result in loss of customers and diminished profits, I question the scale of your profit margins and wonder who is shorted to maintain those margins—is it your employees? …
And finally: “We would be irresponsible employers if the jobs we provided could not support housing stability and health security. So we are motivated to gradually raise wages to a ‘thrive-able level’ for all of our lowest-paid employees across the board. A living wage is the path to a living economy and the antidote to the current suicide economy trajectory we find ourselves on. We don’t own this approach. Nothing would please me more than for it to go viral, industry wide.”
Outspoken! Even inspiring? Perhaps naive? And that’s my question today:
What do you think of the idea of providing all workers a “thrive-able wage”?
Do you think Paul Saginaw’s manifesto could go viral?Amid a drug crisis that kills 91 people in the U.S. each day, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked Congress to help roll back protections that have shielded medical marijuana dispensaries from federal prosecutors since 2014, according to a letter made public this week. Those legal controls—which bar Sessions’s Justice Department from funding crackdowns on the medical cannabis programs legalized by 29 states and Washington, D.C.—jeopardize the DoJ’s ability to combat the country’s “historic drug epidemic” and control dangerous drug traffickers, the attorney general wrote in the letter sent to lawmakers.
The catch, however, is that this epidemic is one of addiction and overdose deaths fueled by opioids—heroin, fentanyl and prescription painkillers—not marijuana. In fact, places where the U.S. has legalized medical marijuana have lower rates of opioid overdose deaths.
A review of the scientific literature indicates marijuana is far less addictive than prescription painkillers. A 2016 survey from University of Michigan researchers, published in the The Journal of Pain, found that chronic pain suffers who used cannabis reported a 64 percent drop in opioid use as well as fewer negative side effects and a better quality of life than they experienced under opioids. In a 2014 study reported in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association, the authors found that annual opioid overdose deaths were about 25 percent lower on average in states that allowed medical cannabis compared with those that did not.
Marijuana can be habit-forming, at least psychologically, but the risks are not in the same league as opioids. A 20-year epidemiological review of studies concluded that more than nine out of 10 people who try marijuana do not become dependent on the drug. The review paper, published in 2014, said the “lifetime risk of developing dependence among those who have ever used cannabis was estimated at 9 percent in the United States in the early 1990s as against 32 percent for nicotine, 23 percent for heroin, 17 percent for cocaine, 15 percent for alcohol and 11 percent for stimulants.”
Also, unlike the case with opioids, it is virtually impossible to lethally overdose on marijuana—because a user would have to consume massive quantities in a prohibitively short time. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) says such a fatal result is very unlikely. Meanwhile, heroin-related overdose deaths have more than quadrupled since 2010. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that from 2014 to 2015 heroin overdose death rates increased by 20.6 percent—causing nearly 13,000 deaths in 2015.
Many heroin users in the U.S. first become addicted to legally prescribed painkillers, and turn to heroin after their pill supply dries up or becomes too expensive. According to the NIDA, nearly half of young people who inject heroin abused prescription opioids first.
And a significant number of pain sufferers would apparently prefer to use medical marijuana instead of prescription painkillers. A study published in July 2016 in Health Affairs explored what happened to Medicare (Part D) painkiller prescriptions after states green-lighted medical marijuana laws, and found that a typical physician in a state with medical cannabis prescribed 1,826 fewer painkiller doses for Medicare patients in a given year—because seniors instead turned to medical pot. There were also hundreds fewer doses prescribed for antidepressants, anti-nausea medications and antianxiety drugs.
The science on the benefits and risks of medical marijuana is far from settled, largely because conclusive research remains so difficult in spite of the drug’s popularity and apparent promise. Sessions’s DoJ oversees the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which has long kept marijuana listed in the nation’s laws as a Schedule I drug, meaning it is officially declared devoid of any currently accepted medical use and has a high potential for abuse. This federal status hobbles researchers’ abilities to obtain marijuana and conduct comprehensive studies on its potential benefits, even though so many states have defied federal prohibition and the cannabis industry is booming. The DoJ did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Session’s congressional letter, which was dated May 1, was obtained by Massroots.com and also confirmed and reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday. The letter urges lawmakers to remove the legal impediment that keeps his office from spending cash on interfering with state medical marijuana programs, a safeguard for dispensaries formally called the Rohrabacher–Farr Amendment. That provision expires at the end of September, and would have to be renewed to remain the law of the land—a timeline that guarantees medical marijuana will be discussed in Congress in the coming months.
W. David Bradford, a health policy expert at The University of Georgia who studies medical marijuana policies, says failing to renew the provision “would throw a lot of uncertainty into the [medical cannabis] industry and cause disruption for patients.” Bradford, who was the senior author on the Health Affairs study, also links the amendment’s fate to the opioid crisis: “Anything we can do to divert people away from initial opiate use,” he says, “will divert them away from the potential for misuse and death.”Caracas, March 2, 2015 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – According to a new poll released by International Consulting Services (ICS), approximately 57% of Venezuelans have confidence that the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro will improve the economy.
The poll also featured several results which suggest that Chavismo continues to be the preferred political option for the country's citizens.
In the midst of an economic crisis triggered by crashing oil prices and economic war in which basic goods remain scarce, only one fourth of Venezuelans regard scarcities as the country's biggest problem. This finding contradicts the image of widespread hunger and desperation among Venezuelans projected by the international media.
Moreover, in the face of an inflation rate fast approaching 70%, only 1 in 10 Venezuelans consider inflation as the nation's principal issue. Rather, insecurity, a perennial problem in Venezuela, remains the top concern for half of the country's citizens.
The study also contained some unexpected findings regarding upcoming parliamentary elections. Contrary to international predictions of a landslide victory for the opposition, 43.6% of Venezuelans said they would vote for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allied parties if elections were held today.
This figure means that even in the midst of acute economic difficulties, the PSUV retains a strong lead over the opposition, which was the preference of less than 32% of poll respondents.
Additionally, the poll found that on the eve of the second anniversary of the death of Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, around 62% of Venezuelans consider themselves chavistas, or "partisans... of the ideals" of the late Venezuelan leader. This result attests to the ongoing majoritarian popularity of the Bolivarian project initiated by Chávez, even despite his physical absence.
Furthermore, in the area of human rights, the survey discovered that 80% of Venezuelans believe that respect for human rights is guaranteed in the Bolivarian republic. This figure stands at odds with statements by the U.S. government and international media, regarding alleged "human rights violations" committed by the government of Nicolas Maduro.
The poll was conducted between February 10 and February 20 and included a sample of 1300 respondents drawn from every state in the country. The figures were reported with a confidence level of 95%.A man is in a serious condition in hospital after falling from a balcony during a performance at Portsmouth’s Guildhall by American band A Day To Remember on Thursday 12th November.
The American rock band was in full swing, playing to hundreds of fans at the Guildhall when the incident occurred.
The area around the incident was quickly cordoned off and paramedics were instantly on hand with stretchers to assist. The scene was shielded from the view of fans in attendance.
The building was then evacuated and further emergency services arrived to help.
David Saxelby, 21-year-old physical geography student, said: “The band just stopped at the end of the song, and they didn’t really seem to know what was going on either. They were asking if he was ok and had no idea really until a roadie told them it was over and we had to evacuate.”
The band said on Twitter: “Our thoughts are with the person who was injured at the show tonight in Portsmouth. Sorry we had to cut the set short due to the circumstances.”
Reece Maunder, 21-year-old student at the gig, said: “I’m shocked. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before but it’s just a horrible thing.”
It has been rumored that some attendees at the gig began queuing for refunds following the incident.
A spokeswoman for Hampshire police told The Portsmouth News that the man had been taken to Southampton General Hospital with serious head injuries. She said that police are taking statements from a group of people and are working to establish what happened.
Portsmouth Guildhall have since released a statement on their website stating: “Last night at a concert by the band ‘A Day to Remember’ a young man appeared to dive off of the Circle of the Portsmouth Guildhall, landing in the stalls narrowly avoiding the crowd below.
As with any incident of a serious nature an investigation will take place with all concerned. We are advised that the gentleman is in a serious condition in hospital and our thoughts and best wishes are with him and his family. Please note all concerts scheduled this week will go ahead as planned.
The Guildhall is managed by Portsmouth Cultural Trust, who are cooperating with police.
We are thankful to ‘A Day to Remember’ for stopping the concert, as well as the public for their cooperation.
We have nothing further to add at this time. – See more at: http://portsmouthguildhall.org.uk/news/concert-incident-#sthash.HA4zw1vg.dpufDaily Mail rips off my wife's photo after asking permission and being turned down
Last week, I published my wife Alice's picture of The Gap's "death-camp chic" ultra-skinny mannequins. Various newspapers subsequently approached my wife for permission to use the pic, and while she gladly gave permission to the Washington Post, she was much more ambivalent about the awful Daily Mail, a hateful right-wing tabloid that keeps finding new bottoms to scrape.
After some deliberation, Alice told the Mail they could use the pic if they donated £250 to charity. The Mail cried poor and said they couldn't afford it and Alice bade them good day.
Then the Mail -- which makes a practice of threatening bloggers with big copyright lawsuits when their photos and copy are reproduced -- just went ahead and ran Alice's photos, even though they'd asked for, and been denied, permission. They didn't attribute the photos to her, nor did they link back to her. They didn't downrez them or use a thumbnail. In other words, they didn't do anything that militated for a fair use or fair dealing. They just took 'em, for their commercial operation. They even lifted Alice's quotes to
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support this (via ARB extension) on modern graphic cards. But we should look at alternatives compatible with old and new hardware, such as tetrahedral maps.
Post Process Effects
For the Siggraph deadline we need the following effects:
Motion Blur
Bloom
Tone Map
Depth of Field
Ground Truth Ambient Occlusion
Other effects that we would like to implement eventually:
Temporal Anti-Alias (to fix the noisy fireflies we get from glossiness)
Screen Space Reflection (more accurate reflection, helps to ground the objects)
Epilogue
Blender 2.8 Viewport design mockup by Paweł Łyczkowski, suggesting fresnel wires over a Cycles preview
Just to re-cap, the core of the features mentioned here are to be implemented by Siggraph 2017, with a more polished usable version by the Blender Conference.
The viewport project (which Eevee is a core part of it) development is happening in the blender2.8 branch. It is still a bit early for massive user testing, but stay tuned for more updates.
Edit: You can find the Eevee roadmap organized chronologically and with a more technical wording at the Blender development wiki.And the U.S. is in the unaccustomed position of being seriously behind its adversaries.
Conventional military dominance is still critical to the superpower status of the United States. But even in a military sense, it is no longer enough: if an American election can be controlled by an adversarial power, then stealth aircraft and special forces are not the answer. With lawmakers poised to authorize $160 million to counter Russian “fake news” and disinformation, and the CIA and the Congress examining meddling in the U.S. election and democracies around the world, it’s time to see weaponized narrative for what it is: a deep threat to national security.
Weaponized narrative seeks to undermine an opponent’s civilization, identity, and will by generating complexity, confusion, and political and social schisms. It can be used tactically, as part of explicit military or geopolitical conflict; or strategically, as a way to reduce, neutralize, and defeat a civilization, state, or organization. Done well, it limits or even eliminates the need for armed force to achieve political and military aims.
The efforts to muscle into the affairs of the American presidency, Brexit, the Ukraine, the Baltics, and NATO reflect a shift to a “post-factual” political and cultural environment that is vulnerable to weaponized narrative. This begs three deeper questions:
How global is this phenomenon?
Are the underlying drivers temporary or systemic?
What are the implications for an American military used to technological dominance?
Far from being simply a U.S. or U.K. phenomenon, shifts to “post-factualism” can be seen in Poland, Hungary, Turkey, France, and the Philippines, among other democracies. Russia, whose own political culture is deeply post-factual and indeed post-modern, is now ably constructing ironic, highly cynical, weaponized narratives that were effective in the Ukrainian invasion, and are now destabilizing the Baltic states and the U.S. election process.
Such a large and varied shift to weaponized narrative implies that the enablers are indeed systemic. One fundamental underpinning – often overlooked – is the accelerating volume and velocity of information. Cultures, institutions, and individuals are, among many other things, information-processing mechanisms. As they become overwhelmed with information complexity, the tendency to retreat into simpler narratives becomes stronger.
The emotionally satisfying decision to accept a weaponized narrative inoculates cultures, institutions, and individuals against counterarguments and inconvenient facts.
Under this stress, cultures fragment. Institutions are stretched until they become ineffective or even dysfunctional. Individuals who define their identity primarily through the state – such as Americans, Russians, Chinese, or Europeans – retreat to a mythic Golden Age nationalism, while those who prioritize cultural and religious bonds retreat to fundamentalism.
Narrative is as old as tribes. Humans are pattern-seeking storytelling animals. We cannot endure an absence of meaning. Rather than look up at the distribution of lights in the night sky and deal with randomness, we will eagerly connect those dots and adorn them with the most elaborate – even poetic – tales of heroes and princesses and bears and dippers. We have a hard-wired need for myth. Narrative is basic to what it means to be human.
What’s new is the extraordinary power of today’s weaponized narrative. It attacks our group identity – our sense of who we are, our privilege of not being identified as “other.” The rise of the Connected Age allows attacks that tear down old identities that have bound us together. But it also allows the creation of narratives that define the new differences between “us” and “them” that are worth fighting for.
Weaponized narrative comes at a critical juncture. The speed of upheaval in our lives is unprecedented. It will be filled by something. We are desperate for something to hang on to.
By offering cheap passage through a complex world, weaponized narrative furnishes emotional certainty at the cost of rational understanding. The emotionally satisfying decision to accept a weaponized narrative — to believe, to have faith — inoculates cultures, institutions, and individuals against counterarguments and inconvenient facts.
This departure from rationality opens such ring-fenced belief communities to manipulation and their societies to attack. These communities can be strengthened through media tools and messages that reinforce the narrative — crucially, by demonizing outsiders. Trust is extended only to those who believe, leaving other institutional and social structures to erode.
In the hands of professionals, the powerful emotions of anger and fear can be used to control adversaries, limit their options, and disrupt their functional capabilities. This is a unique form of soft power. In such campaigns, facts are not necessary because – contrary to the old memes of the Enlightenment – truth does not necessarily prevail. It can be overwhelmed with constantly repeated and replenished falsehood. Especially powerful are falsehoods or simplifications that the target cohort has been primed to believe by the underlying narratives with which they are also being supplied.
Truth can be overwhelmed with constantly repeated and replenished falsehood.
It’s a self-reinforcing loop. This process was clear in Ukraine, in Brexit, in creation of alt-right and other far right and left communities in many countries, and in the American presidential election. All of these campaigns combine indigenous factors with known or suspected Russian deployment of weaponized narrative, achieving significant benefits for Russia with low risk of conventional military responses by the West. Indeed, the response by America, NATO, and European states has been confused, sporadic, and ineffective.
In the short term, then, weaponized narrative challenges existing Western military and security institutions grown comfortable in their post-Cold War conventional-force dominance. At least one major adversary now has a capability – and indeed a new battlespace – that is not just unfamiliar. It is one where institutional, historical, and cultural factors put the U.S. at a significant disadvantage.
But the longer-term challenges are even more profound: Post-factual politics weaken democratic governance. It enables what might be called post-modern soft authoritarianism. Such authoritarianism is not absolute in the traditional Nazi or Stalinist sense. Rather – much like Putin’s Russia today – it relies on a sophisticated combination of managed public expectations, a tenuous but real political legitimacy, and the division of state power among otherwise isolated communities. These then become easy to balance against each other, the more readily to be dominated by authoritarian personalities and institutions.
The mechanism, again, depends on weaponized narrative. Old authoritarianism too often required large security forces, violent repression of citizens, and absolute control of information (the Big Lie). How much simpler to engineer human communities so that the expensive and messy process of explicit authoritarianism can be replaced by the far gentler – and more effective – mechanism of narrative.
History is replete with examples. For centuries in Europe, the Church’s narrative of the Great Chain of Being kept the peace. Rebellion simply lay outside the reality within which most people lived.
Our societies and institutions must adapt, or pass into history alongside others that did not.
It is certainly not clear that weaponized narrative necessarily leads to soft authoritarianism. But it is at least plausible that the advance of inclusive democracy and universalist Western values has been reversed. Authoritarian organizations and states are more adaptive in this new post-factual political environment. Weaponized narratives can only increase the possibility of soft authoritarian outcomes if they are not understood and engaged.
At any rate, it is certainly a reasonable hypothesis that the Enlightenment age of the individual – the core to any democratic system – is clearly ending. Unprecedented complexity, and information volumes and velocities, simply mean that individual cognitive capabilities – no matter how brilliant – are overwhelmed. Power shifts towards those who understand and deploy narrative, be they large states, large corporations, or religious and cultural communities. Power leaks away from the naïve faith in individual rationality that has characterized the last three centuries in the West.
What this may mean for military and security organizations committed to democratic states – or, indeed, for the United States as a whole – is not entirely clear. But much of what has previously been assumed to be fixed and unchanging is turning out to be, in fact, unpredictable, unforeseeable, and random. And the rate of change is accelerating.
It is futile to wish this change away. Instead, we must recognize weaponized narrative, to defend against it, and to put it to our own uses. Our societies and institutions must adapt, or pass into history alongside others that did not.The rumors started creeping in through a report by the Ottawa Sun... But their reputation on rumors isn't that reliable and should always be taken with caution and a heavy helping of salt.
But when a standard bearer for hockey coverage, a cream of the crop voice like Bob McKenzie of TSN speaks the news or mentions the rumors, it's much more legitimate and should be heeded.
I'm making a big deal about this, but the players on the roster this involves will not excite you or agitate you as much as they could. The Ottawa Sun and now McKenzie have reported that the Tampa Bay Lightning are shopping forward Tom Pyatt and defenseman Keith Aulie.
Here's the exact paragraph from McKenzie's report today, which shows how Bruce found out about things:
I don't think it's necessary to even speculate why this would happen; both players are eating roster spots in Tampa that others would sooner occupy. Case in point, Thursday night's demotion of Andrej Sustr to Syracuse. This wasn't a move made because Sustr wasn't playing well, it was made out of necessity because Aulie was ready to return and a roster spot was needed. Pyatt can be seen as the same case, because his roster spot would sooner be occupied by (when cleared to play) Steven Stamkos.
Aulie was acquired in the spring of 2012 from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for forward-prospect Carter Ashton. In hindsight, the move to acquire the young, big and physical defenseman can be looked at as a stop-gap acquisition that bought the franchise time for development in hard-hitting Radko Gudas and Mark Barberio, who were then central figures to the 2012 Norfolk Admirals team. Aulie having injury issues this season (and a crowded defensive rotation) has only played 6 games for the Lightning in 2013-14. He's played 70 games in total for the Lightning since his acquisition, scoring 2 goals and 8 assists in that span, with 73 penalty minutes and a plus/minus rating of minus-7 (he's minus-3 this season).
Pyatt was signed as a free agent in the summer of 2011 by the Lightning as one of a few signings seen as an attempt to make up for the loss of Sean Bergenheim to free agency. He has 20 goals and 16 assists in 124 games with the Lightning over three seasons. He's only seen scant playing time this year, with thanks to breaking his collarbone in the third game of the season, which knocked him out until December.
If general manager Steve Yzerman can find a taker for either Aulie or Pyatt (or both), expect any acquisitions either to be AHL depth or late round draft picks. If no takers can be found, you can't guarantee either player will be subjected to waivers; there are members of the Lightning rookie class such as J.T. Brown who still have options to be sent back to Syracuse (in the case of Pyatt) while Aulie will play when he can.- Advertisement - Spectacular Support for Yukihisa Fujita (April 2009)
http://www.911video.de/news/fujita/fu-en.htm
Major 9/11 Breakthrough in Japan
Spectacular Support for Yukihisa Fujita
Massive Support For New 9/11 Investigation
VIDEO OF YUKIHISA FUJITA´S EFFORTS
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Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth Launched
The organization is being supported by a former US governor, a former US senator, former US representatives, and former and present members of the British, German, Japanese, Norwegian, and European parliaments.
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"Questioning 9/11 Terror at the National Diet - Can Obama Change the USA?"
On April 8 there was a formal reception on the ocassion of the publishing Mr. Fujita's book at the Tokyo Dome Hotel.
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Councilor Fujita is a current member and former director of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense. In this function he questioned 9/11 three times in parliament. Fujita claims that 9/11 as the main reason for the "War on Terror" needs to be newly investigated in order to find peaceful solutions.
During the second part of the event formal greetings to Mr. Fujita were presented by the following speakers:
Tadashi Inuzuka, Member of Parliament, member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence
Hideaki Seo, director of Sundai School, chair of Fujita's Political and Economic Forum
Yukio Hatoyama, Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Japan
Kazuo Tanikawa, former Defense Minister and Justice Minister for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party
Yasushi Kurokouchi, fomer ambassador to Switzerland, Nigeria and Tanzania
Haruhiro Shiratori, father of a 9/11 victim.
Yasuo Onuki, former chief of the NHK office in Europe and the US. NHK, Japan Broadcasting Corporation, is Japan's national public broadcasting organization.
Hiroshi Yamada, former chief correspondent for Japan’s daily newspaper “Yomiuri” in the US and Europe
Kyoji Takei, chairman of the National Printing Bureau labor union. http://www.pl911truth.com
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The $155 million ground in Ahmedabad will surpass the Melbourne Cricket Ground as the sport’s largest arena.
The development is so big it will house an Olympic-sized swimming pool, three practice grounds and an indoor academy.
The Maracana stadium in Brazil had an all-time record attendance for a sporting event in an enclosed stadium of 199,854 for the Brazil v Uruguay match in the 1950 World Cup Final.
The crowd number is an unofficial number — with the actual number who bought tickets a mere 173,850.
THE 20 BIGGEST SPORTING STADIUMS IN THE WORLD?
1 RUNGRADO MAY DAY STADIUM — 114,000
media_camera The massive Rungrado May Day Stadium in North Korea.
Officially the world’s biggest stadium when it opened in North Korean capital Pyongyang in 1989, boasting a capacity of 150,000 at the time. Since then the area has been redeveloped, turning it all-seater and reducing the capacity although North Korea have yet to officially give a new figure. But stadium experts have analysed plans, photos and scale and the new total is widely accepted to be 114,000.
2 MICHIGAN STADIUM — 113,065
media_camera Football fans attend the University of Michigan versus Michigan State game at Michigan Stadium.
Home to the University of Michigan American Football team, originally built in 1927 at a cost of $1.4 million. Nicknamed ‘The Big House’, the Wolverines have drawn a crowd of over 100,000 for every home match since November 1975 — a run stretching more than 200 games.
The venue is also used for other sports and in 2014 hosted a pre-season match between Manchester United and Real Madrid that drew a crowd of 109,318.
3 BEAVER STADIUM — 110,753
media_camera Beaver Stadium.
Home ground to Penn State, and built on the Pennsylvania State University campus — regarded as one of the most intimidating grounds for opposition teams to visit in college football.
4 OHIO STADIUM — 104,944
media_camera Ohio Stadium.
Nicknamed ‘The Horseshoe’, the stadium in Columbus is home to Ohio State Buckeyes and the Ohio State University Marching Band. Built on the campus of the University, was also used as the home ground of MLS side Columbus Crew until they moved into their own stadium in 1999.
5 KYLE FIELD — 102,733
media_camera Kyle Field.
Home to the Texas A & M Aggie college football team since 1904, in College Station, Texas.
Has a record attendance of 110,631 set in 2014. The capacity has since been reduced, however, an expansion is planned which will see the stadium capacity increased by approximately 12,000.
6 NEYLAND STADIUM — 102,455
media_camera Neyland Stadium.
Named after former Tennessee Volunteers Head Coach Robert Neyland, the stadium in Knoxville was originally built in 1921 and has since undergone 16 expansion programs.
7 TIGER STADIUM — 102,321
media_camera LSU’s Tiger Stadium.
Known as Death Valley, the arena in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is the home ground of Louisiana State University. In 1931, student dormitories were built into the stadium, before being phased out and turned into offices in the 1980s.
8 BRYANT-DENNY STADIUM — 101,821
media_camera Roll Tide...
Located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and home to the University of Alabama college team.
Named after school president George Denny, until long-serving coach Paul Bryant had his name added in 1975.
9 DARRELL K ROYAL TEXAS MEMORIAL STADIUM — 100,119
media_camera Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium.
Built in 1924 to house the University of Texas college ball team in Austin, the are plans in place to increase the size of the arena in the next ten years to become the biggest in the US, although no official capacity has been submitted.
10 MELBOURNE CRICKET GROUND — 100,024
media_camera The MCG.
Currently the biggest cricket stadium in the world, has also hosted the 1956 Olympics, 2006 Commonwealth Games and two Cricket World Cups.
11 NOU CAMP — 99,354
media_camera Camp Nou,
Home ground of Barcelona since it was built in 1957, has also staged two Champions League finals and a World Cup semi-final in 1982.
12 SOCCER CITY — 94,736
media_camera Soccer City.
Home stadium of South African side Kaizer Chiefs and the country’s national team, was used as the venue for the 2010 World Cup final.
13 LOS ANGELES MEMORIAL COLISEUM — 93,607
media_camera USC's Trojan Football team fans fill the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to capacity.
Currently home stadium for the University of Southern California and the NFL LA Rams franchise, has twice hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984.
14 SANFORD STADIUM — 92,746
media_camera Sanford Stadium.
University of Georgia home stadium in Athens, Georgia that incorporates privet hedges in the design of the stadium and in the end zones.
15 ROSE BOWL — 92,542
media_camera The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
Staged the 1994 World Cup final and now hosts home matches for UCLA.
Pasadena Rose Bowl
16 COTTON BOWL — 92,100
media_camera The Cotton Bowl.
Built on the site of the Texas State Fair in Dallas, formerly the home ground of the Dallas Cowboys.
17 WEMBLEY STADIUM — 90,000
media_camera Wembley Stadium,
Rebuilt in 2007, is now the home stadium for the England national team and also hosts pop concerts and boxing matches.
18 BEN HILL GRIFFIN STADIUM — 88,548
media_camera The Swamp.
Known as The Swamp, the stadium in Gainesville, Florida, is home to the Florida Gators college team.
19 GELORA BUNG KARNO STADIUM — 88,306
media_camera Gelora Bung Stadium.
A multipurpose venue build in Jakarta, Indonesia, is the home ground of the Indonesian national team.
20 JORDAN-HARE STADIUM — 87,451
media_camera Jordan-Hare Stadium in Alabama.
Auburn University’s home stadium in Alabama, was built in 1939.
This article originally appeared on The SunERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – A delegation from Norway who observed the Kurdistan Region’s momentous independence referendum on Monday said they were impressed with the “professionalism and order” of the voting process.
Erik Selle, leader of the Christians Party in Norway, said his team flew to Erbil ahead of the referendum before traveling to Dohuk Province to monitor the counting of ballots.
According to Selle, who has previous electorate experience, the historic independence referendum was “up to standard.”
“What we have seen is professionalism and order,” the Norwegian delegation member told Kurdistan 24.
He added that the international community should support and respect the decision made by the Kurdish people who “have spoken” and “need a place to be free.”
Selle highlighted the injustices of the century-old Sykes-Picot agreement which led to the division of Kurdish land and said the time has come for the international community to rectify mistakes made in the past.
“The international community should respect and accept the process and direction forward chosen by the people of Kurdistan and its leadership,” he added.O’Keefe Taunts CNN On Twitter #CNNLeaks Coming Tomorrow!
Founder of Project Veritas, James O’Keefe has been hinting for about a week that he has undercover videos of the media from inside of their newsrooms. Today he took to his Twitter account to taunt CNN directly saying ‘Tomorrow #CNNLeaks’. Grab some popcorn because Project Veritas never disappoints!
Last week O’Keefe started hinting at the undercover videos. This is his style. He always taunts his target before releasing the tapes to build suspense and it works wonderfully.
Time to release tapes inside the media’s newsrooms. Soon. Very soon. #veritas https://t.co/le0cdR9I18 — James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 17, 2017
When asked if it was a leak about CNN he said ‘maybe’…
Hidden tapes on the way…
Hidden camera tapes on the way! https://t.co/xTDiMDUQSB — James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 17, 2017
Then O’Keefe came out and declared war saying ‘we are going after the media’…
We are going after the media and this is a seriously target rich environment: https://t.co/cW32tSu6ju #fakenews #MediaLiesAgain #Veritas — James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) February 20, 2017
Today, O’Keefe taunted CNN directly using the hashtag ‘#CNNLeaks’
Look at the excitement from the American people who are absolutely fed up with the media elite, specifically CNN…
@JamesOKeefeIII Yes, James! Expose the very fake news. — Brittany Pettibone (@BrittPettibone) February 22, 2017
We can’t wait for the #CNNleaks @JamesOKeefeIII! I bet @jaketapper is SUPER excited & counting down for such a transparent MediaDay! ⏰ pic.twitter.com/cIYUwpLWHO — Dabney Porte (@DabneyPorte) February 22, 2017Lance Stephenson’s free agency should be a mega-event. He’s just 23, with solid two-way skills at a position where talent is so scarce, Klay Thompson’s agent will be able to keep a straight face when trying to wring a max-level extension from Golden State.
And Stephenson is an unrestricted free agent. Players this talented almost never hit the market unfettered so early in their careers, and when they do, crazy stuff tends to happen. Gilbert Arenas’s sooner-than-usual unrestricted free agency resulted in a massive contract from Washington and panicked rule changes in the collective bargaining agreement.
Any team with cap room and some guts could try to persuade Stephenson to be a fixture on the wing for the next half-decade. Rebuilding teams can’t even use the excuse about not wanting to splurge in free agency ahead of schedule; Stephenson’s age makes him a natural fit on any team at the start of its upswing. Nabbing Stephenson comes with the bonus of snatching a crucial piece from an Eastern Conference heavyweight, leaving Indiana capped out and without any means to sign an equal talent.
Come on, people! Stephenson is the gleaming big-screen TV on the old Wheel of Fortune carousel of otherwise crappy prizes. Just drop the cash and you might be able to have him!
But the chatter around Stephenson’s free agency is quiet, for two reasons:
1. He’s a difficult personality. Executives on some teams with the requisite cap room recoil in horror at the very mention of his name. Teams with minor burbling locker-room discontent are hesitant to toss in another volatile personality. Stephenson’s embarrassing antics in the Eastern Conference finals inflamed the perception of him as a rogue loon whose “personality” will nearly cancel out all the good he might do on the floor. And the question lying just underneath those (legitimate) concerns: What happens when a guy who should be on his best behavior in pursuit of his first giant NBA paycheck actually gets that paycheck?
2. It’s hard to tell exactly how good Stephenson is, and how good he might one day be. This is the challenge of player evaluation — separating out a player from his current roster and figuring out how he might do in a different place, with a different role and different teammates. Stephenson can fade into a limited role within Indiana’s killer starting lineup, and he played almost all of his minutes in lineups that struggled to space the floor.
He looks like a ball-dominant scorer, but Stephenson actually used just 19 percent of Indiana’s possessions while on the floor this season. If a five-man group divided possessions evenly, each guy would soak up 20 percent; Stephenson’s usage rate was very low for a borderline All-Star.
He drove the ball to the rim only about 4.2 times per game, according to SportVU tracking cameras, a mark right around those of so-so penetrators like Patrick Beverley, Nate Wolters, and Shaun Livingston. He’s a good 3-point shooter, but not a great one, and certainly not one other teams fear when he’s away from the ball. Opposing defenders were willing to take an extra step or two off of Stephenson to clog the lane:
Watch the tape, and his pick-and-rolls appear to have a go-nowhere quality — especially when opposing teams have their big man drop back into the paint to contain Stephenson’s drive. Presented with that obstacle, Stephenson sometimes pulls the hoops equivalent of nonsense conversation to buy time — hesitation bounces, head fakes, meaningless crossovers, dribbles that somehow result in him going backward.
All that fancy stuff resulted in a heap of ugly turnovers. Stephenson coughed up the ball on 24 percent of the pick-and-rolls he finished, a mark that ranked 145th among players who ran at least 50 of those suckers, per Synergy Sports.
He doesn’t have a reliable midrange jumper to shoot over those big guys, like Chris Paul’s sniper shot from the right elbow, which means there is no in-between on his pick-and-rolls. They either lead to crazy drives or nowhere.
His assists in the half court are mostly unspectacular. He rarely got into the teeth of the defense for drop-off passes that led to juicy shots at the rim; the Pacers, after all, ranked 27th in shot attempts within the restricted area, per NBA.com.
Stephenson is a highlight reel in transition, but his dimes in the half court were mostly run-of-the-mill stuff any competent ball handler could manage — pocket passes to David West and Luis Scola for midrange jumpers, post entries, and skip passes around the perimeter. A full one-third of Stephenson’s assists came when throwing the pass from behind the 3-point arc on the right wing, per SportVU data provided exclusively to Grantland.
That would seem unusual, and both Paul George and LeBron James, for instance, have more evenly distributed assist-origination charts:
James Harden has a 33 percent cluster above the arc, but it’s in the middle, which is more profitable territory, and he’s also doing a ton of damage dishing from the elbow:
It’s almost enough to convince you that Stephenson isn’t too dynamic a player. He got to the line only 2.6 times per 36 minutes this regular season, a piddling amount for a rumbling freight train. Hell, Stephenson isn’t even as productive in transition as he seems. He turned the ball over on 26 percent of his transition chances this season, per Synergy, one of the worst marks in the league.
The Pacers’ stuck-in-gum offense needed Stephenson’s jolts of fast-break energy, but it’s unclear how much he really helped in the long run. He loves going 1-on-3, or even 1-on-4, and if just one defender can at least slow him up, another one often reaches in and pokes the ball away.
Stephenson probably led the league in the number of times an unseen defender trailing from behind reached in for a steal.
He zooms in without a plan, which means a lot of ugly jump passes and desperate wraparounds in the tight area underneath the basket. He loves going for all-in deep routes, like a quarterback throwing a bomb to a streaking receiver through double coverage. This may shock you, but lots of those passes end badly. Stephenson might be the league’s only player who committed multiple turnovers last season by tossing blind outlet passes backward over his head:
There are a ton of warning signs here, and they can trick you into thinking Stephenson is overrated. But look a bit deeper and you can find signals that Stephenson may be in the early stages of a breakout career. Those wild drives on the pick-and-roll happen a lot, and there is a method to the wildness.
On possession-ending pick-and-rolls in which Stephenson goes around the screen — meaning he actually uses it — he drives to the basket area nearly 45 percent of the time, a monster number relative to the league average, per Synergy. He took the same percentage of his shot attempts from inside the restricted area as LeBron James, per NBA.com, and he hit nearly 70 percent of them.
He is a creative player with an arsenal of tricks that compensate for his lack of a midrange game. He has a killer hesitation dribble; just when an opposing big man thinks his help duties are over and begins his retreat, Stephenson will blow by him:
He’s smart about faking toward a pick, getting the defense to commit in that direction, and then bolting the other way:
And when he gets into the lane, he has indeed shown that he can make the sorts of close-range passes that lead to the very best shots in the game.
Fans think Stephenson is selfish, but he’s not. He was probably Indiana’s best passer this season, and he’s especially good at reading the floor from the perimeter. He’s a step ahead in terms of understanding when a cutter will come open along the baseline, and he’s dynamite at making the extra swing pass from up top to a spot-up shooter in the corner.
He has also learned to cross up big men backpedaling to shut off his drive, and when he knows that defender is a ground-bound sieve, Stephenson will go right at his chest and bulldoze his way to the rim:
And remember: He’s playing within a peculiar context in Indiana. The Pacers don’t have a single big guy who can catch the ball south of the foul line and finish without a dribble; sometimes, their big men struggle to catch the thing at all. A lot of Stephenson’s assists lead to midrange jumpers because those are the shots West and Scola prefer.
Chris Paul’s assist-origination chart is even more perimeter-heavy than Stephenson’s:
You can do outside-in damage when your bigs can run and jump. And Stephenson’s assist chart isn’t so dramatically different from those of other creative players that it should make a team blanch. About 42 percent of his dimes led to a shot attempted within 10 feet of the rim, a number on par with those of LeBron (45 percent) and George (44 percent), and not so far from Paul’s figure (49 percent), per SportVU data.
Indiana’s driving lanes are always tight because the team doesn’t have a power forward with killer range beyond 18 feet. Its perimeter players have an awful habit of standing in the way, in no-man’s-land around the baseline, instead of spacing out to the corners. Stephenson is part of that problem sometimes; he loves to linger near the paint and cut in for offensive rebounds.
Plop him amid more shooting and with an explosive leaping big man, and Stephenson might become a different player — especially if he’s something like a no. 1 option. His driving numbers aren’t that low once you account for how many times he touches the ball. He’ll develop a midrange shot, and he has flashed a bullying post-up game in favorable matchups.
He’s already a solid defender, and he has learned good habits in Indiana’s killer system. He stays close to corner shooters, cheats only off of guys who have earned that treatment, and generally sticks to the scheme. He’s tenacious, and he’s a freaking brute — a human cinder block with a measured wingspan north of 6-10, big for a shooting guard. The dude battles, and that counts for a lot in the NBA. Defense is unglamorous, and he seems to like it.
Stephenson conceded to me early in the season that he had occasional blips in his focus on defense, especially in recognizing when an opponent was about to nail him with a pick. That still happens; he’ll die on a screen now and then:
He can get a bit jumpy tracking his man, and Bradley Beal roasted him enough that Frank Vogel shifted George onto Beal by Game 2 of the Pacers’ second-round series against Washington.
But Stephenson is a good defender, and there’s no reason to expect that to change.
I feel like I’m at the end of a Shark Tank pitch: So, teams, who wants to dive in with this two-way shooting guard who might be kind of crazy?
If some team takes the plunge, the Pacers might be in trouble. George making an All-NBA team added another couple of million to their cap figure for next season. If the Pacers want to keep Scola — and remember, they gave up a ton to get him — they’ll only be around $7 million or $8 million under the tax before addressing Stephenson.
They can buy out Scola for about $1.9 million, saving themselves nearly $3 million, but they’d have to fill an extra roster spot. They could also use the stretch provision on Chris Copeland, or find a salary-dumping ground for a bit player like Ian Mahinmi. But those moves carry costs, both on the court and in real dollars. Regardless of the cap gymnastics involved, the Pacers can, if they wish, offer Stephenson about $10 million per season. But they can be outbid.
Let’s scour the list of teams with cap room and/or a need at the position to find the likeliest candidates for a Stephenson splurge:
Probably Out
Dallas: The Mavs will have cap room, but ESPN.com’s Marc Stein has reported that they aren’t interested, and that matches what I’ve heard.
Utah: For a host of reasons, no.
Orlando: The Magic are rebuilding, and Stephenson could be the heir to Arron Afflalo as the shooting guard who rises up with the franchise. But the Magic are unusually concerned with gathering high-character guys, and Stephenson would be a gamble for them.
Sacramento: Multiple executives from other teams have mentioned the Kings as a potential landing spot if Rudy Gay opts out of his contract, but that doesn’t appear to be Gay’s plan. The Kings just spent a lottery pick on Ben McLemore, and Yahoo! has reported that they might have their eye on a bigger target — Kevin Love.
Phoenix: The Love thing hovers over a lot of potential free agents as the domino that needs to fall first. Phoenix has a million extra first-round picks and an intriguing young piece in Eric Bledsoe, and may well try to suss out the Love situation before moving elsewhere.
And a lot of the Orlando “character” concerns apply here, even though Phoenix needs long-term wing help. The team is in a happy place after clearing out Michael Beasley and other toxins.
The Wild Cards
Los Angeles Lakers: The Lakers need to, like, field a team for next season, and they’ll have north of $20 million in cap space. Opening the vault for Stephenson wouldn’t take them out of 2015 free agency, since Stephenson isn’t going to command anything close to a super-max contract.
And here’s another wrinkle a lot of front-office guys are kicking around: We now live in a world where half the league enters each offseason with a ton
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November 2012, Upper Te Maari Crater on Mount Tongariro had a short eruption which spread ash and ballistics around the crater. A more damaging eruption in August 2012 covered a much larger area
Photo: RNZ / Alison Ballance
For her Master’s degree PhD student Rebecca Fitzgerald carried out an assessment of ballistic hazard and risk from the Upper Te Maari crater eruption. She used aerial photographs to identify 3,587 impact craters with a mean diameter of 2.4 metres, but when she combined this information with ground surveys, which allowed her to find much smaller impact craters, she estimated that approximately 13,200 ballistic projectiles had been thrown out during the eruption at an average speed of 200 metres per second. She also modelled the risk of serious injury or death to walkers along the Tongariro alpine crossing during this size eruption, and found that in some places on the track the probability of death was 16%. Her modelling also showed that a larger eruption had a much higher – up to 100% - risk of death.
Rebecca is building on her Master’s research for her PhD, and will be travelling to Japan to map ballistics from the September 2014 Mount Ontake eruption in which 57 people were killed. She says “I’ll also be doing more numerical modelling as this will allow us to look at future eruption scenarios.” This work will include identifying potential ballistic hazard zones in the Auckland volcanic zone.
Testing the Trebuchet
Photo: RNZ / Alison Ballance
During the test run, the team had two missiles to test with the trebuchet. One was a rubber gym ball filled with sand, and the other was “a more realistic analogue material,” according to Ben, “which is silly putty wrapped in a condom. Silly putty has similar properties to magma in that its visco-elastic. Everyone know that silly putty bounces if you throw it on the floor but if you leave it there it’ll just spread out slowly. Hopefully it’ll represent the behaviour in flight of volcanic bombs, which are also visco-elastic.”
Ben says depending on the type of volcano and the type of eruption, a range of projectiles ranging in viscosity or stickiness from “snot dribbles’ to solid blocks several metres in size can be thrown out. Future plans for the trebuchet include doing a systematic study of viscosity in different sizes and under different conditions.
Firing the Cannon
Photo: RNZ / Alison Ballance
Photo: RNZ / Alison Ballance
As well as the trebuchet, the team are running a second set of experiments using a vertical cannon that fires rocks down towards the ground. The cannon has been made out of a piece of old drilling pipe. It works using pressure created by compressed air, and is capable of firing rocks weighing up to 8-10 kg at 100 metres per second. In a real eruption rocks can be blasted out of the vent faster than the speed of sound, at 400 metres per second. They then slow down as they travel, but can speed up again as they begin to fall, which makes ballistic modelling very complex.
Rebecca plans to use the cannon to build a relationship between the size of the ballistic, the speed it is fired at, the size of crater it creates and whether it fires out any shrapnel. She will be able to relate this information to craters she has mapped in the field.
Masters student George Williams is using the cannon to fire rocks against common roofing materials such as corrugated iron. He has collected various roof and wall materials from demolished buildings in Christchurch, and explains that “what we’re doing is calculating the impact energy required to cause different amounts of damage to different building materials. We’ll be testing, for example, whether a small rock moving fast is able to puncture through more than one that’s moving with the same energy but is big and slow. We’ll also be using silly putty.” The team are particularly interested in reinforced concrete, which is the material that volcanic shelters are built from, and say that this is the first time work like this has been carried out.
The pneumatic cannon is powered by compressed air, and the three tonnes of water in the large plastic tanks are to prevent it from taking off as it fires. The first rock is fired out at about 30 kilometres per hour while the second is at about 70 km/hr - these speeds are much slower than occurs during a real volcanic eruption
What To Do During An Eruption
What’s the best advice if you’re caught in an eruption that is firing out ballistics? Rebecca says that all the evidence to date from eruptions like Mount Ontake in Japan is that most people are killed from injuries sustained to their backs and necks as they run away.
“You want to make sure you watch where the ballistics are coming from and move away from that area,” says Rebecca.
Ben stresses that you should seek shelter if you can. “I had a conversation with the military recently, and their advice was that if there are lots of objects falling around you make yourself as small as possible, and try and shelter behind a large block or something solid.”
If there are fewer objects falling then Ben advices keeping an eye on the sky, and watching individual objects that seem to be falling towards you so you can step out of the way as it lands.
“We call it an auk step. There’s a bit in Lord of the Rings where there’s a big bit of concrete coming at an auk and he just moves to the side,” says Rebecca.
In this video, shot by Alistair Davies, the trebuchet is in the far distance, in the corner of the field. The trebuchet fires and then about 18 seconds into the video you can see a small dot appear which is the sand ball rising against the blue sky and then the white cloud before beginning to fall, then bounce and roll across the grass after it lands.
Our Changing World has previously featured stories on the Taupo Volcanic Zone and volcanic hazard planning:
Harry Keys from DoC looks after the lahar eruption detection system on Mount Ruapehu
Massey University have a volcanic eruption simulator
Brad Scott from GNS explains the new, simplified volcanic hazard alert system
GNS volcanologist Gill Jolly explains how data from a volcano monitoring network help forecast volcanic activity
And Brad Scott takes Alison Ballance around the Waimangu Valley near Rotorua, which is one of a number of volcanic monitoring sites in the Taupo Volcanic ZoneVANCOUVER, BC – A second straight 90th-minute winner by Andre Lewis gave Team Blue a 2-1 win in Vancouver Whitecaps FC’s Blue and White intrasquad match Wednesday afternoon at UBC Thunderbird Stadium.
After having a goal called back for offside just moments earlier, Lewis buried the last kick of the match from in tight to break the deadlock and secure the victory for Team Blue. Following the goal, the crowd chanted “flip” in reference to his failed back flip attempt Sunday in Victoria and Lewis obliged – this time successfully.
“I just did it to show everyone that I can,” Lewis told reporters after the match. “The other day my mom was like, ‘Please don’t do it again.’ I like to excite the fans whenever I score. I just like to enjoy scoring.”
Veteran midfielder Matt Watson scored the other goal for Team Blue, which fielded a more experienced squad, while rookie Mamadou Diouf provided the scoring for Team White.
There was a heavy youth presence on both teams on Wednesday, as most of the players who appeared in Sunday’s friendly in Victoria trained in the morning and were given the afternoon off.
One player who stood out in the early stages was second-year striker Kekuta Manneh, who returned to full training last week. The 19-year-old occupied the right wing for Team Blue and created several chances with his pace and movement.
Manneh’s best chance came in the 17th minute when he broke in all alone after intercepting a pass only to poke the ball just over the goal. A few minutes later, Manneh saw his afternoon end earlier than expected after getting sent off for a hard sliding tackle deep in his own end.
In addition to Manneh, Team Blue midfielder Bryce Alderson also looked lively in a holding role in the first half. The 20-year-old Canadian was a major part of the Team Blue attack that controlled most of the possession throughout the match.
“He’s refreshed, he’s hungry, and he’s fit,” said Robinson. “I think you saw today for the first hour that he was probably the best player on the park. Something has worked in the offseason. We’ll continue to push Bryce because he has chances moving forward with this team.”
Watson opened the scoring for Team Blue in the 41st minute, after intercepting an errant pass and poking it into the back of the net from about 10 yards. Diouf responded for Team White moments before the halftime whistle.
After Residency midfielder Marco Bustos played in Aminu Abdallah down the left flank, Abdallah found Diouf at the top of the box with a low cross and the Senegalese striker hit it first time into the bottom left corner of the goal.
After a slow start to the second half, the action picked up late as both teams pushed for the go-ahead marker. Kianz Froese and Omar Salgado were both heavily involved for Team Blue, but some steady defending from Team White skipper Christian Dean and timely saves from Residency goalkeeper Nolan Wirth kept them at bay.
At the other end of the pitch, Residency goalkeeper Marco Carducci was called upon to make several game-saving stops – including sprawling saves on a Diouf header in the 80th minute and a Ben Fisk penalty in the 88th.
“He was great,” said Whitecaps FC head coach Carl Robinson. “Obviously, he made a few fantastic saves. He made a wrong decision to come out for the penalty but he made up for it with a fantastic save. I have no doubt that Marco is going to be a top keeper and part of his development is training with the first team.”
Ultimately, Lewis would cap off the match with a cool left-footed finish after a nice feed from Froese to give Team Blue the 2-1 victory.
“The mentality was good, because it’s never easy playing in a practice match,” said Robinson. “But they got out of it what I wanted them to get out of it. Obviously, there was a little bit too much energy at times, but I’d never take that away from them.”
MATCH DETAILS
Scoring Summary:
41’ – BLUE – Matt Watson
45’ – WHITE – Mamadou Diouf (Aminu Abdallah, Marco Bustos)
90’ – BLUE – Andre Lewis (Kianz Froese, Aminu Abdallah)
TEAM WHITE
18.Nolan Wirth+; 42.Mark Baldisimo+ (41.Jackson Farmer+ ’45), 41.Jackson Farmer+ (50.Nicholas Prasad+ 45’), 22.Christian Dean, 26.Aminu Abdallah (12.Jordan Haynes+ 45’); 45.Adam Mena#, 51.Michael Kafari#, 32.Marco Bustos+ (52.Caniggia Elva* 45’), 30.Ben Fisk^; 35.Marlon Ramirez^, 45.Mamadou Diouf
TEAM BLUE
44.Marco Carducci+; 13.Solomon Kwambe*, 24.Carlyle Mitchell, 16.Johnny Leveron, 2.Jordan Harvey; 23.Kekuta Manneh (38.Kianz Froese+ 20’), 37.Mitch Piraux+ (26.Aminu Abdallah 65’), 25.Andre Lewis, 36.Bryce Alderson (42.Mark Baldisimo+ 74’), 8.Matt Watson; 17.Omar Salgado
*Training camp invite
+Whitecaps FC Residency
^Whitecaps FC U-23
#Whitecaps FC MLS draftee
Whitecaps FC begin their 2014 MLS season on March 8 versus New York Red Bulls at BC Place. Season tickets start at just $349, subject to applicable fees. The 'Caps also offer a flexible range of ticket products, including half-season tickets ($244), 5-packs ($149), student season tickets ($199), and a youth soccer half-season ticket ($100). For more information on all Whitecaps FC ticket options, call 604.669.9283 ext. 2 or visit whitecapsfc.com/tickets.The infamous Trump Hotel located in D.C.'s old post office surpassed its business goals this year, raking in $1.97 million in profit in the first four months, according to the Daily Beast's Betsy Woodruff. The hotel was projected to lose $2 million, as most luxury hotels don't turn a profit in their first few years.
Big picture: Trump hotels across the country became sites for anti-Trump protests, which isn't exactly great for business, and several hotels have attempted to distance themselves from the name. One Trump hotel in the SOHO neighborhood in New York and one in Toronto changed their names, and a third hotel in Panama City is looking to rebrand. But despite frequent protests, the D.C. location, conveniently situated between the White House and the Capitol, has hosted and entertained Republican officials, campaigners, foreign leaders, conservative outside groups, pro-Trump tourists and even, on occasion, the president himself.Image copyright PA Image caption Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman denies any wrongdoing
As many as 15,000 votes were forged or affected by intimidation at an east London election, a court has heard.
Four petitioners allege Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman used "corrupt and illegal practices" in May 2014, when he was elected as mayor.
Petitioner Andy Erlam said his "guesstimate" was that up to 15,000 votes were forged and that "intimidation of voters" took place at more than 40 polling stations.
Mr Rahman denies any wrongdoing.
Image copyright PA Image caption Petitioners Angela Moffat, Andy Erlam and Azmal Hussein have accused Lutfur Rahman of electoral fraud
The group have taken action against Mr Rahman, the independent mayor of Tower Hamlets and leader of the Tower Hamlets First (THF) party, under the 1983 Representation Of The People Act at a special High Court hearing.
They want Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey to declare the May 2014 election null and void.
Mr Erlam told the court that statistics showed about 240,000 people lived in the borough with 180,000 registered to vote and his "guesstimate" was that between 10,000 and 15,000 votes had been forged or affected by intimidation.
'Fight for democracy'
He told Mr Mawrey there was evidence that police at many, if not most, of the 40 polling stations had either "refused" to intervene or taken "exceptionally ineffective measures" to stop intimidation.
He claimed there were witnesses with "important evidence" who were frightened of coming forward.
Mr Erlam stood for election to Tower Hamlets council on an anti-corruption ticket, but denied that the decision to launch legal action was personal.
He told the court: "It's about democracy. It is to be defended and fought for and it should not be taken for granted."
Mr Rahman has said there is "little if any" evidence of wrongdoing against him and his lawyers have described the group of four's claims as "invention", "exaggeration" and "in some cases downright deliberately false allegations".
The hearing continues.Copyright by WOWK - All rights reserved
GREENVILLE, SC (WSPA) – A former Greenville County teacher has been arrested after police say she used cruel punishment techniques in her classroom.
Donna Morgan Hughes, a former special education teacher at Woodland Elementary in Greer, was arrested in December by Greer Police for Unlawful Neglect of a Child and Assault and Battery.
Police say that Hughes locked a 5-year-old with autism in a supply closet, with no lights, for 30 minutes as a punishment. Those warrants also say that Hughes dragged that child across the room out of a chair, injuring him.
Hughes became under suspension for these allegations in March of 2014, she resigned on April 7th of 2014 from her position. Her teaching license has been suspended by the South Carolina Department of Education because of these allegations.
In that suspension letter, the Department of Education says the Greenville County School District reprimanded Hughes in 2012 and 2013 for her unusual discipline practices.
The parents of that 5-year-old filed a report in 2014, but for unknown reasons, it was 2 years before Hughes was charged.
The parents of that child are now suing the Greenville County School District, stating that the previous reprimands should have been red flags of Hughes behavior.
Greenville County Schools say they cannot comment on the pending lawsuit.
Several calls and an email to Hughes’ attorney have gone unanswered so far.Passengers on a Pakistan International Airways flight say they "didn't feel anything hit or any sort of impact" when their plane clipped the wing of an Air France jet as it taxied toward a Pearson International Airport gate on Tuesday night.
"At the time I didn't know that the wings had touched," said Syed Akbar, a passenger on the Pakistan International Airways flight involved in the collision.
Air France flight AF351 was parked at a Terminal 3 gate when the tips of the airplanes' wings touched around 6 p.m., said Greater Toronto Airports Authority spokesperson Natalie Moncur.
No one was injured, Moncur told CBC News, but the minor collision frustrated hundreds of passengers who endured long-wait times while investigators dealt with the issue.
Frustration turned to anger, passenger says
After the Pakistan International Airways flight PK789, landed from Lahore, Pakistan, Akbar says it took around 45 minutes for the crew to make it to the gate and open the jetway.
"I thought it was just conveyer belt issues," he added.
When passengers were finally allowed to disembark, Usman Sherazi, who was also on the flight, told CBC News "the real fun began once we arrived at the baggage hall" and airline staff told customers their baggage would be arriving soon.
The passenger's comfort has to be taken into consideration as well. - Usman Sherazi, PIA passenger
"The frustration started turning into anger," he said. "People were very upset. There were kids crying all over. People were very fed up.
"What really bothered me was there was hardly anybody who was telling us what was happening."
Sherazi and Akbar waited over six hours for their bags to be unloaded.
Akbar says he took his wife home to their house in Toronto before returning to collect his luggage, which still wasn't available.
"Everyone's frustrated... and they don't know who to kind of blame for it," said Akbar. "A lot of people are saying the airlines, but I guess accidents happen and the investigation has to happen."
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PIA?src=hash">#PIA</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PK789?src=hash">#PK789</a>, frustrated passengers being repetitively told to keep on waiting for luggage three hours after arrival at # Toronto Pearson <a href="https://t.co/LnUk622iwO">pic.twitter.com/LnUk622iwO</a> —@Usman_Sherazi
45 min wait in the freezing cold for <a href="https://twitter.com/Official_PIA">@Official_PIA</a> free hotel shuttle arriving in "5 minutes" <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/travel?src=hash">#travel</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/nightmare?src=hash">#nightmare</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Toronto?src=hash">#Toronto</a> —@DaliaRashid
Sherazi is disappointed in the way the airlines handled the incident.
"The passenger comfort has to be taken into consideration as well," he said. "These things happen, I can understand that, but when these things happen their response should be a little bit better."
Outbound flights delayed and cancelled
Other passengers departing from Pearson endured long wait times, too.
The incident took place at Pearson International Airport's Terminal 3. (Twitter/JetstreamPhotog)
Muhammed Shahzad was supposed to be on the 10:05 p.m. Pakistan International Airways flight PK790 to Lahore with his parents, but the incident involving the Boeing 777 aircraft delayed the flight until Wednesday afternoon.
Shahzad said his family was sent home by airline staff without being provided with a hotel service because of their proximity to the airport.
<a href="https://twitter.com/DanyalGilani">@DanyalGilani</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Official_PIA">@Official_PIA</a> are you kidding me? My family was told to go back home 1 hour away because they are from Toronto... [1/2] —@suddais_ms
Air France flight AF351, bound for Paris, was also cancelled.
The GTAA says the Transportation Safety Board has taken over the investigation.No deal regarding the sale of the AC Milan from the Berlusconi family is expected to take place until June at the earliest.
Silvio Berlusconi has been looking to secure investment from Asia, but any change in ownership in the club will not take place until after the regional elections on May 31.
Tuttosport report that while different packages have been mooted, including one that would see a package of initial shares going to a new buyer now before a majority stake in the Rossoneri would be signed over in two or three years, Berlusconi would be unwilling to announce a sale so close to an election.
Chinese businessman Richard Lee and Thai entrepreneur Bee Taechaubol remain front-runners to secure ownership of the club, but the Turin-based newspaper indicates that they will have to wait until the first round of voting in the elections, due to be held on May 31, before any progress can be made.DENVER — City leaders said Wednesday they want undocumented immigrants to be able to report crimes without fear of being deported — and they want to clarify that Denver does not engage in immigration enforcement.
A new version of the Public Safety Enforcement Priorities Act was announced Wednesday.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, and city council members Robin Kniech and Paul Lopez announced the policies at a news conference.
“In January, Denver and cities across the country were faced with a new reality: A White House that right from the start sought to bully us and to turn against certain residents in our community” Hancock said.
“The wave of fear that has been caused by this administration is unconscionable, and it requires us to take action to create stability and certainty in the face of such brazen, ill-informed and divisive decisions.
“There is a painful lack of leadership at the federal level, with a White House more focused on inflaming tensions and chaos than finding actual solutions.”
City leaders said the new ordinance is focused on “fostering the respect, trust and collaboration between community members, city officials and law enforcement that is critical to keeping Denver’s immigrant and refugee communities safe and thriving.”
“When immigrants fear city involvement in immigration enforcement they are less likely to trust police or fire officials, to report emergencies, or to testify or appear in court,” Lopez said.
“Our entire community is safest when everyone trusts and utilizes law enforcement agencies. Today, we are all standing together advocating for a path forward that will help reduce this fear.”
“We have carefully drafted this ordinance to maintain compliance with federal and state law while at the same time providing reassurance to our immigrant community,” Kniech stated. “Doing more than the law is not our obligation.
“We do not do civil immigration enforcement.”
Added Hancock: “With these next steps, Denver will send a clear message that every person, no matter their immigration status, can feel safe when interacting with the city and law enforcement, and know that our No. 1 priority is the safety and health of everyone in Denver.”
The ordinance will be filed with city council on Thursday. It will receive its first reading on Monday and a final reading on Aug. 28 along with a public hearing.
In addition, Hancock indicated the administration will continue its work with city council and stakeholders to develop a complementary executive order that will work to:Absentee Ballot Request Form Seems to Compare the Democratic Presidential Nominee to Ahmadinijead, Kim Jong-Il, Putin, Chavez
'America Must Look Evil in the Eye' Printed Over Photo of Eyes Some Believe to be Obama's...
Brad Friedman Byon 10/15/2008, 10:03am PT
Last week we reported that voters in one New York county were receiving absentee ballots with "Barack OSAMA" listed as the Democratic Presidential candidate running against John McCain. This week, the beat goes on in Virginia, but in this case, it's not a typo (as the officials in NY claimed about their "Osama" ballots.)
The Republican Party of Virginia has sent absentee ballot request mailers to voters in the state, seeming to compare Barack Obama to Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinijead, North Korea's Kim Jong-Il, Russia's Vladimir Putin, and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
"In today's dangerous world, appeasement is not a foreign policy," declares the outside of the mailer from the Republican Party of Virginia, followed by photographs of the four leaders and the text "America must face the threat of terror head-on" on the inside.
On the back of the envelope used to send in the voter's absentee ballot request is a photo of what some Virginia voters, understandably, believe to be Obama's eyes, with the words "America must look evil in the eye and never flinch."
The complete mailer, with more of the pages and images than we show below, can be downloaded here as a PDF.
Decide for yourself, and note the additional graphic, now added as an update, comparing Osama to Obama (and calling for the latter to be waterboarded) as found on the Sacramento County, CA Republican Party's website...
Outside envelope...
Inside the mailer...
Back of the return envelope, as paid for by the Republican Party of Virginia...
UPDATE: Some readers have written to suggest the eyes in the photo are not Barack Obama's but those of Osama bin Laden. You decide. We've changed the text above to reflect the possibility. We'd agree with commenter "bvac" who notes "I suspect that was intential on their part." Indeed, though the country's of the other leaders and dictators mentioned are named, neither Osama nor Obama are referred to directly in the mailer.
Along the same lines as the mailer above --- if, um, a bit less subtle --- comes the following graphic, as posted on the Sacramento County, CA Republican Party website, before they were forced to remove it, according to Sacramento Bee. (Hat-tip "Blue Texan" at firedoglake)...
A screengrab of the page, which included some other interesting graphics is right here.
Classy folks.
Though they've removed the graphic above, the Sacramento GOP site still features a phony e-mail about Obama and flag pins on it's front page, according to RAW STORY.
FURTHER UPDATE: "Jazz From Hell" picks up on this report, and notes, in part:
The The back of the envelope features a pic (above the words "AMERICA MUST LOOK EVIL / IN THE EYE / AND NEVER FLINCH") that Brad says is Obama, which ties in with the reference to the "Democrats who want to control Washington" line inside the mailer, and would also be a natural deduction given the mailer's design color... brown, like Obama's skin such as in this photo However, that's not Obama. It's Osama bin Laden. Notice how the original photo has been tinted a la the infamous O.J. Simpson photo on the cover of Time. I showed the image to a colleague of mine who also thought it was Obama at first, no doubt overtly influenced by the sepia tint. By his and Brad's--and surely the intended recipients'--erroneous IDs, a subconscious connection is made, which is exactly what is intended.The “superfood” craze is premised upon the dubious notion that some foods are so great, that eating them will bring good health and long life. For Popeye, spinach was a superfood. After gleefully swallowing a can full of the stuff, he grew big muscles and beat up Bluto.
The trouble with superfoods is that they aren’t real. That isn’t to say that some foods aren’t healthier than others; fruits and vegetables are better for you than potato chips and soda. But the notion that some foods are the secret elixir to youth or the magic cure for disease is hype.
Keeping that in mind, it is still worth investigating how food affects our bodies. Research in this area provides insights into our metabolism and physiology, which can tell us more about disease and how to prevent it.
Crocetin: Saffron’s Anti-Cancer Component
New research from a team of scientists based mostly in Italy suggests that saffron -- a spice used in some Asian, Indian, and Mediterranean dishes -- may have an intrinsic ability to fight cancer. Specifically, they examined a component of the spice called crocetin, which they synthesized in their laboratory.
The team found that crocetin could block the proliferation of two types of human cancer (cervical carcinoma and lung carcinoma) cells in a test tube, but it did not inhibit the growth of normal lung cells.
The mechanism of action seems to involve inhibiting an enzyme that is particularly active in cancer cells. By its very nature, cancer cells are hungry for energy and raw materials. To satisfy this need, cancer cells hijack a metabolic process that our cells use when the oxygen supply is low.
During intense exercise, for instance, muscle cells consume more oxygen than the bloodstream can provide. To produce energy under these anaerobic (“oxygen-free”) conditions, muscle cells produce energy through fermentation, which produces lactic acid (“lactate”).
Cancer, too, can switch over to produce lactate. Unlike muscle cells, however, cancer will generate lactate even if oxygen is plentiful. Worse, they use the lactate as a precursor to synthesize biomolecules for making more cancer cells. This hijacking of our fermentative metabolic pathway is known as the Warburg effect.
There might be an Achilles’ heel. An enzyme, called lactate dehydrogenase, is necessary to produce lactate. This enzyme is over-active in cancer cells, and the authors showed that crocetin can inhibit it. That’s why crocetin blocked cancer cells from growing. (It should be noted, though, that some synthetic inhibitors of this enzyme are far more effective than crocetin.)
So, You’re Saying Saffron Is a Superfood?
No. Lots of different molecules kill cancer in a test tube. Just because a compound shows promise in vitro does not mean it will have any measurable impact in humans. Indeed, a mountain of evidence – including plausible biological mechanisms – suggests that antioxidants should obliterate cancer. However, antioxidants have consistently failed clinical trials.
Thus, there is a long way to go before saffron can be declared as anything more than an expensive spice. The next step would be to test saffron in clinical trials to see if people who take it have any noticeable health benefits. Additionally, it should be determined if there is any good reason for people to take saffron (or crocetin) as opposed to a more effective synthetic drug.
Barring that, it still may be worth incorporating some saffron into your meals, just in case it provides a small health boost. If it doesn’t, at least it tastes good.
Source: Carlotta Granchi, et al. “Characterization of the Saffron Derivative Crocetin as an Inhibitor of Human Lactate Dehydrogenase 5 in the Antiglycolytic Approach against Cancer.” J Agric Food Chem 65 (28): 5639-5649. Published: 23-Jun-2017. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.7b01668ES Football Newsletter 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
FIFA President Sepp Blatter praised Uruguay striker Luis Suarez on Wednesday after he apologised for biting an Italian defender during the World Cup.
Suarez was banned for nine competitive internationals and cannot take part in any soccer activities for four months after he sank his teeth into the shoulder of Giorgio Chiellini during Uruguay's 1-0 defeat of the Italians on June 24.
It took the forward nearly a week to confess that he had bitten his opponent, after protesting his innocence when the furore surrounding the incident first broke.
"He said 'I'm sorry' to the soccer family, and that's fair play too," Blatter told reporters at an event in Rio de Janeiro.
"That shows he's a great player and I hope he can have his soccer career back."
Barcelona officials were reportedly meeting their Liverpool counterparts in London on Wednesday with a view to possibly buying the disgraced striker, who was in brilliant form last season and was voted the Premier League's best player.
World Cup 2014: Our favourite pictures 133 show all World Cup 2014: Our favourite pictures 1/133 Germany light up Sao Paulo Fireworks follow Mario Gotze's extra time winner as Germany seal fourth World Cup triumph. (Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images) Getty 2/133 I can't watch Neymar covers his eyes as Brazil suffers another heavy defeat, this time in the third-place playoff against the Netherlands. (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images) Getty 3/133 Re-United? Incoming Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal asked Arjen Robben to join him at Old Trafford. AFP PHOTO / VANDERLEI ALMEIDA (Photo credit should read VANDERLEI ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images). Getty 4/133 Buenos Aires celebrations Argentina's fans gather around the Obelisk as they celebrate their team winning the 2014 World Cup semi-finals against the Netherlands in Buenos Aires July 9, 2014. REUTERS/Martin Acosta 5/133 Puma's on the run Argentine players react after Maxi Rodriguez scored the winning goal during a penalty shootout after extra time during the World Cup semifinal soccer match between the Netherlands and Argentina at the Itaquerao Stadium in Sao Paulo Brazil, Wednesday, July 9, 2014. Argentina defeated the Netherlands 4-2 in a penalty shootout after a 0-0 tie to advance to the finals. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano) 6/133 Romero joy Argentina's goalkeeper Sergio Romero celebrates after saving the ball for the second time during a penalty shoot-out at their 2014 World Cup semi-finals against the Netherlands at the Corinthians arena in Sao Paulo July 9, 2014. REUTERS/Dominic 7/133 Right way to go Argentina's goalkeeper Sergio Romero saves a penalty from Netherlands' Ron Vlaar during the World Cup semifinal soccer match between the Netherlands and Argentina at the Itaquerao Stadium in Sao Paulo Brazil, Wednesday, July 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) 8/133 Final strike Jasper Cillessen of the Netherlands watches as he fails to stop the decisive penalty shot by Argentina's Maxi Rodriguez during their penalty shootout in their 2014 World Cup semi-finals at the Corinthians arena in Sao Paulo. REUTERS/Dominic Ebenbichler 9/133 Robben v Messi Arjen Robben of the Netherlands fights for the ball with Argentina's Lionel Messi during their 2014 World Cup semi-finals at the Corinthians arena in Sao Paulo July 9, 2014. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes 10/133 Nothing to celebrate Brazil fans react during the 2014 World Cup semi-finals between Brazil and Germany at the Mineirao stadium in Belo Horizonte. (Picture: Eddie Keogh/Reuters) 11/133 Final Score A general view of the scoreboard shows the result at the end of the 2014 World Cup semi-finals between Brazil and Germany at the Mineirao stadium in Belo Horizonte. (Picture: Ruben Sprich/Reuters) 12/133 Number 6 Germany's Andre Schuerrle scores his team's sixth goal against Brazil during their 2014 World Cup semi-finals at the Mineirao stadium in Belo Horizonte. (Picture: David Gray/Reuters) 13/133 The fantastic fourth Germany's Toni Kroos (right) scores their fourth goal during their 2014 World Cup semi-finals against Brazil at the Mineirao stadium in Belo Horizonte. (Picture: Eddie Keogh/Reuters) 14/133 Luiz in tears Brazil's David Luiz reacts after they lost their 2014 World Cup semi-finals against Germany at the Mineirao stadium in Belo Horizonte. (Picture: David Gray/Reuters) 15/133 Oranje boom The Netherlands celebrate after defeating Costa Rica in a penalty shootout during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Quarter Final match between the Netherlands and Costa Rica at Arena Fonte Nova on July 5, 2014 in Salvador, Brazil. (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images) GETTY 16/133 Samba sorrow A Brazil fan shows his disappointment as Argentina's forward Gonzalo Higuain celebrates with team-mates after scoring their first goal (Photo by FRANCOIS XAVIER MARIT/AFP/Getty Images) GETTY 17/133 A star is born James Rodriguez bows out of the World Cup with six goals, as Colombia are eliminated by hosts Brazil. (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images) Getty 18/133 Lone hero A lone USA supporter dressed as 'Captain America' sits in the stands after Belgium defeated the USA 2-1 in extra time to advance to the quarter finals during the World Cup round of 16 soccer match between Belgium and the USA at the Arena Fonte Nova in Salvador, Brazil. (Picture: Natacha Pisarenko/AP) 19/133 Belgium on top Belgium's Axel Witsel and United States' Chris Wondolowski battle for the ball during the World Cup round of 16 soccer match between Belgium and the USA at the Arena Fonte Nova in Salvador, Brazil. (Picture: Matt Dunham/AP) 20/133 Angel Heart Argentina's Angel Di Maria celebrates scoring against Switzerland during extra time in their 2014 World Cup round of 16 game at the Corinthians arena in Sao Paulo. (Picture: Ivan Alvarado/Reuters) 21/133 All aboard for Argentina Argentina soccer fans celebrate as they travel on a train towards the Corinthians arena at the Luz Station before the 2014 World
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have something to drink, and if I poured it into a cup, people would stop bothering me about having something to drink.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten, “Why aren’t you drinking?” at parties. Being sober when you don’t really want to be is hard enough, but people asking you about a super personal issue as if they’re making small talk about the weather is excruciating.
(Shout out to non-sober people: Stop asking this question!)
Even with all those coping skills, the idea in which I found the most solace was that fulfilling a momentary desire would make me feel intense regret in the morning. It might not sound comforting, but knowing that regret would eclipse the immediate discomfort I felt not drinking helped keep those urges in check. I knew I wouldn’t wake up wondering if I had to apologize to someone, or if I’d said too much to my mom or my sisters, giving myself and my secrets away. I wouldn’t wake up with a hangover, and I wouldn’t have the sneaking suspicion that I’d fucked up somewhere and couldn’t place it.
Because I knew there was no possibility of “I’ll have just one booze-nog to celebrate,” just like I knew there wouldn’t be coming back from licking up the whiskey that had spilled on my hands in the kitchen.
That day in the kitchen when my mom asked me to make the Irish cream, after a few moments contemplating my next move, the desire to keep my non-drinking streak alive and avoid soul-crushing disappointment in myself for giving in won out. I unspooled a paper towel and mopped up the stray whiskey and threw the damp paper towel in the trash, an action that both made me proud because I knew I’d made the correct choice and bummed me out because I’d thrown away perfectly good whiskey.
That Christmas set the tone for the next five years of holidays for me. It was sloppy, it wasn’t perfect, and I struggled, but somewhere inside of my chest, the idea that my future and myself were worth fighting for took root. I didn’t know it then, but through that one, small action of standing up for myself and my sobriety, I’d given myself the gift of trusting myself, and with every passing holiday and year, that small seed of hope blossoms.
Now, when I go to my parents’ house for the holidays, I’ll still offer to make the Irish cream, much to my mom’s delight. “Molly makes it the best,” she told a visitor dropping off presents and, in turn, taking home a quart of the Irish cream. “She’s got a heavy hand with that whiskey.”Photo: David Silverman/Getty Images
The true identity of Banksy is a more closely guarded secret than that of Batman. But after all these years, someone was bound to inadvertently drop a clue about the mystery man behind the satirical street art seen around the globe. In a recent interview on Scroobius Pip’s podcast Distraction Pieces, UK jungle producer Goldie might have done just that by potentially letting slip the first name of Banksy:
“Give me a bubble letter and put it on a T-shirt and write ‘Banksy’ on it, and we’re sorted. We can sell it now. No disrespect to Robert, I think he is a brilliant artist. I think he has flipped the world of art over.”
The “Robert” Goldie mentions could be none other than Robert Del Naja, a lifelong friend of Goldie’s and a member of the band Massive Attack. The evidence is pretty convincing: Goldie and Robert grew up in Bristol and were both graffiti artists running in the same circle in the 1980s. This isn’t the first time Del Naja’s name has been tied to Banksy; in 2016, a researcher linked Massive Attack’s tour dates with Banksy’s graffiti art popping up at the same time and in the same place, and suggested Del Naja was behind it all. If Del Naja is truly Banksy, perhaps he can spray-paint a foot being inserted into a mouth on Goldie’s behalf.The plot continues to thicken in the great power game being played out over the Syrian conflict.
The Paris attacks in particular have brought a new and dramatic twist in the quest to find a solution for the Syrian war and reshuffled the diplomatic cards once more.
Having vowed to wage war against ISIS, French president Francois Hollande now seeks to enrol Russia in a campaign to destroy the movement that claimed responsibility for the attacks in the French capital on 13 November.
A resolution tabled by France which called for "all necessary measures" to be taken against ISIS was unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council last Friday.
This week Hollande visited Washington and Moscow in a bid to broaden cooperation between the countries.
These developments make the French cancellation of the sale of two aircraft carriers to Russia seem like ages ago.
For Russia, it provides a great opportunity to come back in from the cold. However, France and its Western allies should be careful not to acquiesce in Russian demands too easily, for it could backfire in the long run.
Moscow’s opportunism
Ever since Russian president Vladimir Putin decided to enter the Syrian war on 30 September, his aim was not only to prop up Syria’s beleaguered president Bashar al-Assad, but also to create diplomatic space for Russia to become part of a solution to the conflict - and thus to be a power that cannot be ignored.
Russia was tempted to get involved because of the fact that the West is seen to lack a strategy, with no clear endgame in mind.
Whilst bombing ISIS-controlled oil facilities and support to the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces go some way in containing the self-proclaimed state, lack of coordination amongst Western allies and doubts about the motives of some of their regional allies mean that no clear path to peace could be crafted.
Sensing a political opportunity, Putin conceived of the operation in support of Assad as a chance to re-assert Moscow’s influence in the region, which had gradually withered away over the past 40 years.
But instead of fighting Damascus’ putative enemy, ISIS, Russia largely moved against the Free Syrian Army and associated opposition forces around Aleppo and Idlib.
This military approach was hardly if at all affected by the downing of a Russia jetliner on 31 October, killing all 224 people on board, and claimed by ISIS in retaliation for Russian actions in Syria.
It was not until after the Paris attacks that Moscow acknowledged that an explosive device had been responsible for the fate of Metrojet flight 9268. But rather than focusing its energy on fighting ISIS, Putin used it to try to convince the West that Assad is the best bulwark against further instability and that Russia is an indispensable partner in bringing an end to the conflict.
For Russia, with ISIS alive and kicking, Assad is not going to go anywhere.
You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours?
From a broader geopolitical perspective, Putin’s foray into the Middle East is chiefly motivated by a desire to bring an end to his country’s international isolation.
Following Western-imposed sanctions against Russia owing to its role in the Ukraine conflict, and amplified by the collapse in the price of oil, the Russian economy has taken a major hit.
With capital having fled the country on a grand scale and the Rouble having lost a great deal of its value, the Syrian conflict represents a great opportunity in Putin’s view to patch up relations with the West.
This is because Russia believes that its leverage with the Syrian President and its determined military approach make it a valuable ally for France and its Western coalition partners.
The price that Russia will want to exact in exchange for more support against ISIS can be high, albeit that Russia’s bargaining is likely to be constrained due to low oil prices.
Crimea on the table
Inevitably, the sanctions issue, implementation of Minsk II and the status of Crimea will be brought to the table.
Because of Western insistence on the illegality of the annexation of Crimea, it is unlikely that a compromise can be found there. What is more, a possible climbdown from principle on the part of Western countries could only invite Putin to try the same tactic in other circumstances.
The most that could be achieved is Russian reaffirmation to support the Minsk II process in exchange for a gradual reduction of sanctions that do not affect the Crimea issue.
At the same time, Western countries could give more space to Russian demands in relation to the Syria peace negotiations, including a transitional role for President Assad - something which is being openly discussed these days in any event.
After the meeting in Moscow, the French and Russian President stated they had agreed on three basic points.
First, France and Russia would intensify their intelligence exchange.
Second, strikes against ISIS would become part of a co-ordinated campaign.
Third, air strikes would focus on ISIS and other terrorist groups.
Notwithstanding these hopeful signs, the tragedy for Russia is that its prevarication and dissimulation tactics over the past three years following the events in Ukraine have instilled little confidence among potential partners that Moscow will ultimately live up to its promises.
Thus, - pace Russia’s role in the Iran negotiations - there is a lack of faith concerning Russia acting as an honest partner in a peace process in which it has a direct geopolitical stake.
Serious incidents such as the confrontation between Russia and Nato-ally Turkey only further complicate the situation.
Still, if international recognition is what Moscow is after, it should be earned by way of constructive and honest behaviour. Otherwise an agreement would not be worth much, and Western countries will pay the price in the shape of continuing Putinesque posturing for some time to come.
Willem Oosterveld is an analyst at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) in the Netherlands. Sijbren de Jong is an analyst at HCSS and a lecturer at Leiden University, campus The HagueCHARLESTON, S.C., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- South Carolina, the last state in the country to allow liquor to be sold in bars and restaurants only in mini-bottles, is giving up the practice.
The mini-bottle law, adopted in 1973, was an odd relic of prohibition, USA Today reports. Before 1973, the state banned sales of liquor by the drink and patrons instead would bring their own bottles and buy ice and mixers.
The change in 1973 was seen as a move towards sobriety, and so is the latest shift in the law. The little bottles hold 1.7 ounces of booze, about half an ounce more than the standard shot in free-pour bars.
Restaurants and bars have been offering training in the use of jiggers and shot glasses. Gene's Haufbrau in Charleston has brought in bartenders from Atlanta to educate its staff.
"I think it'll be very entertaining to watch a lot of bartenders who've never tended bar anywhere except Charleston figure it out, including myself," Cat Hollen, a Haufbrau employee, told USA Today.From P2P Foundation
Overview compiled by Josef-Davies Coates on his blog at http://technologyandsocialaction.org/node/190
Directory
Online decision making tools and projects:
Weighted Decision - http://www.weighteddecision.com
An editable weighted decision matrix with templates set up for several decision making scenarios. Chat facility for group discussion.
A very simple site that helps groups to make decisions online. It enables the creation of “issues” (e.g. how should we spend this £1000?) and “options” (e.g. i) go on holiday ii) put it in a saving account iii) other). Users can then vote on how good they think each option is and/ or create a new option.
VoSnap allows you to rapidly solicit the opinion of your social or business networks. Working seamlessly with SMS and email their system allows you to solicit a vote in a snap.
Smartocracy is an experiment in "augmented democracy", a meritocratic social network for collective decision-making. Each participant gets 10 votes to give away, and gets to exercise those votes given to them.
Smartocracy is a dead-simple social network, where a link from User A to User B is effectively a "proxy assignment" of one vote. In giving User B a proxy, User A is designating them as someone they trust to make good decisions.
The idea is to combine the best of direct and representative democracy and creates a true meritocracy where merit is decided at the individual level, but aggregated for collective use. See also, Liquid Democracy links under Further Reading
The “Democracy Experiment”, DemoEx is Direct Democracy Political Party in Sweden that enables members to propose and vote on policies. Your Party http://www.yourparty.org was a similar effort in the UK back in 2004 (although the law here means members cannot dictate how their councillor or MP, if elected, votes - and the site is now down). Mikael Nordfors (author of Democracy 2.1, see Further Reading below) was involved with this project but they eventually adopted a non-delegative voting system.
Gnuvernment – http://decisions.gnuvernment.org / Drupal Decisions Module - http://drupal.org/project/decisions
Decisions is a replacement for poll.module and provides advanced voting systems and decision-making tools. It aims to enable groups to take decisions online in a manner that replicates and augments what is possible in face-to-face meeting.
However, the advpoll has seen much more development over the last year and is currently recommended over this module.
The project website is hosted at http://decisions.gnuvernment.org and the module is sponsored in part by http://koumbit.orgImage copyright PA Image caption Former Royal Marine Stephen Gough has spent most of the past eight years in jail
A man known as the "naked rambler" has been jailed for two-and-a-half years after walking out of prison wearing only his boots and socks.
Former Royal Marine Stephen Gough, 55, was found guilty by a jury at Winchester Crown Court of breaching an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo).
The order bans him from taking off his clothes in public.
He had refused to put on clothes as he left Winchester Prison after being imprisoned for a previous Asbo breach.
Judge Jane Miller QC suggested moves should be made to find Gough a closed nudist community to live in to prevent the cycle of imprisonment which has seen him jailed for much of the past eight years.
Gough earned his nickname when he completed a naked trek from Land's End to John O'Groats in 2003.
A BBC documentary team followed his journey.
He had previously argued there was nothing intimidating about him appearing "in his natural human state".Xperia Z3 Plus owners take matters into their own hands to combat heat issues
Some Sony Xperia Z3+ owners are claiming that there is an inexpensive and quick way to get around the throttling seen in the handset. The use of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset combined with an ever-thinner chassis has meant that Sony has had to throttle performance to avoid excessive heat build-up in the Xperia Z3+. Sony hasn’t been able to completely control the situation though, with many users complaining of intensive apps force-closing if used for long periods, including the camera.
XDA member schecter7 has tried to get around this problem by using some simple kitchen foil and a case for the phone. Several layers of foil (six in total) were applied to the rear of the phone and held in place using an Xperia Z3+ case. He then ran several benchmark tests to check the relative performance drop comparing 1) the phone on its own, 2) the phone with a case and 3) the phone with foil inside the case.
The results show that the relative performance drop using foil is lower than without it. Without foil, the performance was 75% of the initial test, whilst with foil 80% of the initial performance test was maintained. Another user has chimed in claiming similar performance benefits using copper foil.
So if the Xperia Z3+ heat issues have been giving you trouble, you may want to try this DIY method to drive better performance. Do be aware that if you do try this, you will not be able to use NFC.
Throttling results – Xperia Z3+ naked
Throttling results – Xperia Z3+ with case
Throttling results – Xperia Z3+ with case and foil
Foil used to drive better Xperia Z3+ performance
Via XDA.WASHINGTON (AP) — In strong, often personal terms, President Barack Obama on Thursday called for vigorous efforts to reverse underachievement among young black and Hispanic males. He also cautioned young minority men not to repeat his own youthful mistakes in an unforgiving world.
The president kicked off his "My Brother's Keeper" initiative from the White House East Room, appearing on stage with teenagers involved in the Becoming a Man program for at-risk boys in his hometown of Chicago.
The aim is to "start a different cycle," Obama said. "If we help these wonderful young men become better husbands and fathers and well-educated, hardworking, good citizens, then not only will they contribute to the growth and prosperity of this country, but they will pass those lessons on to their children, on to their grandchildren."
The president said he, too, could have been a negative statistic, because of his own unfocused anger over having no father at home.
"I made bad choices. I got high, not always thinking about the harm it could do. I didn't always take school as seriously as I should have. I made excuses. Sometimes I sold myself short," Obama said.
The large, mostly African-American and Hispanic crowd was dotted with dignitaries, among them black and Hispanic members of Congress, NBA great Earvin "Magic" Johnson, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Also present were the parents of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, two black Florida teenagers killed in separate shootings.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx was there, too, and Obama said they had discussed the fatherless childhoods they had in common.
Addressing America's young men of color directly, Obama told them to have "no excuses" and to "tune out the naysayers who say if the deck is stacked against you, you might as well just give up or settle into the stereotype."
"Nothing will be given to you," Obama said. "The world is tough out there. There's a lot of competition for jobs and college positions and everybody has to work hard. But I know you guys can succeed."
Steve Benjamin, the first black mayor of Columbia, S.C., who called last month for the creation of a Center of Excellence for Black Male Achievement in his city, told reporters at the White House that Obama's program is not about "shifting responsibility for what they have to do, we're talking about collective responsibility to make sure that the American dream is good for all people."
Under Obama's initiative, businesses, foundations and community groups would coordinate investments to come up with or support programs that help keep young people out of the criminal justice system and improve their access to higher education. Several foundations pledged at least $200 million over five years to promote that goal.
Meanwhile, Obama signed a presidential memorandum creating a government-wide task force to evaluate the effectiveness of various approaches, so that federal and local governments, community groups and businesses will have best practices to follow. An online "What Works" portal will provide public access to data about programs that improve outcomes for young minority men.
The White House posted a list of figures it said underscored a need for the initiative: The unemployment rate for African-American men over the age of 20 was 12 percent last month, compared with 5.4 percent for white men. Hispanic men over the age of 20 had an unemployment rate of 8.2 percent. The U.S. Census Bureau showed a poverty rate of 27.2 percent in black households and 25.6 percent for Hispanic households in 2012, compared with 12.7 percent in white and 11.7 percent in Asian households.
"The president, I think, is uniquely qualified to talk about this," Bloomberg told reporters after the event. "The president is part African-American. The president did not have a father growing up. He knows the problem and yet he turned out to be president of the United States. You can't have a better role model. I think this is exactly the kind of thing he should focus on."
The phrase "my brother's keeper" comes from the Book of Genesis in the Bible, where God asks Cain, the son of Adam and Eve, for the location of his brother Abel, whom Cain had killed. In some versions, Cain replies: "Am I my brother's keeper?" Obama has quoted that Bible portion several times during his presidency, saying Americans should look out for each other.When you see Windtower from the Trans Canada Highway it would be hard to believe it’s an easy hike to the top. From this end, all one sees is sheer cliffs and huge drop offs, but from the back side by the Spray Lakes it’s easy and very manageable offering no challenges whatsoever.
Given the many wind-named features in the area (Windtower, West Wind Pass, etc), it seemed likely that our trip would be, well……windy. But it was not, and the air was perfectly still. Our hike up Windtower was anything but windy, but we did occasionally get winded.
Some snow had fallen higher up the night before but it was presenting no challenges. It was not overly cold and since the grade is always moderate, the footing was still easy. In fact it made the going quite pleasant.
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ Scroll down for photos and to comment ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
This adventure starts on the West Wind Pass trail on the Spay Lakes road. This route takes you to a col between our objective and its neighbour, the mountain called Rimwall. Like ours, it too has those nasty vertical cliffs when viewed form the highway, but is a relatively easy scramble to the summit from the back side.
This trail gains elevation steadily either in the trees or on south facing slopes at the top of a small canyon. The going is nice and the trail easy to follow. On arriving at the pass, it’s a simple matter to traverse right across Windtower’s west flank until you reach a point where the the grade on your left eases. From there head up until you reach the col between our mountain and much larger Mt Lougheed to the right. Then head left (otherwise you’ll fall off the edge) gaining elevation on the wide spine until you reach the top. The way is always clear, boulder free and non-technical.
Near the top the spine narrows a bit and this is where you get to appreciate all those the sheer cliffs you saw from the highway. Everything drops away around you and for someone like me who is terrified of heights, it’s exhilarating (heck I was near frozen with fear). I know what you are thinking – why would I do this if heights scare me. I often ask myself that same question and so far I have yet to find a good answer.
There are terrific views of the surrounding mountains and the valley below. The snow up here made it feel a bit like winter, even if it wasn’t that cold, yet far below it was still very pleasant.
To the north are the grassy slopes of Wind Ridge and behind it Grotto Mountain and it’s huge mining scars. To the west are the Three Sisters and south of us is the huge Mt Lougheed connected to Windtower by a col – in fact I believe our modest mountain could be considered an outlier of the larger peak.
To the east is Pigeon Mountain, a place we’ve summited. Since we are not far into the front ranges, you can catch also glimpses of the prairies in the east. In the west the Spray Lakes extend off in the distance both north and south of us. Our parking spot is somewhere down there by the edge of the lake.
Occasionally a noisy sightseeing helicopter would pass by. I bet on seeing us the passengers must have thought us as crazy. But I think they are the nutty ones – first hand is the only way to appreciate a mountain – flying over seems much too easy.
As we were nearing the summit, we spotted what turned out to be two base jumpers and they disappeared over the edge before we got close. Those guys are nuts! Outside of these fellows, we passed two others on the hike up Windtower proper. We did see lots of people on the West Wind Pass section, which is a fine destination in itself.
What struck me as odd was the number of bugs, especially spiders near the summit. Remember, it was snowy up there, yet there were lots and lots of them running around on the white stuff.
At the top we just sat silently and soaked it all up for while. It’s a spiritual thing, but I can’t explain it. Up there all problems just float away and everything is right in the universe. For a time anyway, then you have to snap-to and head down and that’s a bummer. The trip down was uneventful, if not a bit sad (we hate leaving!).
I’d highly recommend this the hike up Windtower. It’s fun and the drop offs are exhilarating!
To see some other mountains we’ve summited, go hete…
Prairie Mountain.
Pasque Mountain 2.
Turtle Mountain.
If you wish more information on this trail, by all means contact us!
Date of adventure: September 2008
Location: Spray Lakes
Distance: 8km round trip
Height gain from start: 1050m
Height gain cumulative: 1050m
Technical bits: Some loose scree, no biggie.
Notes: It can get really windy on top I am told (it wasn’t for us). If you have vertigo, like I do, the drop offs at the top are pretty intense.
Reference: Kananaskis Trail Guide by Gillean Daffern. My edition of this book only covers the trail up to the pass.Ulcerative Colitis Relapse Prevention Trial completed data acquisition in April 2012 and we now report the results of our primary scientific question – can participation in a brief gut‐directed HYP programme prolong clinical remission among patients with quiescent UC? Our hypothesis was that HYP would be superior to CON on two endpoints – (i) The proportion of patients at 52 weeks who were still clinically asymptomatic and (ii) number of days to first relapse.
Limited data are available on the use of gut‐directed HYP in inflammatory bowel diseases, with most research in this area limited to small, uncontrolled case series. 42 - 46 One particularly compelling study demonstrated that patients with active UC who underwent a single session of gut‐directed HYP reduced mucosal release of substance P, histamine, and interleukin‐13 and serum levels of interleukin‐6, 46 suggesting that HYP could have a disease‐modifying impact on UC. We have previously reported on the preliminary findings from the Ulcerative Colitis Relapse Prevention Trial (UCRPT), an NIH‐funded randomised controlled trial comparing gut‐directed HYP to a time and attention CON group in quiescent UC in which a seven‐session gut‐directed HYP programme demonstrated improvement in health‐related quality of life, including reduction in bowel and systemic UC symptoms (IBDQ, Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire) and increased disease‐specific self‐efficacy immediately post treatment and at 3‐month follow‐up. 47
Gut‐directed HYP is a form of medical hypnosis that draws upon metaphors and delivers posthypnotic suggestions specific to the improved health and function of the gastrointestinal tract. HYP has demonstrated efficacy in several gastrointestinal disorders (see Palsson 33 for a review), with treatment gains maintained up to 5 years. 34 Gut‐directed HYP is well‐tolerated and effective in irritable bowel syndrome, 34 - 36 functional dyspepsia, 37, 38 noncardiac chest pain, 39 delayed gastric emptying 40 and relapse prevention for duodenal ulcer. 41
Hypnotherapy ( HYP ), one of the first psychological therapies to be implemented in medical populations, has been linked to positive outcomes in a number of chronic diseases such as cancer, 15 - 17 rheumatoid arthritis, 18 HIV, 19, 20 fibromyalgia 21, 22 and chronic pain. 23, 24 Mechanistic studies suggest that HYP can have positive effects on immune parameters, with data supporting the effects of HYP on T‐cell expression of interferon‐gamma and interleukin‐2, 25 increases in secretory immunoglobulin‐A and neutrophil adherence, 26 and reductions in inflammatory markers such as erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C‐reactive protein and leucocyte activity. 18 HYP used in in‐patient medical settings has been associated with shorter length of hospital stays, decreased need for pain medication, 27, 28 more rapid recovery from surgery 29 and faster wound healing. 30 - 32
Ulcerative colitis (UC) affects approximately 220 per 100 000 patients in the United States 1, 2 and is associated with painful and unpredictable symptoms, undesirable psychosocial consequences 3 and disability, particularly during periods of disease flare. 4 - 7 Medical treatment is focused on prolonging remission and reducing exposure to environmental triggers of flare. 8 Psychosocial research in UC has been limited to survey studies characterising co‐morbid anxiety or depression in the setting of disease 9 or cross‐sectional studies linking stressful experiences to the onset of disease flares. 10, 11 However, the prevalence of psychological disorders in patients with UC mirrors that of the general population, particularly during quiescent disease states, 12, 13 and thus psychotherapy is not routinely recommended. 14
Statistical analyses were completed using spss 20.0 for Windows (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Analysis of variance (Anova) and chi‐squared tests were performed on baseline demographic and disease variables. There were no dropouts during active treatment in either condition, so intent‐to‐treat procedures were unnecessary. When possible, a worst case carried forward approach was employed for missing data. For example, if the patient did not have data at 1 year, they were assumed to have flared during the 52‐week trial period. This approach left us with three participants whose data were too unreliable to include in the analysis and one participant who withdrew consent. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to assess differences in days to flare for subjects in HYP vs. CON. A one‐way Anova test was performed to determine differences between the two groups on number of days to flare. Chi‐squared test was used to evaluate differences between groups in the proportion of individuals who had flared by 1 year. Multivariate analyses of variance were performed to determine changes in psychological questionnaire data over time (baseline, post treatment, 20 weeks, 36 weeks, 52 weeks).
We defined continued clinical remission at 52 weeks as the absence of flare (defined above) during the 1‐year follow‐up phase. Although there has been recent emphasis on the use of mucosal healing as the ‘gold standard’ determinant of remission, the study was designed during a period of time where patient‐centred reports of clinical remission were of similar utility to endoscopic indices. 51, 59 Indeed, Higgins et al. suggested that unless a patient considers him/herself to be in remission, s/he is still likely to experience impairment, poor quality of life and high health use. Thus, the participant or his/her physician could not have reported a flare, defined above, at any of the previous follow‐ups, or during the interval between week 36 and week 52. Participants were categorised at the 52‐week follow‐up according to the primary outcome variable: continued remission at week 52 (yes/no).
Conservative estimates of flare occurrences were used. Patients were considered to have had a disease flare if any of the following were met: (i) patient completed the flare worksheet ( n = 15); (ii) Modified Mayo Score >2 or subscale was >1 at the time of an assessment or self‐reported flare ( n = 10); (iii) patient self‐reported a flare as rectal bleeding >2 days with no other symptoms between assessment periods ( n = 5); or (iv) a patient's therapy was escalated to include oral or topical steroids at any point in the 12 months or a new class of medications was added ( n = 8). Once a flare occurred, we recorded the date it was first reported/described to quantify the total number of days between study enrolment and time of flare. If a flare was not reported during the 12‐month follow‐up period and if we were unable to quantify time to the first flare, we recorded 366 days (1 year + 1 day) to flare (censored).
Drawn from social‐cognitive theory, self‐efficacy is an individual's personal beliefs about their ability to engage in a certain behaviour/set of behaviours and has been linked to healthy outcomes in a host of chronic diseases. Disease‐specific self‐efficacy reflects a person's individual belief in his/her ability to manage IBD. Participants completed a 29‐item validated disease‐specific self‐efficacy measure 54 with four subscales: managing stress and emotions, managing medical care, managing symptoms and disease, and maintaining remission.
The Mayo Scoring System for the Assessment of UC activity is a 12‐point scale that reflects the physician's clinical opinion of disease activity at each assessment interval. It was modified in this Phase I/II a study to exclude endoscopy results. This decision was based on factor analysis, which revealed that other items included in disease activity indices (rectal bleeding, stool frequency/urgency) made the histological findings obtained on endoscopy redundant, with endoscopy accounting for less than 1% of the variance in predicting disease activity scores. 51
Participants were instructed to complete this form at the first sign of a flare regardless of whether they were currently in one of the 2‐week assessment intervals for UCRPT. The form was accessible online and asked participants to identify the date they first noticed symptoms, note the presence and frequency of rectal bleeding, average number of bowel movements per day since the start of flare, average rating of abdominal pain since the start of flare, general well‐being and free text describing the situation. When completed, an alert was triggered to the study coordinator who was able to follow‐up for additional details.
Participants completed an online time and date stamped standard symptom diary daily using a secure, password protected website during the 2‐week baseline period and throughout the treatment. The diaries asked patients to report on the presence and severity of rectal bleeding [referring to the most severe episode of the day on a scale of 0 (mild) to 3 (severe)], the number of stools during the day and the presence and severity of abdominal pain or discomfort (same scale 0–3) and general well‐being [0 (generally well) to 3 (poor)]. The diary was also re‐assigned in 2‐week periods prior to each repeated assessment interval to confirm remission status.
To ensure that participants were blinded to hypothesis, we administered the 10 point Expectancy and Credibility Questionnaire (1 not credible, 10 completely credible) after session 1. The mean score for the HYP group was 7.5 (0.9; 6–9) and the experimental group was 7.1 (1.5; 5–9) demonstrating that each therapy was presented in an engaging and credible manner. We used separate therapists for the two conditions to reduce the effect of therapist allegiance, or the tendency for a therapist to unknowingly ‘water down’ a treatment they do not necessarily believe is effective, on outcome. 50 To further reduce the potential bias of not being able to blind participants or providers, all follow‐up assessments were done online immediately prior to the patient's ‘booster session’ with the therapist. We also asked the patients not to share with their physicians the type of treatment they received until the end of the trial, so as not to influence expectancy.
Both interventions were standardised and conducted on an individual, out‐patient basis at a tertiary clinic in an academic medical centre. Gut‐directed HYP is a seven‐session standardised treatment protocol delivered by one of two trained health psychologists (LK, JLK) in weekly, 40‐min sessions (Table 1 for sample hypnotic suggestion). Sessions were fully scripted to ensure uniformity across therapists. Patients were provided a self‐hypnosis audio recording to practice outside of clinic five times per week during the study and then as they chose through follow‐up. 47 The CON condition consisted of nondirective discussion on UC and ‘the mind‐body connection’ with a separate postdoctoral fellow (MK). The therapist avoided any in‐depth discussions of HYP or relaxation techniques to ensure difference from the experimental condition. Notably, the CON treatment was not inert – participants were able to ask questions around disease self‐management of their therapist, and the therapist would point participants towards up‐to‐date information on behavioural self‐management of IBD without directly encouraging behaviour change. This treatment was previously validated as a credible intervention that controlled for time and clinical attention. Hypnotherapists were randomised on a 2:1 ratio (JLK:LK). Randomisation allocation software was provided by the statistician (ZM) and the study coordinator enrolled and assigned participants to treatment. While blinding of the therapists or participants to the intervention was not possible, participants were blinded to study hypothesis and gastroenterologists were blinded to the treatment the participant's received (HYP or CON). Participants were told that the goal of the study was to determine if behavioural therapies are an effective complementary therapy for IBD and that they would be assigned to one of two therapies: gut‐directed HYP or a mind‐body therapy aimed at identifying the impact of UC on the psyche and vice versa.
Male and female patients (ages 18–70), who were in remission, with endoscopy confirmed mild or moderately severe UC were invited to participate. Remission at the time of enrolment was operationally defined by a Mayo Score <2 with no subscale >1, and no rectal bleeding in last 2 weeks. We included only those patients who had a self‐reported flare rate of >1 per year and a documented disease flare within the past 1.5 years to enhance the opportunity to observe differences between groups over the course of a 1‐year trial. As such, we expected to see primarily left‐sided UC and some pancolitis with significant fewer patients with proctitis qualifying. Patients were required to be on a stable dose of maintenance medication [i.e. mesalazine (mesalamine) or sulfasalazine] for at least 1 month prior to enrolment and could not have taken oral steroids within the past 30 days or topical steroids
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delay products, however we will inform you as soon as possible if this is the case.I’ve often said that I can learn more from those who disagree with me than those who don’t.
Case in point, today’s guest post from St. Louis CyclingSavvy instructor Karen Karabell. I disagree — strongly — with the idea that it’s riskier to ride in a bike lane than in the flow of traffic, which contradicts both my own experience and most, if not all, of the studies I’ve seen.
So I invited Karen to explain her approach to bicycling, and she graciously agreed, as follows.
………
Oh, the wonders of the Internet, abolishing time and space in nanoseconds!
On this site, Ted Rogers wrote: “A St. Louis cycling instructor claims that bike lanes are dangerous with no evidence to back it up.”
With lightning speed these words made their way to me (that instructor). I was indignant. I never said that bike lanes are dangerous. I said that riding in a bike lane is more dangerous than riding in the flow of traffic. I complained to Ted that he misquoted me.
Exhibiting the generous mark of a mensch, he invited me to write a guest post to clarify. He wrote: “I personally believe riding in a bike lane is safer and more enjoyable than riding in the traffic lane, and have expressed that opinion many times. It would be good to have someone explain the other side of the debate, and you are clearly very articulate and able to do it without being argumentative—which seems like a rare quality these days.”
Thank you, Ted! Here goes…
I cannot count the number of times this image from a Los Angeles Metro Bus has crossed my Facebook feed. “Did you see this?” one friend after another asks.
The vision promoted on the back of this bus is wonderful. “Every lane is a bike lane” is a powerful statement promoting cyclist equality on our public roadways. I am all for that!
My friends know that I am no fan of bike lanes. But before explaining why, I want to make an observation about our fellow road users:
Every second on this planet,
millions of motorists are driving along
and NOT hitting what is right in front of them.
Motorists do not hit what’s in front of them because that is where they are looking. I know. This sounds like a “duh” statement. But consider the illustrations below. The green area represents a motorist’s primary “Cone of Focus”:
As speeds go higher, a motorist’s “Cone of Focus” diminishes:
As I’m sure is true for all of your readers, I was heartbroken when I learned of the death last December of Milton Olin Jr., the entertainment industry executive who was struck and killed by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy on routine patrol. Milton Olin was riding in a bike lane on Mulholland Highway.
We need to recognize a simple fact about bike lanes. They tend to make the people in them irrelevant to other traffic. When you are not in the way, you are irrelevant. At low speed differentials, irrelevancy might be OK. But at high speed differentials, the slightest motorist error can be devastating.
The speed limit on Mulholland Highway is 50 mph.
The last place a cyclist should be irrelevant is on a high-speed arterial road.
Regarding cyclist positioning on roadways, CyclingSavvy founders Keri Caffrey and Mighk Wilson made a remarkable discovery.
On roads with good sight lines—typical of most arterial roads—cyclists who control their travel lanes are seen by motorists from 1,280 feet away. Cyclists who ride on the right edge of the road—where most bike lanes are—are not seen by motorists until they are very nearly on top of them—about 140 feet away.
This is profound. We discuss this when we teach CyclingSavvy. The classroom session is incredibly engaging. Our participants soak up the information that we present. They understand exactly what we are talking about regarding traffic patterns and simple-to-learn techniques that make riding a bicycle in traffic very safe.
Most of them, however, don’t believe us—until we take them out on the road and show them.
After a classroom session last summer, a St. Louis newspaper columnist wrote: “The motorists in the training session are the rational, responsible ones. But what about the others—the ones who are speeding, talking on their cell phones and eating French fries, all at the same time?”
I loved that! In every session since, I have brought up his observation. I tell our students: “I would rather give those motorists the opportunity to see me from a quarter-mile away, rather than 140 feet!”
Being “in the way” works. Even the multi-tasking French fry eaters change lanes to pass.
Last fall one of my favorite arterial roads was put on a “road diet” and striped with bike lanes. Manchester Road in the City of St. Louis used to have two regular travel lanes in each direction. It was easy to ride on. As I controlled the right lane, motorists used the left lane to pass.
Unless motorists are making a right turn, they don’t like to be behind cyclists. Yet I rarely experienced incivility on Manchester, because motorists could see me from many blocks away, and changed lanes well before they got anywhere close to me.
Now, when riding in the new bike lane, many motorists are so close that I could reach out my left arm and touch their cars as they pass. The bike lane places cyclists much closer to motorists than do regular travel lanes.
It is my understanding that in southern California, there are bike lanes that are eight feet wide. I have been told that these wide bike lanes are well marked, so that motorists merge into them well before reaching intersections to make right turns. That sounds lovely! I can envision bike lanes such as these being useful, especially on arterial roads with few intersections or driveways.
But this is not what we have in St. Louis.
Does this bike lane look encouraging? People who are afraid to ride in traffic don’t want to ride here, either.
Riding in a bike lane requires more cycling skill than riding in travel lanes. That’s why CyclingSavvy can teach novices to ride in regular traffic lanes, even on arterial roads. It’s easier and safer.
No discussion about bike lanes would be complete without reference to “right hooks” and “left crosses”—new phrases in our lexicon, thanks to bike lanes.
The last time I rode in the bike lane on Manchester Road, I was in the way of three right-turning motorists:
The first apparently did not see me. She would have right-hooked me, had I not slowed down to let her turn in front of me.
The second motorist saw me and stopped in the now-single travel lane, holding up a line of motorists behind him as he waited for me to get through the intersection. I stopped, too, because I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He smiled kindly. We shook our heads at each other as he waved me on. I proceeded with caution.
I can’t remember the circumstances in which the bike lane put me in the way of the THIRD right-turning motorist. By this time I was disgusted, and emotionally spent. It is exhausting to be on the lookout at every single intersection and driveway when using a bike lane on an urban arterial roadway.
Travel was never this difficult on the “old” Manchester Road.
As cyclists, being in a bike lane increases our workload. We ideally need eyes in the back of our heads to constantly monitor what is happening behind us. I use an excellent helmet-mounted rear view mirror. I would not dare ride in a bike lane without one.
When I am controlling a regular travel lane, I find that I never need to exercise white-knuckle vigilance. Mindfulness, yes. Unfortunately there are a relatively small number of psychopaths and other unsavory types piloting land missiles on our roadways. It may seem counterintuitive, but lane control actually gives cyclists more space and time to deal with these rare encounters.
In a bike lane I have learned to ride at no more than half my normal speed to compensate for potential motorist error. My normal speed isn’t that fast—about 12 to 18 mph, depending on conditions.
This self-enforced slowdown for safety is irritating. I have somewhere to go, too! What makes people think the time of a motorist is more valuable than that of a cyclist?
We cannot ignore the danger of getting “doored,” another terrible feature of many urban bike lanes. Keri Caffrey has done a brilliant job illustrating the reality of space in a typical bike lane:
Traffic engineers would not dream of manufacturing conflict between two lanes of motor vehicle traffic by placing a right-turn lane to the left of a through lane. Why is this acceptable when one of the lanes is for bicyclists?
An engineer friend who is painfully aware of the quandary presented by bike lane design argues that municipalities have a responsibility to warn users of their unintended risks, much as the pharmaceutical industry already does regarding the potential side effects of their products.
On the bright side, my husband has taught me a great technique. We use bike lanes as “Control & Release” lanes.
“Control & Release” is a CyclingSavvy technique. We teach cyclists how to use lane control as their default position in managing their space on the road. But we also teach them how to determine when it is safe to move right and “release” faster-moving traffic.
How does this work with bike lanes? Because of traffic signalization, motorists tend to travel in platoons. Even the busiest roads have expanses of empty roadway, while motorists sit and wait at traffic lights.
When we are on roads with bike lanes, being aware of the “platoon effect” allows us to use the regular travel lane and ride happily along at our normal speeds. We typically cover a city block or two without having any motor traffic behind us. When a platoon approaches, we move over to the bike lane and go slow, very slow if it’s a door-zone bike lane. It takes only a few seconds for the platoon to pass.
Once they pass, we move back into the travel lane and rock on.
Because bicycling is very safe, accidents are rare, even in bike lanes. But the next time you hear about a motorist hitting a cyclist, pay attention to the details. Where was the cyclist on the roadway? Was the cyclist on the right edge of the road? If he or she wasn’t breaking the law—for example, by riding against traffic, disobeying signals or riding at night without lights—very likely the cyclist was riding near the right edge, where bike lanes are.
We who care about bicycling want more people to choose bicycling, especially for transportation. Half of all U.S. motor trips are less than three miles in distance. This is very easy to traverse by bicycle—usually just as fast and sometimes faster than using a car. Can you imagine the transportation revolution if Americans left their motor vehicles at home and used their bicycles instead for short trips? I for one would feel like I was living in paradise!
But how do we get there? Professor Andy Cline argues that we are making a grave mistake in our attempts to channelize and “segregate” cyclists from motorists. Indeed, as we are reframing U.S. roadways to accommodate bicycling, he warns that we must avoid “surrendering our streets.” This is what we are doing when we ask for cycletracks or special paint markings on the edge of the road.
If we keep asking, we are eventually forced into the bars of our own prison. California is one of eight states that require cyclists to use bike lanes when the lanes are provided.
If we would connect the dots and learn just one thing from the hundreds of bike lane deaths over the last 20 years, it would be this: Attempting to segregate by vehicle type does not work. It just makes transportation more difficult for both cyclists and motorists.
Make no mistake: Bicycles are vehicles. Most states define them as such. Some states define the bicycle as a “device.” But in all 50 states, cyclists are considered drivers.
What excites me is the vision put forth by I Am Traffic. We believe that people will choose bicycling when they feel expected and respected as a normal part of traffic.
We recognize that we are outliers. We are not waiting for a future in which we hope to receive the respect of the culture. We respect ourselves now. We exercise that self-respect by participating in regular traffic, like any other driver.
Our experience has convinced us that cycling as a regular part of traffic works beautifully.
In a Utopian world this is well and good, a friend likes to say. But what if everybody starts using bicycles in traffic? How will motorists react then?
Our desire for on-road equality has been compared by some to the struggles fought by African Americans, gay people or other maligned minorities seeking acceptance and equality. On only one point does this “civil rights” comparison resonate for me: The prejudicial assertion that cyclists cause delay to other drivers.
Cyclists causing delay is a myth that must die. This pernicious stereotype oppresses us. It simply is not true. As cyclists traveling solo, with one other person or even in a small group, we are incapable of causing significant delay to other road users.
The truth about on-road delay is just the opposite. Last December Harold and I were in Dallas. As our friends Eliot Landrum and Waco Moore escorted us to dinner, we were caught in one of that city’s routine traffic jams:
Lest anyone think that we cyclists were causing delay, I put the kickstand down on my bicycle and walked behind Waco, Harold and Eliot to take a forward-facing photo:
City lights and welcome company made this evening lovely. Otherwise, this was just another routine ride for cyclists who practice driver behavior.
Motorists delay motorists. The sheer number of motorists is what causes the most delay on our roads. Many things cause momentary delay, such as traffic signals, railroad crossings, and vehicles that make routine stops, like delivery trucks–and city buses.
In a snarky moment I remember responding to one Facebook friend: “Thank God every travel lane is not a bike lane!”
Yet this marketing campaign from the City of Angels made my heart soar.
It will be a great day when every cyclist can—without fear or risk of harassment—use any traffic lane that best serves his or her destination.
I envision our existing roadways filled with people using the vehicles that best serve that day’s transportation needs. More often than not, these vehicles will be bicycles—because who needs a two-ton land missile to go to work, or buy a loaf of bread? I envision the people of Amsterdam and Copenhagen flocking to the United States to ask how we did it. How did we get cyclists and motorists to integrate so peacefully and easily on our roads?
We have discovered that when cyclists act as drivers, and when all drivers follow the rules of the road, traffic flows beautifully. This is simple. This is safe. This offers a sustainable and inviting future.
But don’t take my word for it. Come ride with me!
……….
Karen Karabell is a mother, business owner and CyclingSavvy instructor in St. Louis who uses her bicycle year-round for transportation. She is passionate about helping others transform themselves, as she did, from fear of motor vehicle traffic to mastery and enjoyment.
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EmailJohn Morrison and the WWE have gone the way of Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian.
For those folks who don’t really pay much attention to a hot chick that is a celebrity for reasons that are beyond me, that means that Morrison is no longer with the WWE after his contract expired and the two sides didn’t agree on a new deal.
Now, in most cases, WWE contracts usually feature what is called a non-compete clause. These clauses typically last for 90 days and prevent former WWE talent from appearing on another wrestling TV show (such as Impact Wrestling) before that clause expires.
I assumed that Morrison had one of these clauses in his WWE contract, but as it turns out, I was wrong.
From PWInsider.com (via WrestleNewz.com):
Regarding John Morrison, he is free to go where he wants as he has no non-compete clause with WWE.
Well, that’s pretty interesting.
I thought for sure that an upper mid-card star like Morrison would have a 90-day non-compete clause to make sure that he didn’t jump ship to TNA or even Ring of Honor shortly after his WWE deal expired.
That doesn’t appear to be the case, though.
As soon as it was revealed that Morrison was parting ways with the WWE, I thought that there was a good chance of him returning to the organization down the road. He’s relatively young, one heck of a talent and maybe just someone who needs a break from the WWE.
But, now that it’s been revealed that Morrison can go straight to TNA if he wants to, I wouldn’t even be remotely surprised if that’s exactly what happens.
With Melina recently getting future endeavored as well and TNA being known for taking on WWE castoffs, I could see Morrison and Melina making their way to Impact Wrestling as a duo within the next several weeks.
If I was Morrison, I’d skip out on TNA and go back to the WWE when I recharged my batteries. But no one really knows what Morrison’s thinking right now—other than Morrison himself—and if he doesn’t plan on ever returning to the WWE, then I think we’ll see him wrestling on Thursday nights as early as January.PHOENIX -- The Arizona Diamondbacks traded shortstop John McDonald to Pittsburgh on Wednesday for a player to be named or cash, giving the Pirates some much-needed infield depth.
The trade came two days after Pirates backup shortstop Chase d'Arnaud, injured in a rundown drill earlier, had surgery for a torn ligament in his left thumb. He is expected to be sidelined six to eight weeks.
The 38-year-old McDonald hit.249 with six homers and 22 RBIs in 70 games for Arizona last season and gives the Pirates an experienced reserve for regular shortstop Clint Barmes.
McDonald, who also can play second base and third base, made only one error in 210 chances last season.
"He's a professional player. A lot of experience. Above average defender. He's got infield presence. Clubhouse presence. He's just a seasoned vet," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said.
McDonald found himself the odd man out at a crowded position. Cliff Pennington and Willie Bloomquist are expected to share the spot when the season begins, with top prospect Didi Gregorius waiting at Triple-A Reno.
"He's a very accomplished defensive player and a veteran presence," Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said. "He brings depth and stability at a position where all of a sudden we didn't have much depth or stability."
McDonald has spent parts of 14 seasons in the majors with Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto and Arizona. He went to Arizona along with Aaron Hill in a trade that sent Kelly Johnson to Toronto in August 2011.
McDonald appeared in a career-high 123 games with Toronto in 2007 and batted.251. He is a.237 career hitter.
"We like the defense and we like the player," Huntington said. "Secondarily, he brings experience. He's been through the battles."So MLG Columbus is less than two weeks away so I thought I might make this post to generate some hype and encourage people to participate in the open bracket. Many have seen my postings around here before, but most people here who recognize my username recognize me as the diamond league player who almost took a game off of a round of 8 code S GSL player at MLG Providence. I’ve told very few people (even among close friends) the entire story of how it all went down and the weird coincidences and crazy rollercoaster of emotions along the way, so here it goes.
I guess where the story really starts is two weeks before MLG at a smaller tournament, The New England Starcraft 2 League. The decision to go wasn’t an easy one as I had a grad level biochemistry exam the next day. When I got there all the players were MUCH better than I was expecting. I was very much an outsider and to make a long story short I got absolutely mauled going 0 and 4, and embarrassingly attacked my own Nexus on stream for everyone to watch. My nerves got the better of me and my inability to move the mouse without shaking profusely buried me. To make matters worse it turns out I needed the extra study time, and ended up failing my biochem exam the next day.
So MLG Providence was rapidly approaching, I had already booked the hotel, and two of my friends who don’t play starcraft were coming with me. After my poor performance at NESC2 and my exam, I was in a pretty dark place. Even though most of my thoughts went to Starcraft, most of my play time went to LoL, and Skyrim which had just been released. The day before Providence I made an excited facebook post to which a friend commented below “No one cares.” I actually replied to him profusely apologizing, saying “You’re right I guess I got a little ahead of myself.”
Fastfoward to day 1. We load up the car with all sorts of tasty booze including Ithaca brewing co’s “Flower Power” (a delicious IPA). We check into the hotel and get to the venue and start doing some shots. I figured I had plenty of time so that a couple of shots would just kill the nerves. When we made it to the venue, I commandeer one of the computers on the mini-stage to warm up. As soon as I log in and people see “diamond league”, half the crowd walks away behind me. I lose a few games in embarrassing fashion and all that’s running through my mind is “It was a mistake to come here. You are going to lose badly and embarrass yourself in front of your friends and all these people, why the fuck did you think you could do this?”
We go out for lunch at a brew pub, I ordered a 9% ABV beer that was much much larger than I had anticipated when it got there. As we’re eating and I know that at this point I’m pretty much hammered I tell my friends. “Shit, I can’t play SC drunk, what always happens is no matter what I plan on doing I always just end up with a fuckton of zealots somehow.” So we headed back and I sat down in the players area across from my opponent and got ready to play.
It was a zerg player, and one of the few matches I had a clear plan in. The first game is going according to plan until I realize with my timing attack on his third that I had forgotten blink. My timing attack is shut down and I go 0-1. Game two is on Shakuras. I see him trying to hatch first so I cannon rush the natural, he spots it as it’s going up and pulls all his drones, my cannon barely finishes but only takes a single drone with it. I’m behind in tech and traded 3 pylons and a cannon for lost mining time and one drone. I realize the situation is desperate so I take a super-fast hidden third. My opponent goes for mutalisk play. I’m deflecting it rather easily with blink stalkers and pheonixs. About 8 in game minutes go by when he flies by my hidden base and panics, cannons go up barely in time to defend and my army catches a large group of lings b-lining it for my hidden expo, I’m fuzzy on the details (Hey, I was very drunk) but the next thing I know I’m maxed out and moving across the map with…zealots. So many zealots, I was maxed out off of almost a pure zealot force and I hear my friends howling with laughter in the background with a “He’s so fucked up, somewhere in there.” Call it bad manner (my opponent is sitting right across from me) but I had just had to laugh as well, and suddenly the voice in my head saying I couldn’t do it was silenced and replaced with “lets have fun, and let’s fucking do this.”
Maybe the booze was too much, but I don’t actually remember a single detail from the third game. The next thing I remember was Leenock walking by. I let out an audible “Leenock” more out of realization than anything, not expecting him to hear it. He did a full 180 and looked at me with a very intense focused look to which I responded “Oh…I am your fan.” I went and told the ref I won to which he replied “Good job, now head to the main stage.” To which I replied, “Ummm, I think I heard you wrong, I think you just said head to the main stage.” “Yeah you’re playing Puzzle.”
Now I haven’t really told anyone this before but, right before coming to MLG I made one tweet, that tweet was to SlayerS_Puzzle saying “See you in the open bracket.” I kid you not, you can even look it up, it’s still there. SlayerS_Puzzle at the time was probably the most inspirational person in my game play. I watched his stream all the time, and now I was about to play him.
I don’t consider myself bad under pressure, in fact quite the opposite, but to get a sense about how much being in front of a crowd affects me, my friends use to do this thing at lunch in highschool where they would all stare at me because they knew my brain would instantly go into panic mode and I would be incredibly uncomfortable. It’s just a reaction I have no control over it. So there I was, a lowly diamond league player signing out of Nestea’s account, getting ready to play on the main stage.
I looked to the ref who brought me across and said, “Hey man…I can’t do this.”
“What, isn’t this why you came here? Isn’t this why you entered?”
fucking diamond league” “Yeah, I mean, I guess. But I’m
“Listen to me, just cheese him. Get in his head, do you know that 3 gate, 2 proxied one in the main?”
“Yeah, I don’t know man, I think I had something else in mind.”
I did have something else in mind, in fact I had practiced it before. A specific build designed to beat someone who thought they were better than me, designed to beat a pro. The basic structure of it was a hidden stargate phoenix all-in that looked exactly like a DT rush. It was designed to force him into a robo build and then kill him. This was before phoenix all-ins were popular and I saw that it actually worked extremely well against blink builds, (you can’t blink while lifted). I had even thought of sneaky places to hide the stargate, places where pros don’t check.
Say what you want about MLG, but they do the booths right. I couldn’t even hear my clicky Zowie keyboard through all the soundproofing they had, which was good because after about 5 minutes I was in a very zen like state despite the lingering effects of the alcohol. The map was Xel’Naga, the game goes like any other game except for one critical mistake that I will never make again, I forgot to check the chronoboost on his nexus and as saw as I saw the second gas go down I left with my scouting probe. As soon as it left he canceled it and began to 4 gate. The second critical mistake was that when I went to intercept the probe, it came from the wide angle and was able to build a pylon up in my main. That was GG right there. From an observer standpoint it looked like he had just built a pylon in my base and the game was over. Even worse was I knew my hand had been played, if he watches the replay he sees the hidden stargate sitting there in the tasteless secret hallway and knows what is coming for the next map.
At this point what I’m thinking is, “Wow he actually risked doing a 4 gate vs a lower league player, that takes balls. With how he ended the game, he’s probably going to do it again.” Why wouldn’t he? I choose Shakuras for the second map because I want to threaten him with as many possibilities as I can, by choosing Shakuras I am threatening him with a possible expand in addition to everything else I can throw at him in PvP.
The game starts and I am doing everything to brace for a 4 gate, I’m doing a 2 gas defensive higher probe count 4 gate because you can transition to pretty much anything from there. I chrono out some sentries and see him posturing aggressively. As warpgate tech finishes I realized he fucked up and I can catch his stalkers, I forcefield the lower ramp and manage to catch 2 stalkers for free. A shot of adrenaline goes through me and I take inventory. My initial thoughts are, “Okay I NEED to press the advantage now, what are my advantages? Let’s see high sentry count quicker blink tech and more supply with him giving up those stalkers.” I press to his front and try to do the stalker scouting trick where you blink it back only to completely derp into 2 immortals and die. At this point my attack is all-in either as a hard contain which is still all-in or straight up attacking into him. I don’t want to go into macro game vs Puzzle. I realize my timing window is closing as once his blink finishes my sentry count will become nullified and his superior macro catches up. I know he has an observer either in my main or on my army, and I know my window might close in the time it takes for my ob to cross the map, so that’s when I make the decision to proxy my robo outside his natural.
The first thing I was looking to do was to snipe his ob if it was present, the second was to maybe catch him off-guard with some forcefields since he would have no knowledge of the robo. The move works out about as well as I expected it to, and even though his blink had finished the forcefields mess up his concave and catch some immortals, everything is going according to plan until I notice 5 stalkers walk into my base RIGHT after I had used my warpgates. It was actually perfect now that I think of it. If I see the 5 additional stalkers in his army there is no way I try to break his front, I just contain and expand. If he had taken any more or any less of his army he would have lost, given that at one point I had 4 stalkers of my own in his base uncontested forcing him to pull probes.
If anything had gone differently, if I had started making immortals after my gates went down, if my units weren’t attacking the neutral supply depot, if my blink micro was just a little better I might have won. But as soon as that game ended it felt like I had won anyways. I had stood toe to toe against one of the best of the best and had actually broken his front with a unique strategy. The crowd was going crazy as I exited the booth and I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was completely surreal, all of these people actually cheering for me. This wasn’t some charity, “get to play with the pros” event, this was the MLG open bracket where we were both giving it our all. “Should I do something with my hands? No wait I didn’t win. Should I shake Puzzle’s hand?” Instead I just waddled my socially awkward penguin self, back into the safety of the soundproof booth, grinning ear to ear.
rd row seats. We sat down with some cool people and I took a swig from my friend’s vodka and grape soda mix. The girl I was talking to gasped as she realized what my friends were telling them, that I had actually been drinking earlier was true, and I convinced her to partake as well. I spotted my friends who had miraculously managed to grab some 3row seats. We sat down with some cool people and I took a swig from my friend’s vodka and grape soda mix. The girl I was talking to gasped as she realized what my friends were telling them, that I had actually been drinking earlier was true, and I convinced her to partake as well.
It was a strange moment, I had the feeling that I accidentally fell into someone else’s body, someone important. I’ve never had regular people look at me like that before and I didn’t know what to think about it. I looked on stage, and Leenock was staring directly at me from one of the booths into the crowd. Thinking back on it, it STILL feels like a dream. Was I really the same person who had been so depressed just hours before?
The whole rest of the weekend I couldn’t stop smiling. I won another match before dropping to a damn good Zerg player. I met up with some old counter-strike friends and had an awesome time. Oh and that Biochemistry grad course? That has a happy ending too, I found out I needed to get a 98 on the final to get a B in the course, so I went ahead and got a 99.
The games vs Puzzle (Sorry MLG lost the VoD to the second match T_T): http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmhzdw_mlg-providence-2011-game-1-2-slayers-puzzle-p-vs-nikoras-p_videogames
Shout outs to my friends Jeff and Jorge who came down to watch the games even though they didn't play, the MLG ref who gave me some on the spot coaching, and those cool people we sat down with after the games.
For those wondering I am no longer diamond league I am indeed masters.FILE - In this June 11, 2017 file photo people attend the LGBTQ Chicago Equality rally in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago. Starting in January 2018, Illinois is outlawing a rare criminal defense argument allowing the use of a victim's sexual orientation as justification for violent crime. It's a ban that gay rights advocates hope to replicate in about half a dozen states next year. Illinois follows California in outlawing the so-called "gay panic defense." It isn't common, but one study shows it's surfaced in roughly half of U.S. states since the 1960s. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune via AP File)
CHICAGO (AP) — Starting in January, Illinois will bar a rare criminal defense allowing the use of a victim’s sexual orientation as justification for violent crime, a ban gay rights advocates say they will attempt to replicate in about half a dozen states next year.
Defense attorneys will no longer be able to mount the so-called “gay panic defense” in Illinois, the second state after California to prohibit the tactic. It isn’t common, but one study shows it has surfaced in about half of all U.S. states and has been used with some success. Advocates say bans are necessary because crimes against gay and transgender people are on the rise, but some attorneys remain skeptical, calling the ban politically motivated and unnecessary because the old-fashioned defense wouldn’t hold up in court today.
After a lackluster attempt in 2016, the Illinois ban sailed through the Legislature in May with no opposition and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed it into law without comment. Supporters called it a major victory for LGBTQ rights — especially as advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign report spikes in murders of transgender people — that could provide momentum for change elsewhere.
“For us, it was important to eradicate (the defense), regardless of use,” said Brian Johnson, the CEO of Equality Illinois, which backed the ban. “It makes our identity sufficient reason for murder. We never wanted it to be used going forward.”
There are variations, but it generally goes like this: A person doesn’t realize someone is gay or transgender and engages in a flirtation, then discovers that person’s sexual orientation and that discovery triggers a passionate involuntary response such as murder.
Advocates point to the beating death of Islan Nettles, a transgender woman who died on a New York City street in 2013. James Dixon, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced last year, flirted with Nettles before realizing she was transgender. He punched her in the face and she fell and hit her head.
Legal experts including Anthony Michael Kreis, a Chicago-Kent College of Law professor who helped write the Illinois law, said Dixon got a lenient 12-year prison sentence in a plea deal because of the “trans panic” defense. Dixon has said he doesn’t hate transgender people.
Supporters plan to revive legislative attempts to ban what’s also known as the “trans panic” defense, in statehouses in Washington and New Jersey, where proposals haven’t yet received committee votes. Advocates also hope to make inroads in New York, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota and Texas.
“The gay and trans ‘panic’ defenses are outdated relics reminiscent of a time when widespread antipathy was commonplace for LGBT individuals. It asks jurors to find that a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity excuses the actions of a violent criminal,” said D’Arcy Kemnitz, the National LGBT Bar Association’s executive director. “Our nation’s courtrooms cannot truly be places where law rules supreme while these defenses are still allowed to persist.”
Such “panic” defenses have come up in court opinions in about half of U.S. states since the 1960s, according to a 2016 study by the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles’ law school. But the defense is hard to track and identify. No state recognizes it as a free-standing defense in the criminal code and it’s often used in conjunction with insanity or self-defense claims.
The American Bar Association called for a prohibition in 2013. California outlawed the defense in 2014.
Kreis called the Illinois law a “remarkable” win and perhaps the first unanimous roll-call vote in a statehouse on a gay and transgender issue. But while no one voted “no,” over two dozen legislators — Democrats and Republicans — didn’t vote. Their reasons varied from non-attendance to human error.
Chicago defense attorney Steve Greenberg, who represented former police officer and convicted killer Drew Peterson, said the ban wouldn’t have much practical effect in courts where the defense is hardly used.
“That’s just not a defense,” he said. The legislation is “political pandering and window dressing.”
The last time the defense came up in Illinois was in two suburban Chicago murder cases, but the 2009 court proceedings illustrate divided opinion on the tactic.
In one, Joseph Biedermann of Hoffman Estates admitted killing Terrance Hauser, who was stabbed over 50 times. Biedermann said Hauser threatened to sexually assault and kill him. He was acquitted. Advocates say the “gay panic” defense was in play, but Biedermann’s attorney called it self-defense.
In another, Timothy Bailey-Woodson pleaded guilty in the murder of Bloomingdale
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3 square degrees of sky at a time, the team was able to quickly survey a 70 square degree region and detect, with high confidence, the optical counterpart to the gravitational wave event: a bright new source associated with NGC 4993, an elliptical galaxy 130 million light years away.
Continued imaging with DECam and spectroscopy with the SOAR telescope, also located at CTIO, over the following 10 nights revealed that the detected optical emission matched the expected brightness and color evolution of a merging neutron star binary, a “kilonova”.
The data show that 0.6 days after the merger, the optical emission was produced by hot gas with a temperature of about 8000 K, a size roughly that of Neptune’s orbit, and a luminosity of 100 million times the Sun, expanding at about one-third the speed of light. The emission became redder and fainter with time, declining, after 10 days, to a luminosity of only 1 million times the Sun.
SOAR Observatory Director Jay Elias, who coordinated the SOAR follow up effort, commented that “When we started the follow up, we were concerned that the light we were seeing might be from an unrelated supernova from the same region of the sky rather than the optical counterpart. That explanation became more unlikely as the observations progressed.”
Bethany Cobb (George Washington University), a member of Kasliwal’s team, used Andicam on the SMARTS 1.3m telescope at CTIO to follow the fading infrared glow from the source over 10 nights. Cobb was astonished that the “emission was so bright! It was thrilling!”
Both Kasliwal’s team and Berger’s team also used the 8-m Gemini South telescope to follow the evolution of the infrared spectrum of the source. NOAO is the US gateway to the Gemini Observatory. Using the spectra from SOAR and Gemini, the teams studied in detail the composition of the material ejected in the merger.
A Holy Grail of Astronomy
“The joint detection of light and gravitational waves from cosmic sources is one of the holy grails of present-day astronomy,” exclaimed Marcelle Soares-Santos (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Brandeis University), the first author of the paper from Berger’s team that reports their discovery of the optical counterpart. Both signals, light and gravitational waves, contribute unique information about extreme astrophysical events. As Soares-Santos explained, “Gravitational waves tell us about the motions and masses of the neutron stars, and light reveals the astrophysics of the event — what happened exactly as the stars merged, the mass of heavy elements produced.”
The results obtained by the two teams help to establish GW170817 as the first confident detection of a binary neutron star merger. Earlier reported sightings of kilonovae lacked the definitive evidence of a gravitational wave signature. “Great claims require great evidence,” says Kasliwal, “and the evidence for GW170817 is undeniable.”
The results also establish that binary neutron star mergers are major cosmic production sites of rare heavy elements. The Berger team’s results are published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and the Kasliwal team’s results in Science.
“A New Era of Astronomy”
GW170817 is also, more generally, the first gravitational wave event with an optical counterpart. The four previous gravitational wave detections were of merging black hole binaries, which did not generate an observable optical counterpart. Astronomers are thrilled to get in on the action. “It’s the dawn of a new field of astronomy!” proclaimed Berger.
The discovery foretells a bright future for wide-field imagers and facilities optimized for the study of time variable events. According to Berger, this discovery “demonstrates the power and importance of DECam for optical follow-up of gravitational wave sources.” Looking to the future, toward future LIGO and Virgo observing runs, Berger anticipates that “with its high sensitivity and ability to survey large areas of sky, DECam will play an almost unique role in the identification of future gravitational wave events.”
The discovery also highlights important unanswered questions and future opportunities. “The big outstanding question is whether this event is typical of all binary neutron star mergers,” says Matt Nicholl (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), the lead author of the paper reporting the SOAR results. As LIGO and Virgo detect more sources, we’ll find out. “We’ll discover how diverse neutron star mergers are, how often they occur, and therefore how much of all the heavy elements in the Universe come from binary neutron star mergers.”
The National Science Foundation supports LIGO as well as facilities involved in pinpointing and studying the optical counterpart to GW170817, including CTIO and Gemini Observatory.
The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.
The Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope, is a joint project of the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovaçãos e Comunicações do Brasil (MCTIC/LNA), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), the Michigan State University (MSU), and NOAO.
Gemini South is part of the Gemini Observatory, which is operated by AURA, under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), the National Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva (Argentina), and Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brazil).
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Related Press Releases & Videos:DEVELOPMENT WOMEN'S NATIONAL TEAM ANNOUNCES TRYOUT ROSTER
(Toronto, ON) -- Canada Basketball's Development Women's National Team has taken the first step in their 2015 competitive season. The program has announced the 22 athletes who have been invited to the June 6-9 tryout by invitation to represent Canada at the FISU games in Gwangiu, South Korea. The tryouts and camp will take place at the University of Toronto's Goldring Centre.
Fabian McKenzie returns as the head coach of the Development Women's National Team.
"This is going to be a highly-competitive training camp. There is an incredible amount of talent in this group and I'm excited to see how it all comes together as we prepare for the FISU games," said McKenzie.
After the tryout period, the Development Women's National Team will take part in a training camp at the Goldring Centre from June 10-19. Ahead of the FISU games, the squad is participating in a Chinese exhibition tournament from June 22-28.
The team will then compete in the FISU games, an international competition that brings together student-athletes from around the world. The women's basketball competition runs July 5-13.
Athletes Invited to Tryout by Invitation
Name Position Height Hometown Wumi Agunbiade Forward 6-1 Pickering, ON Cassandra Brown Forward 6-2 Vernon, BC Adut Bulgak Centre 6-4 Edmonton, AB Audrey-Ann Caron Goudreau Forward 6-3 Gatineau, QC Khaleann Ann Caron-Goudreau Forward 6-3 Gatineau, QC Erin Chambers Forward 6-0 Mission, BC Shay Colley Guard 5-7 Brampton, ON Laura Dally Guard 5-9 Sarnia, ON Quinn Dornstauder Centre 6-4 Regina, SK Abigail Fogg Centre 6-4 Sault Ste. Marie, ON Saicha Grant-Allen Forward 6-5 Hamilton, ON Ruth Hamblin Centre 6-6 Houston, BC Sami Hill Guard 5-10 Toronto, ON Michelle Hudyn Forward 6-2 Kitchener, ON Kristine Lalonde Guard 5-10 Cambridge, ON Emily Potter Centre 6-5 Winnipeg, MB Karly Roser Guard 5-10 Hamilton, ON Saskia Van Ginhoven Forward 6-0 Edmonton, AB Jamie Weisner Guard 5-9 Clarkston, WA Dakota Whyte Guard 5-9 Ajax, ON Korissa Williams Point Guard 5-9 Amherstburg, ON Meg Wilson Forward 6-2 London, ON
Coaching and support staff
Name Position Hometown University Fabian McKenzie Head Coach Glace Bay, NS Cape Breton Michele Belanger Assistant Coach Mississauga, ON Toronto Jeff Speedy Assistant Coach Fredericton, NB New Brunswick Ryan Thorne Assistant Coach Montreal, QC McGill Sunny Ahluwalia Performance Analyst Surrey, BC Simon Fraser Patrice Pepin Physiotherapist Quebec, QC Sarah Barnes Team Manager St. Catharines, ON Queen's Kristin Anstey Physician in China Edmonton, AB Denise Dignard Director High Performance Toronto, ON
Exhibition game schedule
Opponent Date Time (EST) Czech Republic June 22 9:00 a.m. China June 23 7:00 a.m. Brazil June 24 7:00 a.m. Czech Republic June 26 9:00 a.m. China June 27 7:00 a.m. Brazil June 28 7:00 a.m.
FISU Games schedule
Opponent Date Time Hungary July 5 10:00 p.m. Korea July 6 5:30 p.m. Mozambique July 7 5:30 p.m. TBD (9-16th & quarters) July 9 TBD TBD (5-16th games) July 10 TBD TBD (semis) July 11 TBD TBD (5-16th games & bronze) July 12 TBD TBD (gold medal game) July 13 TBD
For more information, please contact:
Bailey Williams
Manager, Communications
E-mail: [email protected]
Cell: 647-460-7976Foto: Index, FAH
MOŽETE voljeti ili ne barunicu Margaret Thatcher, ali morate joj priznati kako je jednom izrekla veliku istinu: „Ne postoji javni novac, postoji samo novac poreznih obveznika.“ Sve, ali sve što država uprihodi – novac je koji je uzela građanima. Država sama ne stvara ništa – čak i kada štampa novce u pitanju je specifični porez kojega plate građani smanjivanjem vrijednosti novca.
To znači da država ne daje ništa besplatno – i kada političari počnu lupati o „besplatnom“, onda se odmah uhvatite za novčanik – jer očigledno vam žele uzeti novce kako bi ih ponovno vama ili nekome drugome podijelili uz „širok osmeh i zlatan zub“, kako bi to Đole rekao.
Nema u politici ljepše stvari nego naivcima i ovcama od birača dijeliti novce za koje ste ih prethodno dobro ošišali. Svaki, ali svaki puta, dakle, čim vam netko spomene „besplatno“, razmislite koliko ste to platili.
A posebno je nisko, podlo i ogavno kada političar o javnom novcu počne govoriti u prvom licu – kao, on dijeli. Kao da je u pitanju neki drugi novac, a ne onaj vaš kojega vam je uzeo, kako bi ga preusmjerio i dobio neke bodove, glasove i utjecaj. Milan Bandić upravo to radi – nudi kako će vam vratiti novce koje vam bi vam uzeo porezom.
On će vratiti, valjda osobno?
Kaže Bandić na tiskovnoj konferenciji u utorak 30. kolovoza ujutro: „Deveti put smo jučer podijelili besplatne udžbenike. Deveti put.“ Dakle, prema Bandiću, u Zagrebu su udžbenici za osnovne škole besplatni – dijeli ih eto gradonačelnik. No, problem je samo jedan – dijeli nešto kupljeno novcem upravo građana Zagreba.
Rečenica bi trebala glasiti: „Vi građani Zagreba plaćate najveći prirez u državi, pa uz ostale poreze, naknade i ostalo, ima dovoljno love u proračunu, da mogu kupiti udžbenike vašim novcem i onda ih podijeliti vama natrag – što lijepo izgleda, a i poneki glasač neće posložiti priču, nego će misliti da je to iz neke magične vreće odakle dolaze novci.“
Nije loše imati „besplatne udžbenike“, nije loše imati ni fontane, ali cijena toga je vrlo jasna – prirez od 18%. Zagreb istina ima i ovlasti županije, pa i stoga nešto veće troškove, ali baš 18%? Uz tako visoki prirez lako je praviti se pametan i vraćati narodu ono što se od naroda uzelo. Nije Zagreb izuzetak, velikih prireza ima i drugdje, SDP-ova Rijeka se diči sa gradskih iznimno velikih 15%.
Drugdje je kako gdje, Split (tamo više ni ne znamo tko je na vlasti) se snalazi s 10%, a od poznatijih gradova Samobor ima prirez 0%. Gradonačelnik i sadašnji šef HSS-a Krešo Beljak uspijeva posložiti proračun i bez ikakvog prireza građanima, a zanimljivo – i tamo će ove godine udžbenici biti besplatni, kažu, radi dobrog punjena proračuna.
No, vratimo se na Zagreb – držati prirez 18% i hvaliti se svojim postignućima svakako je u najmanju ruku licemjerno. Osigurati hrpu novca prirezom, osigurati još već hrpu novca samom činjenicom da u centraliziranoj državi poput Hrvatske glavni grad dobro živi – i vikati o svojoj uspješnosti jednako je kao da to isto ide vikati ne znam, ravnatelj HRT-a s osiguranih milijardu kuna na godinu. Ili kopanjem vrta naći ćup zlata, kupiti BMW i pričati kako je to od rada.
Nemamo ništa protivi uspješnih ljudi, dapače, ali da pokuša nekako drugačije, recimo prepolovio prirez i povećao kvalitetu života u gradu ili nešto slično? Lako je, zaista je lako ponešto i dobroga napraviti ako vam dolaze proračunske milijarde. A dolaze jer se izvan Zagreba malo što u Hrvatskoj uspijeva. Pokušajte voditi firmu iz primjerice Korčule ili Stona, a da to nije sezonski turizam. Pokušajte biti profesor na fakultetu – pa ima smjerova koje ima samo Zagreb. Pokušajte još puno toga u Hrvatskoj ste (nažalost, ali je tako) vezani za Zagreb.
Priča za naivce
Bandić zna svoj posao – zna raditi i zna s ljudima. Život ga u mladosti nije štedio – nakon osnovne i srednje škole u Grudama, dobio je studentski kredit i otišao na studij u Zagreb. Diplomirao je na Fakultetu političkih znanosti Sveučilišta u Zagrebu. Uz učenje naporno je i fizički radio i to na istovaru šećera i ugljena te žbukanju pročelja gradskih zgrada. Nakon diplome nešto je radio u Ledu (i to neko vrijeme u hladnjači, na minus 25), a 1983. se kao stručno-politički radnik za ONO i DSZ zaposlio u Općinskom komitetu SKH Peščenica. Bandićeva uzlazna putanja kreće 1993. kada postaje tajnik gradske organizacije SDP-a, a dvije godine kasnije (1995.) postaje zastupnik u Gradskog skupštini grada Zagreba. Gradonačelnik postaje 2000. godine, s sada mu je peti mandat. Iz SDP-a je izbačen 2009. godine, kada se kandidirao za predsjednika Republike.
No, vratimo se na Bandićevu tiskovnu, kaže on: „Zato javno pozivam građane da sačuvaju račune za kupovinu udžbenika, a buduća Vlada, u kojoj će Koalicija rada i solidarnosti, imati glavni ton, na prvoj će sjednici donijeti odluku o povratu tog novca.“
Naravno – čak i ako izuzmemo prilično SF situacija da Bandićeva koalicija „ima glavni ton“ buduće Vlade, na prvoj sjednici se takva odluka i da se hoće ne može donijeti, jer stvar je proračunska, a o proračunu odlučuju – Sabor. Odakle ti novci – pa upravo od poreznih obveznika.
Spomenimo i kako pitanje besplatnih udžbenika Bandić vezuje ni manje ni više nego uz pozitivan prirodni prirast u Zagrebu: „U Zagrebu to radimo devet godina i time smo postigli dva efekta – ulaganje u obrazovanje i pozitivan prirodni prirast u Zagrebu.“ Zagreb istina spada u samo tri županijekoje imaju pozitivan prirodni prirast – no pitanje je da li je to stvar jer eto dijeli besplatne udžbenike, to dijele i mnogi drugi. Teško da se netko baš odlučio na dijete više jer će udžbenici biti besplatni.
Zagreb istina i prilično potiče rađanje: piše na stranicama grada: „za prvo dijete roditelja podnositelja zahtjeva 1.800,00 kuna koje će se isplatiti u dva jednaka obroka, tijekom jedne godine; za drugo dijete roditelja podnositelja zahtjeva 3.600,00 kuna koje će se isplatiti u četiri jednaka obroka, tijekom dvije godine; za treće i svako daljnje dijete roditelja podnositelja zahtjeva 54.000,00 kuna koje će se isplatiti u jednakim godišnjim obrocima tijekom 6 kalendarskih godina.“
Svaka čast – ali opet – građani Zagreba to sve uredno plate i uplate! Imamo li toliko za cijelu državu i da li je upravo podjela novca za rađanje pravi model? Ili bi bilo važnije recimo omogućiti da vrtići rade i drugu smjenu (što ne postoji izvan par najvećih gradova) ili omogućiti mladim majkama subvencioniranje plaće ako rade nepuno radno vrijeme? Demografija je složena priča.
Uzmite – da biste nam dali
Kaže Bandić: „Jedna majka iz Poreča već mi je poslala račun za pet udžbenika. To jasno govori koliko je građanima važno da se netko brine o njima i njihovoj djeci.“ To u stvarnosti znači – majka iz Poreča želi da joj vlada (neka) uzme novce, pa da joj ih onda vrati kroz udžbenike.
„Besplatno“ od države znači upravo i samo to: „Uzmite mi novce, uzmite sebi neki dio (jer i činovnike treba platiti) i onda mi to vratite što preostane.“
Bandić pokušava usporediti proračune države i grada, pa kaže: „Oni govore da nema novaca. A ja vam kažem da od 100 kuna državnog proračuna, figurativno govorim, 6 pripada Zagrebu. Novca ima, ali ga treba drugačije i pravednije preraspodijeliti, prema prioritetima. Kako je moguće da se u Zagrebu za kulturu izdvaja 6,5 posto proračunskog novca, a istovremeno na razini cijele Hrvatske samo 1, 4 posto. To možemo promijeniti samo zajedno. Pitajte, molim vas, stranke, a posebno najveće, koje su opustošile Hrvatsku, da se izjasne o mom prijedlogu o smanjenju sredstava za političke stranke jer od tog novca imamo dovoljno za udžbenike.”
Priča s usporedbom proračuna je totalno baljezganje – jer se gradski i državni proračun ne mogu izravno uspoređivati, kaže Bandić: „Kako je moguće da se u Zagrebu za kulturu izdvaja 6,5 posto proračunskog novca, a istovremeno na razini cijele Hrvatske samo 1, 4 posto.“ Moguće je, jer proračun Grada Zagreba, kao ni proračun Grada Splita ili Općine Donji Kukuruzari ne obuhvaća troškove, obrane, troškove granične policije, troškove kanadera, troškove visokog obrazovanja, troškove meteorološke službe ni mnoge druge stvari koje su trošak centralne države. Ići to uspoređivati – znači ili nemati pojma ili namjerno zamagliti stvari, a Bandić nije čovjek koji nema pojma.
Što se tiče iznosa naknada strankama – tu se slažemo, stvar je to o kojoj treba razgovarati, ali onda razgovarajmo i o raznim potporama udrugama na svim razinama, od Državnog proračuna naniže, jer čini se da su poneki od onoga što je trebala biti volonterska aktivnost razvili biznis.
Čemu uopće udžbenici?
U konačnici – zašto uopće u 2016. godini pričamo o udžbenicima? Zašto u doba kada imamo izvrsne i povoljne tablete, a postoji i e-tinta koja se ponaša kao i papir, tako da uopće ne umara oči više od klasičnog čitanja, mi razgovaramo o skupom tisku papirnih udžbenika? Dva su razloga za to: naše političke elite niti razumiju niti žele budućnost, jer je se plaše. One su ostale u prošlosti i promjene koje donosi ovo stoljeće, od čitanja bez papira do UBER-a ih plaši.
Političke elite u Hrvatskoj su većinom neobrazovane i bez ikakvih želja prilagodbama budućnosti. Drugi razlog su naravno nakladnički lobiji, jer eto „što bi ljudi radili da nema tiskanja udžbenika“. I onda imamo situaciju da građani kupuju skupe udžbenike, daleko već u digitalnom dobu, makar postoji jeftinija i bolja alternativa.
Pa ako ćemo budućnosti –udžbenike treba ukinuti i dati djeci tablete ili e-čitače. Škole imaju Internet, podaci se lako mogu skidati, udžbenici mogu biti i interaktivni i sveukupno bolji. Treba tiskati radne bilježnice i sličan ipak jeftiniji materijal. I tu bi država mogla uskočiti – narudžba tableta ili e-čitača, standardiziranog, u nekoliko desetaka tisuća primjeraka je nešto sasvim drugo nego kupovina jednog uređaja u maloprodaji.
Pa ako ćemo novo i ako ćemo roditelje osloboditi troška knjiga – dajmo djeci tablete ili e-čitače, uredno se koriste po svijetu! Čak se i pokazalo, ima logike, da ih djeca iz siromašnijih obitelji više paze. No, Bandić o tome ne govori. Ne govore istina ni velike stranke. Govori se uglavnom kako vam uzeti, da bi se ponekome od vas dalo.
Ukratko, za one kojima se HDZ/SDP kombinacija ne sviđa (radi sličnosti programa namjerno stavljamo te stranke zajedno) – postoje i treći putevi, ali od svih tih trećih puteva stranka Bandić Milan 365 - Stranka rada i solidarnosti (kakav naziv!) vjerojatno nudi najviše prodaje magle. Koju ste sami vi, svojim novcima platili.
Tekst se nastavlja ispod oglasaPresident Putin denies that Russia welcomes Britain’s vote to leave the EU – but it offers a possibility of weakened sanctions and a shift in power relations
What should you drink to mark Britain leaving the European Union? That was the question pondered by Russian state television’s ringmaster, Dmitry Kiselev, in a recent, heavily ideological weekly dispatch.
“A glass of Scotch? But then you might been seen as a separatist,” the presenter mused. “A German beer? But then people will think you support Merkel and her migration policies, which are what led to the collapse of the EU.”
In the end, Kiselev decided that the best way to celebrate Brexit is to mimic the EU itself: toss drinks from many different countries into a bucket and mix them all together. The resulting unidentifiable slop would be the perfect thing with which to toast Britain’s departure.
This view of the EU as a bastion of wayward “political correctness” that pushes against healthy, traditional values and dilutes national sovereignty might sound as if it comes from a Ukip campaign leaflet, but it has also long been Moscow’s take on the bloc. This, together with the fact that the EU has imposed sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, has led to a sense that Moscow would like to see the bloc weakened.
Prior to the vote, there had been suggestions from Remain campaigners that Putin was the one major world leader who would welcome a vote for Brexit, something the president dismissed out of hand.
Why Brexit would be the perfect gift for Vladimir Putin | Garry Kasparov Read more
“We closely followed the voting but never interfered or sought to influence it,” said Putin the day after the vote. Brexit, said Putin, was a result of irritation over Britain subsidising weaker economies, and “the British government’s self-assuredness and supercilious attitude to life-changing decisions in their own country and Europe in general”.
Putin said claims prior to the referendum that Russia was backing Brexit were “an inappropriate attempt to influence public opinion,” and said it was “all the more inappropriate” to discuss Russia’s position after the vote: “This is truly a low level of political discourse,” Putin said.
Nevertheless, there has been a distinct whiff of schadenfreude in the Moscow air over the past weeks, and indeed some leading officials have openly celebrated the UK vote.
Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, wrote on Twitter in the aftermath of the vote that with Britain out of the EU, there would be much less pressure for sanctions against Russia. Both the US and EU introduced a range of sanctions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in east Ukraine. The sanctions were rolled over for a further six months in June, but diplomats say getting unanimity for a further rollover in the bloc will be hard work. Britain, along with Germany, had been one of the toughest voices in favour of sanctions, while countries such as Italy, Greece and Hungary are keen to renew trade and financial links.
EU to extend sanctions against Russia Read more
“It’s no secret that the Russians have been working diligently … to try to persuade individual EU member states to object to the renewal of sanctions,” the foreign minister, Philip Hammond, told a parliamentary committee on Thursday. “I fear that in future such situations, an EU without Britain as an influential member may be less likely to take robust action and to sustain robust action against Russia.”
Few Russians in business circles have expressed joy over Brexit, and many have said its negative effects on global markets can only be bad for Russia as well. Former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, however, said the knock-on economic effects on Russia would are likely to be minimal, and many think the political dividend overshadows this.
“The economic consequences are not yet evident,” said Konstantin von Eggert, a host and commentator on international affairs for TV Rain. “But what is evident is that the EU is going to be completely occupied by Brexit for at least two years. It undermines the position of one of the biggest foes of Moscow and leaves the EU in the hands of much more friendly nations.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Armenia’s President Sargsyan, President Lukashenko of Belarus, Vladimir Putin, Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbayev and Kyrgyzstan’s President Atambayev after a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union in Moscow in 2014. Photograph: Reuters
The former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, wrote on Twitter that the vote to leave the EU was “a giant victory for Putin’s foreign policy objectives”.
In recent years, Putin has been keen to push his own Eurasian Union as an alternative to the EU. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia have joined the bloc. Getting Ukraine on board for the project was key to Putin’s vision, but this was scuppered when the Maidan revolution toppled president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. Critics have called the Eurasian Union an updated version of the Soviet Union, but Putin likes to think of the blocs as equals.
Boris Titov, Russia’s business ombudsman, wrote on Facebook in the aftermath of the Brexit vote that the UK exiting Europe could herald a major shift of power in the Eurasian landmass in the coming years.
“UK out!!! In my opinion, the most important long-term consequence of all this is that the exit will take Europe away from the Anglo-Saxons, that is, from the US,” he wrote. “This is not the independence of Britain from Europe, but the independence of Europe from the USA.”
In a somewhat convoluted geopolitical analysis that sees an “Anglo-Saxon” axis of Britain and the US dominating Europe, Titov said the British exit meant that within a decade there would be a “united Eurasia”.
This may sound fanciful, but in the meantime, the Kremlin is likely to continue to welcome discord inside the EU and the ascent of Eurosceptic parties, many of which have a friendlier line towards the Kremlin than current national governments.
“During the 1960s and 70s the Soviet Union had a policy of trying to drive a wedge between the US and Europe, and between different European countries,” said Von Eggert. There is the same policy now, but it turns out you don’t have to do anything, and it has happened on its own.”As an update to the ongoing saga surrounding the quality of several of 2016 Olympic Games host Rio de Janeiro’s water venues, Rio’s organizing committee announced Friday, October 16th that it will not be undertaking any viral tests of its waters. Rio 2016 spokesman, Mario Andrada, told the press yesterday that organizers will be heeding the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendation as the ‘final instructions’ for the Games.
In its most recent statement presented on its website, WHO indicates that, “In response to questions about health risks from sewage pollution at venues where Olympic athletes will be in water, in sailing, rowing, canoeing and swimming events, WHO recommends that national authorities follow the WHO Guidelines for Safe Recreational Water Environments to protect public health.”
And just what are those ‘guidelines’? WHO.int’s sanitation protocol includes “classifying water quality through a regular and ongoing programme of microbial water quality testing, using enterococci and E.coli and sanitary inspection to identify health risks to bathers from pollution of bathing waters.” Essentially, WHO considers testing for standard bacteria as the basis for its guidelines for monitoring bathing water. WHO does not currently recommend testing of viruses for routine monitoring because of a lack of standardized methods and difficulty interpreting results.
Additionally, as a possible nod to the recent budgetary issues surrounding Rio 2016, WHO further stated, “Water quality testing, over and above recommendations in the WHO Guidelines, should not distract attention and resources away from measures to address the sources of pollution.”
Rio State Government officials have insisted that these issues in Guanabara Bay will cause no problems at the 2016 Olympics, claiming that they have made significant progress over the last 8 years. A big part of their bid for the Olympics was their plan to reduce 80 percent of pollution. However, they’ve been met with criticism.
FINA President Julio Maglione had said in a statement that Rio organizers have shown a ‘disrespect’ for aquatic events. Additionally, last August, U.S. Rowing medical staff reported that 13 of its team members had fallen ill after having participated in a test event in Rio at Rodrigo de Freitas Lake. The athletes were stricken with various gastrointestinal symptoms at the World Junior Rowing Championships and the team doctor said it is her “personal feeling it is due to the lake.”
You can read the entire WHO statement here.Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground. By Jonathan Kay. Harper; 368 pages; $27.99. Buy from Amazon.com
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Correction to this article
AMERICA is a country of 310m people for whom free speech is a founding principle. So it should be no surprise that it is inhabited by a large number of individuals with some pretty strange views. Thanks to local radio and the internet, they are able to disseminate them to many others rather than just muttering away to themselves. Jonathan Kay, an editor and columnist at Canada's National Post, has chosen to shine a spotlight on one particular group of them; the “truthers”, who believe that when America was attacked on September 11th 2001 the American government was in the know, or even staged the whole thing in order (take your pick) to impose draconian social controls in the name of national security or to occupy the oilfields of the Gulf.
Americans, of course, have no monopoly on eccentric views. One of the looniest is David Icke, an Englishman who believes that the world is secretly run by a group of shape-shifting intergalactic lizards. Nor is there any sign that the truthers are gaining much ground: in fact, they are puny in number compared with those who follow another nutty conspiracy theory, namely the “birthers”, who believe that Barack Obama was born outside the United States and is therefore, they hold, ineligible to be president. A significant minority of Republicans, according to opinion polls, hold this view. Birthers, however, get much less attention in Mr Kay's book.
A conspiracy theorist, no doubt, would say that the National Post is a paper of the political right, and therefore less likely to worry about the birthers than the truthers, who tend to be on the left. A more plausible reason is that the birther conspiracy
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According to a press release, “With influences ranging from Asian, Mediterranean and Latin and even German cuisines, the menu promises to have something for everyone.”
Another idea behind the food comes from Ted and Shannon's son Hunter. In the early days of Brugge he asked if he could create a soda with his entrepreneur dad, Ted. And so they did.
Hunter named his soda Bingham Beer after the Bingham Bear mascot of School 84, which of course was Hunter's school at the time and where his sisters eventually attended as well. Brugge charged $1.84 for the soda and donated $0.84 of every soda sold to School 84. They still do to this day and it has been a great success.
So when Hunter, who was born in Hong Kong, suggested serving the new brew pub's food offerings on a cart, dim-sum style, Shannon and Ted agreed. Look for Hunter to be the restaurant's first cart boy later this summer.
Jared Guy will be the bar manager and front of house manager. The Owner's Wife is jointly owned by husband and wife food/brew team Ted Miller and Shannon Stone. While you should expect Brugge and Outliers beers as offerings, you can also be prepared for an exclusive Owner’s Wife brand.
The beer lineup will change periodically, opening with Tripel de Ripple, Bad Kitty-Berliner, Blau Machen Pilsner, Grissette; County Brown, Buffalo Jacket IPA, Whitcomb Rye, Dunkelweizen, Milk Stout and Super Kitty Fantastico. There will also be a few cask beers available: American Premium Bitter, Milk Stout and Buffalo Jacket IPA.
A set date hasn't been announced for the official opening, however it will be within August of this year. Follow any and all updates by keeping up with the company on Twitter.For example, the school’s weekly newsletter is published in six languages; yet it still is not intelligible to many parents. Some refugee children arrive at the school having never seen a book. And while the school devotes extraordinary energy to a specialized curriculum designed for refugees, it must still satisfy exacting American parents.
“If it were easy,” said a co-founder, Barbara Thompson, “everybody would be doing it.”
Refugees began arriving in Decatur in the 1990s, when aid agencies pegged the area as perfect for newcomers because of its low rents and proximity to jobs in downtown Atlanta, just 10 miles to the west. In the late ’90s, nearly 20,000 refugees arrived in Georgia, most to this area.
Soon this once mostly white suburb on the western side of Stone Mountain, a historical bastion of the Ku Klux Klan, had become one of the more culturally and ethnically diverse areas in the country.
The children of these refugees present unique challenges for the school. Many suffer post-traumatic stress from the horrors they have witnessed. Few speak English when they arrive. Some have no formal education and are innumerate and illiterate, even in their native tongues.
To complicate matters, many refugee parents cannot help with homework or understand report cards.
Some children have had to be taught to stand in line, or the significance of raising one’s hand.
Linda Dorage, who teaches English as a second language at the school, said she had even had to introduce children to “just the concept of a two-dimensional image meaning something.”
One early student, a goat herder from Mauritania, did not know how to use a door knob. A Sudanese girl was so traumatized by war and relocation that she insisted on sitting on the floor beneath her desk each day.
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“The teacher decided she would go under the desk with her and do lessons under there,” Ms. Thompson said. “She drew her out in her own good time.”
Addressing Unmet Need
Until the community school came along, most refugee children found themselves in conventional public schools. To understand the difference, it helps to visit the family of He Tha and Mya Mya, a Burmese husband and wife who arrived with their four children last summer after 25 years in refugee camps in Thailand.
Photo
The family now lives in a two-bedroom apartment, its walls bare except for a homemade shrine of hand-drawn figures in red and blue ink around a photograph of friends left behind. Written below the photo is, “Never say goodbye.”
Mr. He Tha’s eldest children — 15-year-old Monday and 18-year-old Baby Boy, who was given his name for arriving a month premature — were too old for the community school. They were placed at a high school, where they receive an hour of English instruction and spend the rest of the day in regular ninth-grade classes, even though they speak hardly a word of English.
Asked what it was like to spend hours in classes he could not understand, Baby Boy laughed and blushed.
“It’s boring,” he said.
Mr. He Tha’s younger two children — Tuesday Paw, 12, and Eh Dee Na Poe, 7 — attend the community school.
Refugee children there receive daily classes in English as a second language, and additional individual instruction based on their needs. There are after-school classes until 5:15 p.m. each weekday, along with art and music classes, and French and Spanish for all students. Classes are relatively small, 18 students on average, and each has an assistant to the teacher. Students wear uniforms — light blue or white collared shirts, and dark blue pants or skirts — so that clothing does not become a distracting status symbol.
Many on the staff understand the refugee experience first-hand. One survived the Rwandan genocide. The lunchroom lady is from Srebrenica, driven from the town during Serb soldiers’ massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian men and boys.
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“I constantly remind them how lucky we are,” said Hodan Osman, 27, a tutor who at age 10 was separated from her parents during the civil war in Somalia.
“We could have been killed,” she said, “and not only are we here, but we’re in a place where we’re celebrated. I tell them they can take everything away from you, but your knowledge is in your head, and it makes you brave.”
Naza Orlovic, a teacher’s assistant from Bosnia, said her experience as a refugee allowed her to recognize and to soothe hurt feelings that frequently arose out of cultural misunderstandings. Ms. Orlovic recalled comforting a Liberian boy, who was upset when other students could not follow his jokes because of his thick West African accent.
“I said, ‘Tell them to me,’” Ms. Orlovic recalled, speaking in a thick Bosnian accent herself. “Because they don’t understand my jokes either.”
The school has classes for the parents and older siblings of refugee students. On Thursday nights, there are computer classes. On Saturdays, the school offers English classes and tutoring.
Mr. He Tha attends those classes, along with his wife, Baby Boy and Monday. Speaking through a translator, he said he hoped to learn a little English so he could get a job. But he added that the family’s prospects depended in large part on the education his children received.
“The future is done for us,” Mr. He Tha said, gesturing toward himself and his wife. “We are just support for our children. We don’t want to see them have the same problems we had.”
No ‘Enclave’ for Refugees
The community school was born a decade ago when Ms. Thompson, then a freelance writer, met William L. Moon, the principal at a prestigious private school in Atlanta, and Sister Patty Caraher, a Sinsinawa Dominican nun and social activist who once taught under segregation at an all-black high school in Mobile, Ala.. Each had done volunteer work on behalf of refugee children, and each had concluded that such children’s needs were not being met through conventional schooling.
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The three conceived of a school that would include hours of individual attention and an empathetic environment. They hoped to model it on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s notion of “the beloved community,” where people of all races, nationalities and classes were accepted, and on the common schools established in the 19th century by Horace Mann.
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“The mission,” Ms. Thompson said, “was never to create an enclave for refugees only, because that would just separate them more.”
The founders saw this formulation as not just idealistic but practical. Studies have shown that low-income students benefit academically from exposure to middle- and upper-middle-class students. And Ms. Thompson and her colleagues believed that exposure to a wide range of cultures and ethnic backgrounds would appeal to affluent, socially minded parents.
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Ms. Thompson, Mr. Moon and Sister Caraher received seed money from several local charities and help from advocates for refugees and other concerned neighbors. Mr. Moon assumed the role of principal. The school leased space from a church and, in 2002, was granted charter status by the local school board and the state.
There were plenty of early difficulties. The school was short on money. Though it receives county, state and federal money, it must still raise some $400,000 a year. Classrooms at the church were small and the tensions high, particularly among children whose lack of English got in the way of their expressing themselves.
An effort to form a parent-teacher association failed because of language differences; the sheer number of translators needed for such meetings made them impractical.
Early on, some American parents who had been drawn to the community school because of its small class sizes and curriculum — French and Spanish from kindergarten on, art and music for all students — pulled out their children because they felt the emphasis on refugees got in the way.
And some new arrivals to the school had to overcome intense trauma before they could begin learning.
Teachers noticed that two sisters from Afghanistan seemed terrified as they arrived each day. As refugees in Pakistan, the children had worked making carpets. Exhausted, they regularly dozed at school, which drew beatings. The sisters had assumed such beatings were standard at every school.
Despite these challenges, the school grew. A new grade was added each year. A second campus was opened in space rented from another church a few miles away. Volunteers poured in, mostly retired teachers and students from nearby Emory University and Agnes Scott College.
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All the while, administrators and teachers said, the school took its energy from the optimism many of its students had toward their new lives in the United States. Sometimes that optimism was hard to miss. One second grader from Congo is named Bill Clinton.
A Draw for Americans
The diversity at the community school extends to American families. Twenty percent of the students are African-American, and roughly 10 percent are white. About two-thirds of the students come from families that qualify for reduced-price or free lunches, while some of the other students are the children of doctors, lawyers and bankers.
Parents from low-income families tend to choose the school over other nearby public schools because it is safe and has small classes. More affluent parents seek it for the potential benefits of exposure to so many cultures. Most of the middle- and upper-middle-class parents are social progressives from Decatur, a liberal enclave. But not all.
Harvey Clark, whose son Zade is in the fifth grade, is a veteran of the Persian Gulf war and a Nascar fan.
“They’re getting exposed to cultures that they normally would not be exposed to except in National Geographic,” Mr. Clark said of the American children. “Instead of my boy having to go off to war to meet foreign people, he can do it here in town.”
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But the interactions between parents from so many backgrounds are complicated. There is still no parent-teacher association because of language barriers. American parents organize food drives for newcomers, give them rides and help them connect with doctors when children get sick. But getting to know one other takes effort.
“My children don’t just know about the Iraq war; they know the difference between Kurds and other Iraqis,” said Shell Ramirez, who has a son and a daughter at the school. “But it’s not for everybody. It’s something you have to buy into.”
Buying in may be easier for children than for adults. Consider the friendship between Ms. Ramirez’s 9-year-old son, Dante, and Soung Oo Hlaing, an 11-year-old Burmese refugee with dwarfism.
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Dante likes to read Harry Potter books and to play Shrek on his Wii video game console. He lives in a comfortable house; his father works at a large consulting firm.
Until he arrived last summer, Soung had lived in a refugee camp in Thailand. He spoke no English. His father supports the family by working at a chicken processing plant for $10 an hour.
The two boys met on the first day of school this year. Despite the language barrier, Dante managed to invite the newcomer to sit with him at lunch.
“I didn’t think he’d make friends at the beginning because he didn’t speak that much English,” Dante said. “So I thought I should be his friend.”
In the next weeks, the boys had a sleepover. They trick-or-treated on Soung’s first Halloween. Soung, a gifted artist, gave Dante pointers on how to draw. And Dante helped Soung with his English. “I use simple words that are easy to know and sometimes hand movements,” Dante explained. “For ‘huge,’ I would make my hands bigger. And for ‘big,’ I would make my hands smaller than for ‘huge.’”
Ms. Ramirez said that coordinating Dante’s social life was much more complicated than if he were at a more typical local school. “Slumber parties are definitely a pain,” she said. “It can be quite confusing if one of the kids doesn’t know his phone number and the parents don’t speak English.”
But even so, Ms. Ramirez said she became close with Soung’s family because of the boys’ friendship. She drives them to appointments, has had them over to bake cookies, and spent a recent weekend afternoon trying to program the family’s remote control. To celebrate an ethnic holiday, Soung’s mother, Mu De, recently gave Ms. Ramirez a traditional Burmese sarong.
For now, the women communicate mostly through gestures. But it will not be long before Soung is translating. His English has improved markedly, enough so that he regularly torments Dante with a reliable schoolyard prank: he tapes a piece of paper bearing the words “kick me” on Dante’s back.
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“They’re two peas in a pod,” Ms. Ramirez said.
‘Worthy of My Best Shot’
The long-term prospects are far from certain. Because it is experimental, the school is more at risk of closing if its students fail to make adequate yearly progress, the standard by which the national education law judges public schools.
Academically, the school seems to be on track. It has met the annual requirement under the No Child Left Behind education law each of the past four years. And this year the school was one of two for disadvantaged children that were commended by the Georgia Board of Education. It was cited for closing the performance gap between low- and high-scoring students, a feat that the school accomplished without lowering its higher scores.
Ms. Thompson, Mr. Moon and Sister Caraher said a short-term goal was to combine their two campuses. Mr. Moon said he wanted to open a health clinic for refugees at the school. And supporters are trying to start a school for refugee children who arrive in their teens, with less time than younger refugees to make up for lost years.
In the meantime, refugees continue to arrive, most recently from Burundi, Eritrea and Burma (now known as Myanmar), and some of their children will inevitably learn their first words of English at the school.
“When you see those kids who are as positive as they are, and you know what kind of problems they’re going through,” Mr. Moon said, “you just say, ‘This is worthy of my best shot.’”For the time being, countless decisions still require human engagement.
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Awash in data, executives dream of a time when the Jetson utopia finally manifests — and they find themselves sipping coffee and cashing checks while machines slave away for them, uncovering unexpected business insights and learning optimal ways to manage organizations.
Despite improvements in cognitive technologies, that dream managerial scenario is still far from reality. Decisions that executives face don’t necessarily fit into defined problems well suited for automation. At least for the time being, countless decisions still require human engagement.
Consider machine learning. To oversimplify, machine learning emphasizes algorithms that use numerous examples as inputs. In an ideal world, machine learning would reveal connections between observations and outcomes with minimal human guidance. In other words, machines would excel at finding patterns and making data-based predictions.
Recent advances in machine learning and cognitive technologies have been remarkable. We’ve seen impressive inroads in areas such as radiology, and accounting. Nevertheless, executives resist using these approaches for decision making for many reasons, including …
Algorithmic approaches typically require numerous examples. Organizations rarely have the number of examples needed to understand relationships between everything in the world that can affect an organization. This is the managerial version of the “curse of dimensionality.” The ratio of “examples of past similar decisions” to “stuff that might be important for those decisions” can be abysmally low.
Even with ever-increasing data collection, many known explanatory variables are still difficult to capture. Algorithmic performance is always better when more information is known, structured, and available. In particular, it is difficult to incorporate data about events that didn’t happen but could have, or that did happen but had no data collected about them.
Beyond that, executives can have a broad view of new information that didn’t exist before, but could make a difference in the future — such as coming legislative, regulatory, or technology changes. It is harder to make out-of-sample predictions than in-sample, particularly when extrapolating and boldly going where no data has gone before.
Executives don’t have multiple organizations that would enable them to make randomized A/B tests. Ideally, learning from past decisions could occur by observing similar scenarios with alternative decisions. Instead, executives must estimate counterfactuals based on limited information.
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As a result, current cognitive technologies focus on the easiest problems. And while this makes sense, the questions these approaches can answer may not be the foremost question in an executive’s mind. IBM emphasizes the progress in solving difficult problems — such as helping teachers personalize curriculum — while also noting current limitations, by pointing out that managing children is a much more difficult unstructured problem than current technology can solve.
I don’t want to trivialize the current state of cognitive technologies. Progress has been so amazing and fast that we have quickly become inured to amazing progress. A definition of artificial intelligence, for example, is “systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence.” But the definition of “normal” is changing. Machines that autocorrect spelling and check grammar in real time as you write would have been fantastical not too long ago; now I’m annoyed when my machine guesses my mistyping incorrectly. Uncanny predictive ability would once have led to a trial in Salem; now it leads to a corner office on Wall Street.
Cognitive technologies will increasingly absorb the easiest aspects of executive jobs; that seems inevitable. The question, then, is what changes. Like other technology changes, there will be a mix of good, bad, and ugly. Executives may be liberated from the mundane and able to use time more creatively and productively. They may face increasing competitive threats from automated virtual workers who do the easiest tasks, leaving the rest of us with the most difficult jobs. Or, worst case, executive may lose the ability to contribute at all. It’s likely to be a mix of all of these. However, it is unlikely that the dream scenario of getting paid to sip coffee while machines work is a realistic option. We’ll need to add value irrespective of how “normal” changes.NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden opened the Free Software Foundation's LibrePlanet 2016 conference on Saturday with a discussion of free software, privacy and security, speaking via video conference from Russia.
Snowden credited free software for his ability to help disclose the U.S. government's far-reaching surveillance projects – drawing one of several enthusiastic rounds of applause from the crowd in an MIT lecture hall.
+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Pwn2Own contest highlights renewed hacker focus on kernel issues + Apple engineers could walk away from FBI’s iPhone demands
"What happened in 2013 couldn't have happened without free software," he said, particularly citing projects like Tor, Tails (a highly secure Linux distribution) and Debian.
Snowden argued that free software's transparency and openness are cornerstones to preserving user privacy in the connected age. It isn't that all commercial products are bad, nor that all corporations are evil – he singled out Apple's ongoing spat with the FBI as an example of a corporation trying to stand up for its users – merely that citizens should not have to rely on them to uphold the right to privacy.
"I didn't use Microsoft machines when I was in my operational phase, because I couldn't trust them," Snowden stated. "Not because I knew that there was a particular back door or anything like that, but because I couldn't be sure."
Private data, these days, only stays private at the sufferance of the major tech companies that administer devices and services, he argued. Given the increasing centrality of smartphones and social networks and the myriad of other digital communication methods to modern life, simply trusting that those tech companies will protect their users' privacy is insufficient.
Relying on corporations to protect private data is bad enough in a vacuum – but Snowden pointed out that many tech giants have already proven more than willing to hand over user data to a government they rely on for licensing and a favorable regulatory climate.
He particularly singled out service providers as being complicit in overreaching government surveillance.
"We can't control telecom partners," Snowden stated. "We're very vulnerable to them."
However, protecting privacy is gaining mindshare, he added. Increasingly, a digitalJoshua Freeman, CP24.com
A picketer who was struck by an aggressive driver at York University Friday says he feels lucky to be alive.
“When he flew around this corner I thought I was gone,” picketer Terry Conlin said Friday.
Conlin was walking the picket line near the Rexall Centre with other striking workers when a vehicle approached around 11:45 a.m.
“We had just put our safety barrier back in position and the first car that approached – the driver got out of the car and threw the barrier aside and was swearing and yelling,” Conlin said. “A couple members of the line approached and tried to tell him that it was a legal picket and he should not be doing what he did. He just swore and got back in the car.”
But Conlin said what happened next left him astonished.
“He accelerated –and not gently. He hit my knee. I buckled forward onto the hood of the car and he flew around the corner at incredible speed,” he said.
With Conlin still on the hood, the driver continued and turned a corner onto Hoover Road, driving at least 500 yards, by his estimate.
“When he flew around this corner I thought I was gone. When he turned onto Hoover I thought I was gone,” Conlin said. “If I had not been able to hold on, I don’t think I’d be talking to you right now.”
He said the driver eventually stopped the car and ordered him off the hood before driving away.
Toronto Paramedic Services looked Conlin over at the scene, but he declined to go to hospital.
Paramedics said another man in his 50s who was struck by the vehicle was taken to hospital to be treated for a knee injury.
The vehicle, a black, four-door sedan, left the scene after the incident but was later identified, police said.
Some 3,700 teaching assistants and other staff have been picketing at the university since Tuesday after they voted to reject the latest contract offer from the school. The move prompted the school to cancel classes, though campus facilities remain open.
Teaching assistants at the University of Toronto are also on strike and have been picketing since Monday.
The striking workers say their main issues are job security and wages.
@Josh_F is on Twitter. Remember for instant breaking news follow @cp24 on Twitter.“A good organizer is a social arsonist who goes around setting people on fire.”
—Fred Ross (1910 – 1992)
On June 9, 1952, Fred Ross knocked on the door of a modest house on San Jose’s eastside. The house belonged to Cesar Chavez, then an anonymous 25-year-old struggling to support his family through part-time work at a lumberyard. Ross launched into his pitch, talking about how Mexican Americans could become a political force, but Chavez was initially skeptical. Who was this guy, walking the dusty barrio and sharing fantastic tales of what could happen if folks got organized? As Chavez admitted, “The first time I met Fred Ross, he was about the last person I wanted to see.”
But as Ross highlighted past accomplishments, Chavez’ skepticism began to fade. “He started talking—and changed my life,” Chavez later remarked. “Fred did such a good job of explaining how poor people could build power that I could even taste it. I thought, gee, it’s like digging a hole. There’s nothing complicated about it.”
The episode was vintage Ross. As an organizer, he spent his life knocking on doors and breaking down barriers, encouraging and training people to stand up and fight back. A few years after taking Chavez under his organizing wing, Ross came across Dolores Huerta, then a single mother who planned on a career in teaching. After meeting Ross, Huerta launched into a lifetime of activism, and later helped Chavez do what everyone said was impossible: organize farm workers.
Ross soon became Chavez’s organizing mentor, and for the next decade they crisscrossed the state of California, forming chapters of the Community Service Organization (CSO), the most powerful Mexican American organization of its day (at the height of the McCarthy era, no less).
Although Ross was one of the most influential grassroots organizers of the twentieth century—mentoring individuals like Chavez and Dolores Huerta, running the Dustbowl migrant camp fictionalized by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath, securing the release of Japanese-American internees during World War II, organizing black and Latino parents to help end school segregation in California, going on to spearhead a campaign that elected the first Latino to Los Angeles’s city council since the 1800s, and strategizing with Saul Alinsky—he remained largely in the background, unknown to the general public. As Ross was fond of stating, “An organizer is a leader who does not lead but gets behind the people and pushes.” He spent his life pushing people to lead—in migrant camps, in living rooms, on picket lines—and was so effective that he pushed himself right out of most history books.
Ross’s Background
Ross was born in San Francisco on August 23, 1910. His parents, both politically conservative, moved to Los Angeles soon after, where Ross grew up in the sheltered middle-class neighborhood of Echo Park. His first contact with the world of left-wing politics came at the University of Southern California, where he enrolled in 1932 and became close friends with a student named Eugene Wolman. Wolman was a dedicated unionist and Communist who traveled to Spain to fight against the fascist regime of Franco as part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. His courage, and death on the battlefield, would serve as a lifelong spur to Ross, who graduated from USC in 1936 and, unable to find a teaching job during the Depression, became a relief worker.
After three years of relief work, Ross became manager of the federally-run Arvin Migratory Camp, located near Bakersfield. Arvin was home to hundreds of desperate dustbowl refugees, and was the camp fictionalized by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath. The former camp manager had been tossed out after residents accused him of numerous acts of violence, and Ross’ first duty was to restore their confidence. “What started out as a way to win them [over],” Ross said, “almost immediately became a driving interest to be around them, learn about them, pick up their stories. If you are really interested, listening comes naturally.”
Arvin served both as a key training ground and political education for the future organizer. Ross learned how to gain people’s confidence, organized an elected council responsible for making many of the day-to-day decisions within the community, and supported a strike of cotton workers. It was at Arvin that Ross also came to know Woody Guthrie, who visited frequently and sung for the striking workers.
When the U.S. entered World War II, Ross shifted positions to the War Relocation Authority, and spent most of the war years in Cleveland, seeking jobs and housing for Japanese-Americans, which allowed them to be released from internment camps.
After the war he returned to Southern California to help establish multi-racial “unity leagues” as an organizer with the American Council on Race Relations. Organizing African-American and Latino parents in the citrus belt, Ross led voter registration efforts—which tossed out a racist politician in Riverside, and helped integrate schools. His work fed into the first successful federal school desegregation case in the country, Mendez vs. Westminster—which occurred seven years before Brown vs. Board. It was during this period that Ross discovered what would be his life’s major work: organizing Mexican Americans in California.
Hearing of Ross’ exploits, Saul Alinsky hired him in 1947, marking the beginning of a long partnership. With funds secured by Alinsky, Ross spent the next decade serving as a key catalyst to the birth of Latino political power in California. He formed the Community Service Organization (CSO) with Edward Roybal, directing a groundbreaking voter registration drive in East Los Angeles that resulted in the election of Roybal to city council in 1949—the first Latino council member since the 1800s. Using this success as a springboard, Ross spent the 1950s visiting barrios across the state, helping to form 22 chapters of the CSO. The CSO helped crack down on public brutality; registered half a million Latinos to vote; passed statewide legislation to grant pensions to 50,000 non-citizen farmworkers; and elected a number of leaders to local political office. The people who came out of the CSO—like Chavez, Huerta, and many others—would go on to play pivotal roles in the United Farm Workers and Chicano civil rights movements of the 1960s.
After leaving the CSO in the early 1960s, Ross helped organize residents of Guadalupe, Arizona—home to both Mexican-Americans and Yaqui Indians—resulting in the group securing paved roads, stop signs, and other basic necessities from politicians who had long ignored their concerns.
He then moved east for two years, where he taught organizing basics to students at Syracuse University. By now he had developed his own method, which relied heavily on a “house meeting” strategy that uses intimate living room gatherings as a means to build a broad organization. The campaign in Syracuse, funded through federal “War on Poverty” money, sought to organize African-American residents living in decrepit public housing. The Syracuse project soon generate national controversy—here was the government, after all, paying organizers to stir up protestors who then challenged government policies—and funding was soon pulled.
Ross returned to the California in 1966. By this time, Chavez and the farmworkers were locked in what likely amounted to a do-or-die struggle with the Teamsters over who would represent workers at DiGiorgio, a giant grower in the San Joaquin Valley. Ross was tasked with leading the election drive, in what amounted to a coming home affair: the cotton pickers who went out on strike at Arvin in 1939—and were crushed with violence—had been DiGiorgio employees. Ross worked around the clock with a team of organizers to defeat the much wealthier Teamsters, who had the tacit support of the company.
Ross would go on to spend the late 1960s and 70s assisting Chavez and the UFW with various elections and boycotts, training thousands of UFW volunteers in his organizing strategy. The list of Ross trainees is long and impressive, including Eliseo Medina—until recently a top leader of SEIU and now a key advocate for immigration reform—and Marshall Ganz, who helped design Barack Obama’s 2008 field campaign.
Ross, married twice and with three children, continued to organize into the 1980s, conducting trainings for a wide array of groups that tackled everything from U.S. intervention in Central America to nuclear disarmament. His final organizing project was with Neighbor to Neighbor, a group headed by his son, Fred Ross, Jr., which successfully pressured the Congress in 1987 to cut U.S. military aid to the Contras in Nicaragua.
Ross was the author of Conquering Goliath: Cesar Chavez at the Beginning, along with a pamphlet called Axioms for Organizers. One of his favorite axioms described the role of the organizer: “A good organizer is a social arsonist who goes around setting people on fire.”
In 1985, Ross told an interviewer, “All my life I’ve been looking to go to work with people who are in trouble of some kind. My goal was to help the people do away with fear—fear to speak up and demand their rights.”
On September 27, 1992, the 82-year-old Ross, who had set so many people on fire over the course of his long life, passed away in San Rafael. At his memorial, Jerry Cohen, the creative and combative lawyer for the UFW, remembered Ross with these words: “Fred fought more fights and trained more organizers and planted more seeds of righteous indignation than anyone we’re ever likely to see again.”
—By Gabriel Thompson, author the biography, America’s Social Arsonist: Fred Ross and Grassroots Organizing in the Twentieth Century (University of California Press, 2016). Thompson is an author and journalist who’s work appears regularly in The Nation and has written for the New York Times, Mother Jones, ColorLines, amongst others. His books include: Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won’t Do (Nation Books, 2010), There’s No José Here: Following the Hidden Lives of Mexican Immigrants, and Calling All Radicals: How Grassroots Organizers Can Help Save Our Democracy. Read more at www.gabrielthompson.org.
Further ReadingShortly after taking office, President Obama congratulated Iraqis on successful provincial elections. "Millions of Iraqi citizens from every ethnic and religious group went peacefully to the polls across the country to choose new provincial councils," he declared on Jan. 31. But this was not quite the case. In the three provinces that comprise Iraqi Kurdistan, the regional parliament postponed the vote until May 19. Only recently have plans been made to hold the elections.
In Iraq, elections are critical. They improve security by legitimizing power relationships while allowing people to vent frustration. In the Jan. 31 provincial elections, Iraqis chose for the most part to "throw the bums out," selecting candidates who they thought would abandon narrow sectarian objectives and best address their problems at the local level. The question now is whether a similar degree of freedom will exist in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Iraqi Kurdish officials have long touted their region as democratic. In January, regional President Massoud Barzani declared, "The culture of democracy has to be promoted and deeply rooted." His son Masrour, head of the region's intelligence service, wrote that Kurdistan's "commitment to democracy and tolerance made us natural U.S. allies." The Web site of the region's investment arm describes Iraqi Kurdistan as "a place that has practiced democracy for over a decade."
And before Saddam Hussein was ousted, Iraqi Kurdistan was certainly more democratic than the rest of Iraq. But this is no longer the case.
Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the party of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, refuse to compete in open elections, choosing instead to divide power equally. While more benign than Hussein's Baath Party, Kurdish authorities have adopted the Baathist model, requiring party membership to guarantee university slots, qualify for the best jobs or win lucrative contracts. Independent candidates report intimidation and threats.
In the past four years, there have been three competitive elections in Iraq, more than Syria, Egypt or Saudi Arabia have managed in the past four decades. With each election, Iraq's democracy has solidified. In January 2005, voters selected parties from a nationwide list. Such a system undercut representative democracy by divorcing politicians from local concerns and making them dependent on party bosses to whom they had to pledge fealty. The system evolved by the next round of voting, in December 2005: While still based on proportional representation rather than individual constituencies (as in the United States), candidates ran by province, forcing them to be more responsive to constituents. The provincial elections this year heralded more reform: Iraqis could choose individual candidates from lists or even choose independent candidates; they did not have to vote a party slate. And while in the 2005 elections the parties coalesced along ethnic and confessional lines, in January, Shiite parties ran independently of each other, allowing voters rather than party bosses the ultimate say in their representation.
In contrast to the rest of Iraq, Kurdish parties have already cemented alliances and power-sharing agreements. Voters in Iraqi Kurdistan will not have the benefit of real competition or open lists. Nor will they be able to choose among individuals.
In a region where corruption and party abuse of power have become dominant issues, this undercuts accountability. Furthermore, the Kurdish parliament -- dominated by the parties of Barzani and Talabani -- has forbidden independent monitoring, which contributed so much to the success of the elections in the rest of Iraq.
After five brutal years, the rest of Iraq is developing real electoral politics that is helping to defuse conflict, create accountability and foster stability. It is possible that, in time, other institutions of the democratic system, including a free parliament and media, will strengthen as a result. This would be a welcome development not only in Iraq but in the rest of the Middle East.
Once, Iraqi Kurdistan touted itself as a model for the rest of Iraq. Now, the Obama administration should do everything it can to ensure that it is not left behind. Abs
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Today one can find Berbers of Tamazgha (North Africa), M?ori of New Zealand, and Atayal of Taiwan with facial tattoos. Tattooing was widespread among Polynesian peoples and among certain tribal groups in the Taiwan, Philippines, Borneo, Mentawai Islands, Africa, North America, South America, Mesoamerica, Europe, Japan, Cambodia, New Zealand and Micronesia. Despite some taboos surrounding tattooing, the art continues to be popular in many parts of the world.
from oddee.comEver since we started The Game Crafter we’ve always been marching toward better and better quality. We’re steadily improving our technology, our processes, and every aspect of our products. Today we’re announcing two huge advancements along those lines.
First, as of yesterday, we printed our last card on our existing card stock. As of order #69282 (and possibly some orders before that) we’re pleased to announce that we’ve upgraded to the very best card stock in the industry. It is used by thousands of games around the world, including ever popular trading card games. It is a 305 gsm card stock with a black core. The black core means that no light can pass through the cards regardless of what is or is not printed on either side. It has vastly better edge quality, slightly better finish, shuffles better, and has better snap than our old card stock. We did a blind test by printing a deck of cards using our old stock and this new stock and let unsuspecting people give us their opinions of each. 100% of the people in the blind test preferred the new card stock. Not only that, but you (our community) have voted for us to make this switch.
This new card stock is slightly more expensive, so that got us to take a look at what we were charging for all of our components that are made out of card stock. The good news is that the vast majority of them were priced exactly correctly.
However, some were priced too low. For example, our poker cards have been the same price since we started the service 6 years ago, despite our costs going up dramatically over that time. As a result some prices have had to increase. As an example, our poker cards will be increasing in price by about half a cent each.
But just as some prices had to increase, some prices were able to come down a bit. For example, our square cards were able to drop by almost a cent a piece. Our servers are recalculating the costs of all your games now, but you can check out the new pricing on our pricing page.
As the headline said, card stock is not the only thing improving. Today we can also announce that our bulk pricing has just gotten ridiculously better. First and foremost, you now get our best bulk price at 100 units rather than 250 units! In addition, bulk pricing starts at 10 copies instead of 25. And finally, bulk pricing discounts get better at intervals of 10 rather than 50 copies. As an example, you used to have to buy 50 copies to get the discount you can now achieve at only 20 copies!
Enjoy!Since the digital currency's mysterious creation in 2008, buying and selling has been handled largely by online exchanges, which Gruzowski says are too complicated for everyday users. "Here we have it in a Westfield shopping centre where it's available immediately and securely for everyone," he said. "We want to allow every Australian to easily buy and sell bitcoin." Users can register an account on the ATM in about five minutes. The machine scans their government-issued photo ID, such as a driver's licence, and uses facial recognition technology to verify that their face matches the photo. Users also scan their palm on the machine, which is used along with a PIN and their phone number to verify their identity in future transactions.
Once an account is set up, users can buy or sell bitcoin at the market price. They can add bitcoin to their virtual wallet by feeding in cash or cards, and can sell bitcoins to extract cash. ABA Technologies makes money in a similar way to a foreign exchange, by buying and selling at different amounts and claiming the difference. All transactions are secured by SSL cryptography and are immune to the recent Heartbleed bug that is wreaking havoc on the internet, Gruzowski said. The ATM was bought from Robocoin, the US firm credited with providing the world's first bitcoin ATM, which appeared in a Vancouver cafe in October. It will be the 11th Robocoin ATM to launch worldwide, said the company's spokesman Sam Glaser.
He declined to disclose how many transactions the ATMs average per day, but said "even the slowest" was on track to handle more than $US1 million in transactions in its first year. The launch comes as National Australia Bank said last week it would close the accounts of vendors involved in bitcoin trade by early May. In letters to clients effected by the move, NAB said it viewed digital currencies as too risky to its business and reputation. But Gruzowski said he was unfazed by NAB's decision. "We're very confident that they'll see the prospect of this technology, and we really want to work with them to grow."
Experts are less convinced. Professor David Glance, the head of software practice at the University of Western Australia, said the NAB move was a big blow. "It makes it clear that the major institutions have no desire to make digital currencies work," he said. "This is a really bad time to be launching devices like this." The addition of biometric steps such as face and palm scanning also risked turning people off by stripping away much-coveted anonymity and making the machines "harder to use than normal ATMs".
"At present, there is not a compelling reason to be involved in cryptocurrencies other than investment reasons and for those people with the appetite for risk, they are likely to be buying their currency online." Nevertheless, Gruzowski said bitcoin has massive potential, particularly for online shopping and cheap, quick cross-border money transfers. ABA (Australian Bitcoin ATMS) Technologies recently acquired a fellow bitcoin vendor, Krypto Currency Solutions, and has ordered several machines from RoboCoin and three other vendors with plans to release the next in Melbourne in the near future. AAPBusiness-focused social network LinkedIn, retailer Lumber Liquidators, growing ETF power WisdomTree Investments, cloud-based enterprise software company Workday and 3D-printing outfit 3D Systems don't have much in common. Except for the fact that analysts from Jefferies think all five could see their stocks double over the next two years.
In a lengthy note to clients Wednesday, Jefferies highlighted the five aforementioned stocks along with 23 others they believe have the potential to double in price over the next two years or so, through a combination of earnings growth and multiple expansion.
The thinking goes that a small subset of the S&P 1500 doubles over every two-year stretch. According to Jefferies, an average of 67 companies have had trailing two-year returns better than 100% dating back to 2006, a period that encompasses both the brutal financial crisis and the stirring rise off the bottom.
Not surprisingly, far more stocks returned more than 100% for the two-year period ended in 2013. Helping drive a 54% return for the index, about one-fifth of its components delivered a double. Even if the broader market struggles to keep pace with its five-year flurry off the March 2009 bottom, Jefferies finds that two-year winners turn up in almost any type of market environment and picks 28 it currently recommends that could be the next crop (see the table below for the full list of stocks).
The list produced by Jefferies isn't just a call to buy the momentum stocks that have been beaten up thus far in 2014. While the average year-to-date performance of the 28 stocks is a negative 8% -- perhaps marking an opportune time to get in – the expected growth in earnings per share between now and 2015 for the group ranges from a whopping 381% on the high side (dry bulk shipper Diana Shipping) to just 10.3% on the low end (chipmaker Intel ). A few list members -- biotech names Dyax, Five Prime Therapeutics and Rigel Pharmaceuticals -- aren't expected to be profitable.
Some stocks on the Jefferies list are multiple expansion stories, like Intel. The analysts think capturing more of the tablet market will help boost the tech stalwarts revenues and improve margins, which should drop more of that top line figure to the bottom line. In its latest quarterly report Tuesday, Intel said its transition is making progress, pointing to growth in data centers and its 'Internet of things" group that helped offset a decline in the PC business.
Among the growth stories, where rising sales or secular trends should contribute to a rising share price, 3D Systems can thrive if, as Jefferies expects, 3D printing expands into broader applications and skepticism about its adoption abates. The risk of Hewlett-Packard entering the space looks to be a double-edged sword, since its big pocketbook could either overwhelm smaller players or prove to be currency for acquisitions in the industry. (See "Is HP Getting In After The Gold Rush?")
In social media, Jefferies figures a LinkedIn double will be driven by 30% revenue growth and rising margins, spurred in part by the second half launch of a product for sales leads. The firm thinks that business could be a bigger opportunity than its talent hunting segment.
The sluggish growth in the U.S. economy has many investors concerned about retail and consumer-facing businesses, but the Jefferies team is bullish on Lumber Liquidators because it expects sales to grow at a 15-30% annual clip, which would look pretty good to investors desperate for growth. An investigation into the company's sourcing of wood flooring products by U.S. authorities should not have a significant impact on gross margins, which have risen substantially over the past few years.
Another company with fat margins that Jefferies mentions is WisdomTree, the ETF provider that has fallen by a third in 2014 after nearly tripling last year. The company's AUM is tilted heavily to emerging markets (25%) and Japan (35%), the analysts note, and with the latter market struggling to start the year outflows were a concern in the first quarter.
Jefferies sees AUM growing 50-65% organically and through acquisition though, with accompanying margin improvement.
A similar view comes from money manager Craig Hodges, who owns WisdomTree in the $1.1 billion (assets) Hodges Small Cap Fund. Hodges – who I profile in the latest issue of Forbes – admits the holding has some elements of a hedge, since ETFs are taking a greater piece of the pie from active managers like himself, but raves about WisdomTree's business.
"It's one of the only pure-plays in the ETF space," he says. The risk is that a significant chunk of assets are in the Japan fund, but Hodges is confident the firm will be able to keep pace with changing investor appetites. "They're giving people what they want."
Another big growth name on Jefferies' list is Workday, the cloud-based enterprise software company that has risen like a rocket since its October 2012 IPO. The shares have sold off substantially since peaking near $110 in late February, which makes for an attractive entry point if the company's move into new areas area from its core human resources and payroll functions is fruitful.
Big customer wins could go a long way to making Workday a player in the space long-dominated by SAP and Oracle. While valuation is a concern – Workday trades at a higher multiple to sales than Salesforce.com did at a similar period in its history – Jefferies is forecasting a revenue growth rate of 55% for the next four years that would put revenue at $1.6 billion in 2017.
Follow @SchaeferStreetOLD IRVING PARK — Though opponents of a proposed athletic field at Schurz High School dominated the discussion during a community meeting Wednesday night, proponents of the project, which would require the closing of a portion of Waveland Avenue, had the last word.
"These First World problems — we're talking about driving two blocks out of your way — are never a legitimate reason to take something like this opportunity away from kids," said resident Paul Kozlowski, one of the final speakers during an often contentious three-hour public forum held in the school's auditorium.
Ald. John Arena (45th), who hosted and moderated the gathering, set out his goals at the beginning of the evening: to communicate a description of the project and create a dialogue to measure the proposal's feasibility.
A rendering of one of the proposals for a new athletic field at Schurz High School, which would require closing a portion of Waveland Avenue. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Patty Wetli
"All of this is in the 'Let's ask questions' phase. If we make this change, what would work for you?" he said.
Acknowledging that the proposal for the field had crossed his desk in 2013, Arena said he waited to go public with the project while he gathered information about whether the concept was at all possible from an infrastructure and funding standpoint.
"We only got that in the last couple of months — that's why we're here tonight," he said.
The Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation, under the auspices of the Take the Field program, is willing to contribute $500,000 toward the field's anticipated $1.5 million tab, with Arena kicking in another $500,000 in Tax Increment Finance dollars.
Sources for the remainder of the costs had yet to be identified, the alderman said, and the final price tag would depend on desired amenities — in addition to a soccer field, the athletic campus could include a softball diamond, tennis court or playground.
Presentations followed from Schurz Principal Daniel Kramer and representatives from the Chicago Park District (which would manage public programs at the field) and the Chicago Department of Transportation.
"We will not be installing a P.A. system," Kramer said, shooting down one persistent rumor.
"Fancy" porta-potties would be positioned on the field's perimeter, he added, and lights would operate on timers — switched on as needed when the field is in use and turned off when play is over.
Kramer also said that "absolutely no adult leagues will be allowed to book time on this field."
It was a statement Arena reiterated several times throughout the proceedings.
"We will have a contract that will say we will not have adult leagues," said the alderman. "I can't say it any clearer."
In order for Schurz to build a regulation-size soccer field — meaning games played on the field would be officially recognized by the Illinois High School Association — the portion of Waveland Avenue that runs between Lowell and Milwaukee would be closed off to cars.
The IHSA requires that soccer fields measure 300 feet long and 195 feet wide, with 10 additional feet of clearance on all sides, according to Bob Foster, senior project manager for the Chicago Park District. Schurz' existing practice field can't accommodate the necessary length, he said. Therefore, the new field would have to encroach into adjacent space on Waveland Avenue in order to meet IHSA standards.
Some residents asked why build a soccer field instead of a track or some other athletic field that wouldn't eat up real estate on Waveland. Kramer responded that soccer is a sport played by both male and female students, so the field would benefit athletes of both genders. The school's soccer teams are on the cusp of being competitive at the state level, he added.
"I have girls that are all-city and all-sectional," said Colleen Antas, coach of Schurz' girls soccer squad.
But the condition of the current field — which turns into a mud pit for days after a rain — makes reaching the next level a challenge, she said.
"We had the first eight games of our season cancelled because we couldn't play on our field," said Antas. "Other CPS schools won't come here."
For such a small number of games — Kramer said the field would host approximately 17 soccer contests — residents questioned whether that was worth the inconvenience of shutting off Waveland.
"Is that what we want to do? Close off a street for that many games?" asked Sarada Amani, a long-time resident of Old Irving Park.
Residents complained that navigating the neighborhood's complex maze of one-way streets — with just two access points off of Milwaukee Avenue, including Waveland — was already challenging enough, as they detailed the twists and turns of their daily commutes with Mapquest-like precision.
"I kind of have a suburban mentality... that's why I live here," said Amani. "If I can't access Six Corners easily" via Waveland to Milwaukee, "I'm going to Old Orchard."
A neighbor, who asked to be identified only as Teresa, countered: "This street isn't everything. How can this be everything to our neighborhood? It's one little street."
Kramer conceded blocking off Waveland was a tall order.
"I feel very badly when I hear the concerns," he said. "I'm asking you to consider what you're getting. It would be a very big deal for us."
The school just posted its highest ACT scores in 14 years and dropout rates have fallen from 8 percent to 2 percent since Kramer arrived at the school five years ago, he said.
But getting Schurz to the place where it's considered a viable choice for the neighborhood's families is another matter altogether, the principal said.
"Schurz, at one time, was the heart of this community... and that is not the case now," Kramer said.
The field, as ironic as it may seem given the outcry it's caused, is an opportunity for Schurz to build and strengthen the school's relationship with neighbors, he said.
"What I want to see is our kids on that field and when they're not, to see your kids and you on that field," said Kramer.
Cutting off comment at 10 p.m., Arena said the next step would be the creation of a steering committee, made up of community members and representatives from Schurz Local School Council.
"We have to have an educated conversation about access. The steering committee will tell us if it's feasible, if things can be worked out," he said. "Let's stay open to possibilities."Smugglers used carrot-shaped packages to hide the alleged marijuana. Smugglers used carrot-shaped packages to hide the alleged marijuana. Photo: CBP/courtesy Photo: CBP/courtesy Image 1 of / 17 Caption Close Drug smugglers put 2,500 pounds of pot into these fake carrots on the Texas-Mexico border 1 / 17 Back to Gallery
Border agents found more than a ton of alleged marijuana creatively smuggled in a shipment of fresh carrots at the Texas-Mexico border this weekend.
A big rig hauling a produce shipment from Mexico caught the eye of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on Jan. 10 at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge cargo facility.
After tagging the tractor trailer for a more in-depth, secondary inspection, agents discovered the alleged marijuana hidden inside carrot-shaped packages that were packed along with the legit vegetables.
Read Full ArticleDonald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE lashed out at Democratic leader Harry Reid Harry Mason ReidSenate confirms Trump court pick despite missing two 'blue slips' Can Lindsey Graham take the politics out of judicial battles? Bottom Line MORE after some harsh words from the Nevada senator.
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In an interview published Thursday, The Washington Post asked Trump about Reid’s assertion that Trump is “not slim and trim” after he released some medical information.
“Harry Reid? I think he should go back and start working out again with his rubber work-out pieces,” Trump said.
The comment was an apparent swipe at Reid’s exercise accident last year in which a resistance band snapped and caused Reid to fall, breaking ribs and facial bones and partially blinding him.
On the Senate floor Thursday, Reid said Trump is a “spoiled brat” who wants to "scam" the country.- Advertisement -
With only one episode of Sense8 left I think it was safe to assume that these last few episode would close some conflicts that have been stirring all season. Now knowing that, one question that comes to mind is just how satisfying were these conclusions. And seeing that I’ve never been able to completely invest in these characters to begin with, the arcs they did close were pretty damn great!
First off we get some sweet revenge for all the savage imagery of Wolfgang growing up. Sure it may have taken a long time for us to realize why he hated his family so much. But now that we know the motivation behind it, seeing him get revenge for his best friend and a little retribution from growing up makes this scene work. Also the RPG definitely helps.
Now after the incident with Wolfgang, Lito has taken some of that courage and resolve to do what he was, up until now, afraid to do and go save Daniela. This scene is great because it sort of reminded me of the first time Capheus went to get his mothers medicine back. He knew full well that he probably wouldn’t stand a chance, but went anyway due to his selfless nature. Now we get to see Lito break free from his selfish nature and do something for someone else. (Even though there may have been side benefits for doing so). We really got to see Lito grow and it seems believable seeing the action that brought forth his growth really rocked his world, as was seen in previous episodes. Also, what a way to end it with an uppercut to the jaw!
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And speaking of Capheus, his arc is the last one they wrapped up. Now while the show sort of made it seem like he had a hard decision to make about giving up Silas’ daughter. But I always sort of knew that he would do anything to keep that from happening. Capheus certainly has a gentle heart and would rather see himself go through pain rather than someone he loves. In the end his decision really solidified his character if it wasn’t already apparent. It also solidified Sun as the one who comes and bails him out when he gets in over his head.
As for the big remaining conflict, it seems that one or a few of the main 8 will meet before this season is done. With Riley now in the same situation as Nomi was, it’s only a matter of time before Whispers gets a hold of her. Luckily this time Will and Nomi are ready to attack as well, and won’t give up Riley without a fight.
Also I’m pretty sure this part I’m about to talk about is a set-up for later seasons so its definitely worth mentioning, at the least to keep in the back of your mind. Will and Jonas have another talk and in this talk Jonas reveals that there are two different types of humans. And not in the just being special sense. They’re two completely first species of human. Thats how Jonas phrases it anyway. He also makes it sound like that sensate were the first humans until humans evolved into our kind so they could be more ruthless. I watched that part again just to make sure, and thats pretty much what he means. So there is definitely stuff to dig in there as well. And surely Sense8 has more to come with the next episode.Advertisement
1. Not You're/Your Wi-Fi Media Source If you're going to make up a snarky Wi-Fi network name, you're going to have to make sure your grammar is up to you're your standards.
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2. Meat Is Murder Media Source It's a shame these two have to argue. Why can't they both be right?
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3. Eavesdropping Neighbors Media Source It seems like behaving in an "adult" fashion is what caused this mess in the first place.
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4. Paper Thief Media Source You'd think someone with Internet access would realize newspapers are now online and free.
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5. Whose/Who's Your Daddy Media Source Someone's daddy is apparently a grammar professor.
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6. Shut Your Dog Up Media Source There's nothing worse than having a neighbor with a loud dog. Except, maybe, having a neighbor who's too much of a coward to talk to you in person.
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7. Too Much Information Media Source If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
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8. Star Wi-Fi Wars Media Source When one user named his network, "Darth's Private AP, hands off," everyone else in the area followed suit. Darth then tried making prequels to his Wi-Fi network, but they were incredibly disappointing.
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9. Wi-Fi Taunting Media Source This person might be a jerk who steals your Wi-Fi, but at least they're also giving out some handy advice.
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10. Got My Own Media Source Hmm...this one maybe isn't so much a Wi-Fi war as it is someone who's just super cooperative.
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11. Batcave - Part 1 Of 5 Media Source Batcave is learning why you shouldn't have an unsecured network.
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12. Batcave - Part 2 of 5 Media Source Batcave may not know much about computers, so a third party is trying to help.
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13. Batcave - Part 3 Of 5 Media Source Batcave may have figured it out, but the taunting continues.
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14. Batcave - Part 4 Of 5 Media Source Batcave is confident that mentioning the Dave Matthews Band will end things once and for all.
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15. Batcave - Part 5 Of 5 Media Source Batcave loses the battle, with a diss of the Dave Matthews Band. If this guy can make fun of of DMB, he's clearly a super-genius incapable of defeat.ELIZABETH, N.J. -- One person is dead and two others are in critical condition following a powerful house explosion in Elizabeth on Wednesday morning, authorities said.
Officials say as many as five people may be trapped in the debris.
The blast left the house badly damaged, and firefighters were seen treating victims on stretchers outside after rescuing them, reports CBS New York. Two other homes also suffered damage.
Elizabethtown Gas was on the scene to investigate whether gas was the cause. The Twitter user, @lulune6c, posted that there is a strong gas odor in the area.
Just got home from work! A house in my neighborhood just exploded @News12NJ pic.twitter.com/14oNzsxnyA — Lulu (@lulune6c) November 11, 2015
"It sounded like a plane crash and I thought it was because we are so close to the airport," said neighbor Kayon Pryce. "I was on the phone and the phone blew out of my hand."
Pryce also said the house that exploded is a two-family unit with an apartment in the garage. He said the first floor tenants had just moved in.The most un-American of all American cities is bathed in literary culture. Anisse Gross investigates Hawaiian detective novels and alerts us to stories of Pearl Harbor, examines Hawaii’s oral tradition and sifts through the many writers who spent time on its sands – from marathon correspondent Hunter S Thompson to novice surfer Mark Twain
Honolulu. The most un-American of all American cities. Honolulu is both the westernmost and southernmost major American city and the most remote city in the world – its geography the first act of distancing itself from the United States. The city does not think of itself as American, and conversely, when thinking of American cities, no one thinks of Honolulu.
Roughly translating to “calm port”, Honolulu is the only American city with a royal palace, a reminder of the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, subsequent annexation and eventual American statehood in 1959, the same year James Michener published his epic historical saga Hawaii, a 937-page chronicle of the island which goes all the way back to the lava flow which gave the island birth.
In 1846 the Honolulu Police Department was established, perhaps providing inspiration Earl Derr Biggers’s detective novels starring fictional Chinese detective Charlie Chan. Apparently based on real Honolulu detective Chang Apana, the protagonist was meant to serve as a rebuttal to the stereotyped Chinese villains in films and books.
While Honolulu is mostly thought of by Americans as a tourist destination, it’s also a connective port between Asia and the United States, making it a central nexus of business, immigration and the military. The 19th century saw obsessive attempts by global powers to control the islands; Hawaii has always had an influence and lure greatly disproportionate to its size.
The cross-section of Pacific and Asian cultures that arrived brought to Hawaii a mix of races, food and languages
The cross-section of Pacific and Asian cultures that arrived brought a mix of races, food and languages. Alan Brennert’s Honolulu follows the lives of Korean immigrants in the early 20th century, focusing on a female protagonist, Regret. She escapes Korea as a mail-order bride, looking for education and a better life, but finds herself married to violent man who works on the plantations. This account of exchanging subjugation in one country for oppression in another gives a terrific portrait of early Asian immigrants to the islands.
Authors have come as well. From the visitors who penned tales there passing through, including Mark Twain, Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson and Somerset Maugham to authors, like Paul Theroux, who end up calling it home – the island city has long held a magnetic attraction to foreigners.
Those travellers often stay in Waikiki. Once a playground for royalty, the beaches of Waikiki still attract throngs of tourists year round. Paul Theroux penned a satirical novel, Hotel Honolulu, about a 49-year-old writer down on his luck who lands a job managing a hotel and showing us a cross-section of those who pass through. There’s even a bar in Waikiki named after the 1925 Charlie Chan novel, House Without a Key.
What you read of Hawaii is largely written in English and often by people born elsewhere. Before the missionaries arrived, the islands held an oral tradition. Mary Kawena Puku‘i, Hawaiian historian and author, preserves the Hawaiian culture with books like Olelo No‘eau, a collection of over 3,000 proverbs and sayings, relating the beliefs and practices of the Hawaiian peoples.
Trouble in paradise is an evergreen theme. Behind the wafting scent of plumerias is the shadow city tourists never see
The Hawaiian language as it was condensed into written form by missionaries, consists of just twelve letters – five vowels, seven consonants – plus an ‘okina, which is a reversed apostrophe to indicate a glottal stop between two syllables, helping visitors to pronounce names like Ka‘a‘awa (Kah-ah-ah-vah). However Hawaiian is a nearly extinct language; you’re more likely to catch the local pidgin dialect, used often in the novels and stories written by authors born and raised in the islands.
Local staple Pidgin’ to Da Max is an illustrated comic guide to the language, which opens with the caveat: “Remember Pidgin’ to Da Max is not a tourist guide to pidgin. So don’t try to speak it after reading this book. You’ll just get in trouble.”
Trouble in paradise is an evergreen theme for writers of Hawaii. Behind the island’s scent of plumerias and sunny face is the shadow city the tourists never see. Alexei Melnick’s novel Tweakerville follows a young drug runner who confronts the devastation of crystal meth, portrayed with vibrant local colour and a deft use of pidgin. Chris McKinney’s teases out the racial complexities of Hawaii in his novel Tattoo, which follows two men, one white, one Japanese local, both serving time in Halawa Correctional Facility. Mark Haskell Smith’s Delicious, a novel about a Las Vegas company moving in on a family-run business in Honolulu, is a page-turning tale which sometimes veers into vulgarity, illustrating that while reception of white mainlanders ranges from tolerance and reservation, it often teeters to outright distaste.
Over 200 years after Captain Cook was killed by native Hawaiians, another white traveller arrived, this time on a 747 and drunk as a skunk. Hunter S Thompson got an assignment – to cover the Honolulu Marathon for Running Magazine – a tale told in his hilarious and little read The Curse of Lono.
Legendary Hawaiian surfer Eddie Aikau. Photograph: eddieaikaufoundation.org
On Thompson’s travels he brings several books with him, including Mark Twain’s Letters from Hawai‘i and the Journal of William Ellis, which relates the 19th-century missionary’s time in the islands, a book whose dry style and decorum are a far cry from the colourful episodes told in Thompson’s rollicking prose, typified by the time he entered his friend Ralph Steadman in the world-class surfing contest, Pipeline Masters.
Much writing and travel to Honolulu involves the longtime royal sport native to the islands – surfing. Jack London wrote of surfing adventures which forced him to stay in bed in The Cruise of the Snark, a 1907 travelogue of sailing to Honolulu. The life of one of Hawaii’s most famous surfers, Eddie Aikau, is chronicled in the pages of Eddie Would Go, by Stuart Coleman, the title evoking Aikau’s willingness to take on the waves when others wouldn’t dare. Even Mark Twain took up the board in 1866, describing it as waiting “for a particularly prodigious billow to come along” and then “whizzing by like a bombshell.”
The waters bring other kinds of visitors, of course, perhaps the most infamous being the Japanese military. The attack on the Honolulu naval base Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 is chronicled in Gordon W Prange’s At Dawn We Slept and Day of Infamy by Walter Lord. Both books make use of extensive research and interview to paint a portrait of a day that changed the once-open feeling of Hawaii’s ports, in a continued echo of the gunboat diplomacy and global powerplays laid out in the 19th century.
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The days of long treacherous voyages are gone and those ports, while guarded, are still open. It is easy now to access the once elusive Honolulu. You don’t need to sail your own yacht like London, or voyage for months on end like Captain Cook. But just because the most isolated city on Earth is now easy to reach doesn’t mean it’s easy to find. Even after reading everything ever written about Honolulu, a visitor might find themselves harboring the same sentiments penned by William Somerset Maugham in 1921: “Nothing had prepared me for Honolulu.”
Anisse Gross is a writer and editor based in San Francisco. She was born and raised in Honolulu. Her website is anissegross.com.Last week I had the pleasure of adventuring to Atlanta, GA to do a little exploring with my family. We made sure to visit many of the more well known spots like the zoo and aquarium, but the place I loved the most was the Center for Puppetry Arts. This museum is filled with, as I’m sure you guessed, puppets. From Jim Henson favorites to pieces from Broadway shows and many old cultural puppets, there’s so much to see, do, and learn here. Although the main reason I wanted to visit was to check out the Labyrinth exhibit, I fell in love with the entire museum by the end of the day.
The Labyrinth Exhibit
From the moment you step into the Labyrinth exhibit, you feel like you’ve actually been transported to Jim Henson’s world. The lights are perfectly dimmed and you can ever so slightly hear the soundtrack playing. I got chills as soon as I walked through the door. This exhibit was filled with the magical wonder that Henson does best.
One of the first props I was greeted by was the friendly blue wall worm. He is one of my favorite characters from the film. I could hear his little ‘Allo and he is just as tiny and cute as I imagined. I was also thrilled to see Lancelot bear and the tiny stuffed Ludo that we see in Sarah’s room. They even have a plaster Hoggle head and the details on his face are just amazing.
Of all of the things I most wanted to see, the costumes and the crystal ball Jareth plays with were at the top of my list. In the back of the exhibit you can find these gems and they do not disappoint.
They have 2 ballroom dancer costumes on display. The attention to detail is just mind-blowing. The costumes are just so gorgeous and the masks are beautifully dark. I could’ve easily stared at these for hours taking in all of the details. Jareth’s costume from the M.C. Escher stair sequence is also in the exhibit. The stair sequence is absolutely brilliant and my favorite part of the entire movie, so seeing this costume was a bit surreal for me. First of all, can we just talk about how TINY Bowie’s legs were. I’m not even sure my arm would fit in his pant leg. I also am in love with his boots and the chest piece on this is just straight up amazing. Let’s just say I had my face pressed up to the glass case for quite some time examining this costume.
I’ve brought you a gift. What is it? It’s a crystal. Nothing more. But if you turn it this way and look into it, it will show you your dreams. But this is not a gift for an ordinary girl who takes care of a screaming baby.
I literally squeed when I saw these. Watching Jareth spin these crystals always entranced me as a kid. I did learn that it was never actually Bowie doing the crystal twirling. Juggler Michael Moschren actually performed the magic through an extra sleeve in Bowie’s coat. So essentially for take after take this guy got to hang out right up next to Bowie…swoon. Jim Henson also commissioned 18 special stands for crystal balls and presented them to the people who helped bring Labyrinth to fruition.
Jim Henson Exhibit
The Center for Puppetry Arts also had an extensive Jim Henson exhibit. I saw some pieces from The Dark Crystal, The Muppets, Fraggle Rock, and even Sesame Street.
The Dark Crystal totally freaked me out as a kid, but I loved it all the same. Jim Henson was a huge part of my childhood so this entire exhibit was really special for me.
The Labyrinth exhibit is on display until October 1, 2017, so if you’re in Atlanta at some point in the next month, you have to check it out. The Center for Puppetry Arts is a true gem and a must see museum. From a wide variety of puppets on display, to puppetry workshops, and even live performances, there is really something for everyone.
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s du roi type of Claude Garamond. Appian was a Greek historian with Roman citizenship. In ‘On not pretending to be ill’ (II.25, trans. Florio), Montaigne relates that ‘As farre as I remember I have read a like historie in some place of Appian’, of a man who disguised himself from his pursuers and pretended to be blind in one eye. When out of danger, he removed his eye patch, only to find that the eye had gone blind.
From the Montaigne Library
Sophocles
Σοφοκλεους τραγωδιαι... Δημητριου του Τρικλινιου περι μετρων οις εχρησατο Σοφοκλης περι σχηματων σχολια
Parisiis: Apud Adrianum Turnebum typographum Regium, 1553
Montaigne’s copy of Sophocles’ tragedies, in the edition of Adrien Turnèbe (1512–1565), who was responsible for overseeing the printing of Greek books at the royal press. Montaigne refers to Turnèbe several times in the Essais. In ‘Of pedantism’ (I.25), Montaigne tells how he would ask Turnèbe for opinions on topics far from Turnèbe’s own experience, only to be given the most lucid and soundly judged answers. Elsewhere he states, ‘Adrianus Turnebus knew more and better, what he knewe, then any man in his age, or of many ages past’ (II.17, ‘Of presumption’, trans. Florio).
From the Montaigne Library
Terence
P. Terentii Comœdiæ sex
Parisiis: Ex officina Roberti Stephani typographi Regii, 1541
Montaigne’s signature on the title-page has been scored through. Underneath is what appears to be an earlier signature, ‘C. Surguierii et amicorum’. There was a Surguier family at Sarlat, the town of La Boétie’s birth. E. Leymarie, in notes facing the title-page, speculated that Montaigne may have acquired the book as part of La Boétie’s library in 1563, but there is no supporting evidence. Later, it belonged to the collector Lucius Wilmerding (1880–1949), along with Montaigne’s copy of Beuther’s Ephemeris.
Montaigne read Terence as a pupil and returned to him throughout his life: ‘I can never reade him so often, but still I discover some new grace and beautie in him’ (II.10, ‘Of books’, trans. Florio).
From the Montaigne Library
Marco Girolamo Vida (c. 1485–1566)
Marci Hieronymi Vidae Cremonensis, Albae episcopi, Opera
Lugduni [Lyons]: Apud Seb. Gryphium, 1541
The inscription facing the title-page tells us the book was ‘The gift of Nicolaus Sandrasius of Paris to Michel Eyquem Montaigne of Bordeaux’, and may be in Montaigne’s hand. Vida was the bishop of Alba. This collection of Latin verse includes the famous Scacchia ludus (‘The game of chess’). A passage is marked, possibly by Montaigne. It uses the lexicon of war to describe the formation of chess pieces at the start of play. The rook, for example, is likened to the military elephant with an armoured tower on its back—it is from this that the use of ‘castle’ for the rook is derived. Montaigne mentions the military elephant twice in the Essais.
From the Montaigne Library
Plutarch
Les œuvres morales & meslées de Plutarque, translatées du grec en françois par Messire Jacques Amyot
A Paris: De l’imprimerie de Michel de Vascosan, 1572. 2 vols
The first edition of Jacques Amyot’s translation of the Moralia, one of the major influences on Montaigne. Amyot’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives had been printed in 1559. Montaigne praises Amyot for his achievement, and for choosing Plutarch to translate: ‘We that are in the number of the ignorant had bin utterly confounded, had not his booke raised us from out the dust of ignorance’ (II.4, ‘Tomorrow is a new day’, trans. Florio). Montaigne used the form of the Moralia as a model for the Essais, and quoted widely from Amyot’s translation. Amyot’s version of the Lives was itself translated by Sir Thomas North (1535–1603?) as the first English edition of 1579.
From the Montaigne Library. Vol. 1
Joachim du Bellay (c. 1522–1560)
Les regrets et autres œuvres poetiques de Joach. du Bellay, Ang.
A Paris: De l’imprimerie de Federic Morel, 1565
Montaigne says that since Ronsard and Du Bellay brought renown to French poetry, every man fancies himself a poet. But these apprentices ‘come … farre short in imitating the rich descriptions of the one, and rare inventions of the other’ (I.26, ‘Of the education of children’).
The wording and position of the inscription on the title-page are unique for Montaigne, and have occasioned doubt over its authenticity. Such a small proportion of Montaigne’s library has survived, however, that it is impossible to say he did not sign other books in the same way. The letter forms and stresses of the inscription may also support a verdict in favour of Montaigne.
From the Montaigne Library
Case 8
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Essais de Messire Michel Seigneur de Montaigne, Chevalier de l’ordre du Roy, & Gentil-homme ordinaire de sa chambre
A Bourdeaus: Par S. Millanges imprimeur ordinaire du Roy, 1580. 2 vols
The first edition of the Essais, with the inscription ‘Sum Ben: Jonsonij Liber’ at the foot of the title-page of the first volume, and the motto ‘Est Tanquam Explorator’ in the middle of the page. In vol. 2, the motto is at the top of the page and the inscription in the lower margin, reading ‘Sum Ben: Jonsonij’. There has been some doubt over their authenticity. David McPherson called them ‘controversial’ (Ben Jonson’s library and marginalia, Chapel Hill, 1974). Henry Woudhuysen, however, accepts the inscription in vol. 1 and the motto in vol. 2 as the normal form, and notes that the others are unusual—without implying that they are forgeries or sophistications, simply that they are unusual forms for Jonson’s books.
This is the ‘second state’ of the title-page, with Montaigne’s titles added.
From the Montaigne Library. Vol. 1
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Essais de Michel Seigneur de Montaigne
Cinquiesme édition, augmentée d’un troisiesme livre et de six cens additions aux deux premiers
A Paris: Chez Abel l’Angelier, 1588
The third book of the Essais is printed here for the first time. This was the last edition to be printed in Montaigne’s lifetime. As well as the addition of a new book, there are numerous insertions and revisions to the first two parts. There are two ‘states’ of the engraved title-page—this is the first. In the second, the word ‘orand’ in the imprint has been corrected to ‘grand’. In many copies the engraving, which is larger than the printed leaves, has been cropped to fit the book, but here it is more or less untouched.
From the Montaigne Library
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Les essais de Michel Seigneur de Montaigne
Edition nouvelle, trouvée après le deceds de l’autheur, reveuë & augmentée par luy d’un tiers plus qu’aux précédentes impressions
A Paris: Chez Abel l’Angelier, 1595
Marie de Gournay, Montaigne’s ‘adoptive daughter’ (fille d’alliance), prepared the text from a transcription of the 1588 edition marked up by Montaigne, known as the ‘Bordeaux copy’. Montaigne’s friend the poet Pierre de Brach assisted her. Gournay dealt scrupulously with printing errors, having some corrected during printing, and emending many others by hand afterwards.
This copy was presented to the English ambassador in Paris, Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury (1660–1718) by the poet and diplomat Matthew Prior (1664–1721). It contains the verse he composed for the occasion in its only known manuscript copy. Both Talbot and Prior were involved in negotiations leading to the Peace of Utrecht in 1713.
From the Montaigne Library
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Les essais de Michel Seigneur de Montaigne
Edition nouvelle, prise sur l’exemplaire trouvé après le deceds de l’Autheur, reveu & augmenté d’un tiers outre les précédentes impressions
A Paris: Chez Abel l’Angelier, 1600
The third edition by Marie de Gournay, with her short preface first published in 1598. Her first edition of 1595 had included a long preface, which had been given a hostile reception. Gournay retracted it as the ill-advised product of her youth and grief. Instead, she handed over the matter of judging the Essais to the audience, asking ‘Que t’en semble donc Lecteur?’ (‘What do you think of this, Reader?’). The long preface was not reinstated in the Essais until 1617 (in revised form), but an abridged version was reprinted the following year in Gournay’s fictional Proumenoir de M. de Montaigne.
From the Montaigne Library
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Les essais de Michel Seigneur de Montaigne
Edition nouvelle enrichie d’a[n]notations en marge
A Paris: [Chez Michel Nivelle or Jean Petit-pas or Claude Rigaud or la veuve Dominique Salis or Charles Sevestre], 1608
Napoleon’s copy of the Essais, from his library on St Helena. The binding is decorated with a crowned initial ‘N’ and bees, one of Napoleon’s symbols. Five different versions of the engraved title-page are known to exist, with different booksellers’ names, but the title-page of this copy is wanting. The 1608 edition was the first to include the ‘Sommaire discours sur la vie de Michel, Seigneur de Montaigne’ and sidenotes summarising the text. Both these innovations were criticised by Marie de Gournay. This copy also lacks the portrait of Montaigne by Thomas de Leu, which appeared for the first time in this edition.
From the Montaigne Library
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Les essais de Michel, Seigneur de Montaigne
Edition nouvelle. Exactement corrigée, selon le vray exemplaire
A Paris: Chez Pierre Rocolet, 1635
This is the last edition to be edited by Marie de Gournay, and was dedicated to Cardinal Richelieu. It returns to the 1595 text for many of its readings. In the forty years between the two, more than twenty other editions of the Essais had been printed. In her preface, Gournay assigns authority only to those printed by Abel l’Angelier.
This copy is the first issue of the 1635 edition. It belonged to Louis II de Bourbon, prince de Condé (1621–1686), who had a library of some 10,000 volumes. Another (post-Revolutionary?) owner has obliterated the fleurs-de-lys on the printer’s device on the title-page.
From the Montaigne Library
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Les essais de Michel Seigneur de Montaigne
Nouvelle édition, faite sur les plus anciennes & les plus correctes … par Pierre Coste
A Londres: De l’imprimerie de J. Tonson & J. Watts, 1724. 3 vols
Coste’s edition returned to the 1595 text and may be seen as the beginning of modern Montaigne scholarship. Subscribers included Sir Hans Sloane, ‘Mr. Pope’ and Lady Mary Wortley Montague. The second edition of the following year was the first full edition to be printed in Paris since 1669 (the Essais had been placed on the Index in 1676, and was not taken off until 1854), and included some of Montaigne’s letters. Later editions added La Boétie’s De la servitude volontaire (the first printing since 1576), and various critical opinions of Montaigne. Coste (1669–1747), a Huguenot refugee, also translated Newton’s Opticks (1720) at the author’s request and some works by John Locke.
From the Montaigne Library. Vol. 1
Case 9
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Journal du voyage de Michel de Montaigne en Italie, par la Suisse & l’Allemagne, en 1580 & 1581
A Rome, & se trouve à Paris: Chez Le Jay, 1774
Joseph Prunis discovered the manuscript in an old chest at the Château de Montaigne whilst researching the history of Périgord. The journal was edited by Meunier de Querlon, but the manuscript subsequently lost. William Hazlitt translated the journal into English for his edition of Montaigne’s works (1842).
In Rome Montaigne visited the Vatican Library. He remarks on many of the books, including manuscripts of Seneca and Plutarch’s Opuscula, and the ‘Polyglot Bible’ printed by Christophe Plantin in 1569. He also recounts a dinner-table conversation with, amongst others, the French ambassador and his former tutor Muret, in which he defended the merits of Amyot’s recent French translation of Plutarch.
From the Montaigne Library
Josias Simmler (1530–1576)
La Republique des Suisses … avec le pourtraict des villes des treize Cantons
A Paris: Pour Jacques du Puys, 1579
Montaigne owned a copy of Simmler’s book and took it with him on his travels. It was confiscated with his other books by the Vatican officials: ‘They kept back my copy of the history of the Swiss, the French translation, merely because the translator is a heretic’ (Journal du voyage, trans. Hazlitt). The Latin original of 1576 was published without illustrations, but this translation contains several, including the one of Basle on display. In Basle, Montaigne visited the physician Felix Platerus and saw his ‘book of simples’ (medicinal remedies). Instead of illustrating the herbs, Platerus found a way of pasting the plants onto the paper so that ‘the smallest leaves and fibres are clearly to be seen’.
From the Montaigne Library
Girolamo Garimberto (1506–1575)
La prime parte, delle vite, overo fatti memorabili d’alcuni papi, et di tutti i cardinali passati
In Vinegia [Venice]: Appresso Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari, 1567
Montaigne’s copy of Garimberto’s history of popes and cardinals was one of several Italian books in his library. Montaigne stayed in Rome from November 1580 to April 1581, and heard mass at St Peter’s on Christmas day. He had an audience with Gregory XIII to kiss the Pope’s foot (Montaigne thought he slightly raised his red slipper), and the Pope later assisted him in his desire to be granted the title citizen of Rome: ‘’Tis an empty title; but yet I felt infinite delight in having obtained it’ (trans. Hazlitt).
Garimberto was Bishop of Gallese, and a noted collector of antiquities.
From the Montaigne Library
André Thevet (1502–1590)
Les singularitez de la France antarctique, autrement nommée Amérique: & de plusieurs terres & isles decouvertes de nostre temps
A Paris: Chez les heritiers de Maurice de la Porte, 1558
Thevet was chaplain to Catherine de Medici and Royal Cosmographer. He accompanied Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon in 1555 on the expedition to found the short-lived French colony in Brazil, which Thevet himself named ‘la France antarctique’. Poor health prompted Thevet to leave the following year. His account was one of a number of sources on the New World used by Montaigne in the Essais, in particular in the famous chapter ‘Of the cannibals’ (II.31). The illustrations to Thevet’s work include the scenes of cannibalism on display.
From the Montaigne Library
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
The essayes or morall, politike and millitarie discourses … now done into English by … John Florio
Printed at London: By Val. Sims for Edward Blount, 1603
Montaigne met three native Americans from Brazil in 1562, and had a servant who had spent time in that country. These personal sources supplement the written accounts used in the Essais, especially ‘Of the cannibals’. Writing at a time when France was divided by wars of religion, Montaigne condemns his own countrymen rather than the ‘cannibals’: ‘We may then well call them barbarous, in regarde of reasons rules, but not in respect of us that exceede them in all kinde of barbarisme’ (I.31, trans. Florio).
‘Of the cannibals’ was a source for Shakespeare in The tempest: Gonzalo’s speech on his perfect commonwealth shows closes verbal parallels with John Florio’s translation of 1603.
From the Montaigne Library
Jean de Léry (1534–1613)
Histoire d’un voyage fait en la terre du Bresil, autrement dite Amérique
A La Rochelle: Pour Antoine Chuppin, 1578
Montaigne also drew on Léry in ‘Of the cannibals’, along with André Thevet’s book. Léry accompanied a group of Calvinists to Villegagnon’s colony in Brazil in 1556. Relations between the Calvinists and Villegagnon soon deteriorated, and they settled on the mainland close to the Tupinamba for two months, awaiting passage home. Léry’s account was written many years later, partly as a response to Thevet’s Cosmographie universelle (1577), which held the Calvinists responsible for the failure of the colony. Léry’s detailed description of the Tupinamba and their customs is illustrated with several beautiful full-page woodcuts, including one depicting burial customs.
By kind permission of the Master, Fellows and Scholars of Clare College, Cambridge
Case 10
Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
Essayes. Religious meditations. Places of perswasion and disswasion. Seene and allowed
At London: Printed for Humfrey Hooper, 1597
Bacon’s work introduced the word ‘essay’ into the English language as a literary term. This first edition contains only ten short essays (along with other works), very different in style from Montaigne’s; the second (1612) increased the total to thirty-eight. The third edition (1625) included fifty-eight essays of varying lengths on a broad range of ‘civil and moral’ topics, including ‘Of truth’, in which Bacon cites Montaigne’s ‘Of giving the lie’ (II.18, ‘And therefore Mountaigny saith prettily …’).
It is likely that Bacon had first-hand knowledge of the French Essais. His brother Anthony had met Montaigne in Bordeaux, and received a letter from Montaigne’s friend Pierre de Brach in 1592 to tell him of Montaigne’s death.
LE.19.81
William Conrwallis (c. 1579–1614)
Essayes … Newlie corrected
London: Printed by Thomas Harper for J[ohn] M[arriott], 1632
Cornwallis’s essays, first published in two parts in 1600–1601, are much in the manner of Montaigne. In ‘Of censuring’, Cornwallis says that he saw ‘divers of his peeces’ translated: ‘Montaigne speakes now good English’. Florio’s translation was not published until 1603, but Cornwallis may have seen a manuscript of part of it or another translation. Florio himself says in his Preface that ‘Seven or eight of great wit and worth’ have attempted the task without success. Cornwallis recommends Montaigne’s book for ‘profitable Recreation’: Montaigne ‘speakes nobly, honestly, and wisely, with little method, but with much judgement … hee hath made Morrall Philosophy speake couragiously, and in steede of her gowne, given her an Armour’.
Hunter.e.63.8
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Essayes written in French... done into English … by John Florio
London: Printed by Melch. Bradwood for Edward Blount and William Barret, 1613
On 20 October 1595 the stationer and translator Edward Aggas entered at Stationers’ Hall ‘The Essais of Michaell Lord of Mountene’, but no money was paid and no translation by or under Aggas’s name appeared. Edward Blount entered a translation in 1600, and in 1603 published Florio’s work.
This copy of the second edition belonged to the writer Izaak Walton (1593–1683). In The compleat angler, Walton cites Montaigne’s observation: ‘When my Cat and I entertaine each other with mutuall apish tricks (as playing with a garter,) who knows but that I make her more sport then she makes me?’
From the Montaigne Library
Robert Burton (1577–1640)
The anatomy of melancholy, what it is
At Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1621
‘It is a melancholy humour, and consequently a hatefull enemy to my naturall complexion … that first put this humorous conceipt of writing into my head’ (Essais II.8, ‘Of the affection of fathers for their children’, trans. Florio). Burton read Montaigne in Florio’s translation and drew on him a number of times for his own great documentation of the self. He cites him almost verbatim from ‘An apology for Raymond Sebond’ in support of the theory that ‘to see a woman naked’ is a cure for love melancholy: ‘the skilfullest masters of amorous dalliances, appoint for a remedy of venereous passions a full survay of the bodie’.
Hunter.d.62.2
Pierre Charron (1541–1603)
Of wisdome three bookes … Translated by Samson Lennard
At London: Printed [by George Millar] for Edward Blount & Will: Aspley, [1630]
Charron, a preacher and former advocate, became friends with Montaigne after he moved to Bordeaux in the 1580s. In his will, Montaigne conferred on him the right to bear his coat of arms. His work of moral philosophy De la sagesse (1601) borrowed heavily from Montaigne’s Essais. It was published in Bordeaux by Simon Millanges; the English translation by Lennard first appeared around 1608. Charron, an orthodox Catholic, was also a thorough-going sceptic and his work was placed on the Index in 1605. Of wisdome was popular in England, going through several editions in the seventeenth century.
Hunter.d.63.20
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne … New rendred into English by Charles Cotton, Esq;
London: Printed for T. Basset … and M. Gilliflower and W. Hensman, 1685. 3 vols [vol. 2 dated, perhaps erroneously, 1686]
This translation by the poet Charles Cotton (1630–1687) immediately superseded that of Florio. Whilst Florio’s translation went out of print until the late nineteenth century, Cotton’s was still being reprinted throughout the twentieth. In his Preface, Cotton recounts the difficulty of his task: ‘[Montaigne’s] Language is such in many Places, as Grammar cannot reconcile, which renders it the hardest Book to make a justifiable version of that I yet ever saw … I have yet sometimes been forc’d to grope at his meaning’. Pierre Coste’s edition of the Essais was used to correct the seventh edition of the translation in 1759.
From the Montaigne Library. Vol. 1
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
An abstract of the most curious and excellent thoughts in Seigneur de Montaigne’s Essays: very useful for improving the mind, and forming the manners of men. Done into English from the French original
London: Printed for R. Smith, 1701
A translation of the Pensées de Montagne (1700), an abridgement of the Essais undertaken to present an acceptable version of the text (for a country in which the original was still on the Index, still controversial). The digression and personal anecdote that is so much the style of Montaigne is jettisoned. ‘Montaigne … has not wanted Censurers … I thought therefore it would be a good Design, to cull out and put together many of the good Maxims in Montaigne’s Works, where they are often spoild by a mixture of bad Things, or at least stifled under a confus’d heap of Rubbish’. Another abridged edition, L’esprit des Essais, had appeared in 1677.
From the Montaigne Library
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Essays, selected from Montaigne. With a sketch of the life of the author
London: Printed by Luke Hansard … for T. Cadell, Jun. & W. Davies, and E. Harding, 1800
The biographical sketch is enigmatically signed ‘Honoria’; however, the book advertises The female mentor as ‘Lately Published by the same Author’. Contemporary annotations in the Cambridge University Library copy of The female mentor identify many characters and name the author as Emilia Henrietta Coxe (sister of the historian Revd William Coxe, to whom this translation is dedicated). Coxe writes that in spite of the ‘wit, spirit, originality of sentiment, and excellent precepts of morality’ of the Essais, Montaigne’s ‘greatest admirers must confess that he has introduced many gross and indelicate allusions’, and it is ‘not possible to follow him through all his winding paths’. Her abridgement presented Montaigne in a form considered suitable for the female readers of the day.
From the Montaigne Library
Case 11
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
Les essais de Michel, Seigneur de Montaigne
Nouvelle édition exactement purgée des defauts des précédentes
A Paris: Chez Edmé Cousterot, 1652
This annotated copy of the Essais belonged to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), one of only eighteen volumes left at his death (the others included an annotated copy of Plutarch). It was bequeathed to his friend Mme de Corancz, then passed to Hérault de Séchelles (guillotined on 5 April 1794). Subsequently its whereabouts were unknown until its sale at Christie’s in 1995. Montaigne’s influence on Rousseau—on his views on education, for example, or his confessional style—was profound and complex. There are pencil annotations on four pages, as well as several marked and underlined passages. On p. 282 Rousseau has noted a passage on the loss of friends and written ‘amitié’ in the margin.
From the Montaigne Library
Voltaire (1694–1778)
Autograph letter from Voltaire to the Comte du Tressan
21 August 1746
Voltaire expresses his admiration for Montaigne’s originality, but especially his capacity for doubt: ‘Toujours original dans la maniere donc il presente les objets, toujours plein d’imagination toujours peintre, et ce que jaime, toujours sachant douter’ (‘Always original in the presentation of his objects, always full of imagination, always a painter and, what I love, always capable of doubt’). Later, in his entry on the limits of the human mind for his Dictionnaire philosophique (1764), Voltaire would contrast the misplaced intellectual pride of the doctor of philosophy with Montaigne: ‘La devise de Montagne était, Que sai-je? & la tienne est, Que ne sai-je pas?’ (‘Montaigne’s motto was, “What do I know?” and yours is, “What do I know not?”’).
From the Montaigne Library
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
The common reader
Second edition
London: Published by Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1925
For Woolf, Montaigne—along with Pepys and Rousseau—was one of the few masters of the self-portrait in writing. ‘But this talking of oneself, following one’s own vagaries, giving the whole map, weight, colour, and circumference of the soul in its confusion, its variety, its imperfection—this art belonged to one man only: to Montaigne... We can never doubt for an instant that his book was himself’. The Woolfs visited Montaigne’s château on 25 April 1931.
Woolf’s essay on Montaigne was first published in the Times Literary Supplement as a review of a new edition of Charles Cotton’s translation of the Essais.
From the Montaigne Library
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
Montaigne, Walt Whitman
Buenos Aires: [La publica para sus amigos Federico Vogelius... en casa de D. Francisco A. Colombo], 1957
This rare book is no. 41 in a limited edition of 120 copies. Borges recounts Montaigne’s decision to write the Essais as one of the more quiet French revolutions, and compares Montaigne and Whitman as supreme writers of the self. Montaigne lost his friend La Boétie, but his book, Borges says, sought out friendship through space and time. In a late poem, ‘A Francia’, it was friendship again that came to mind when Borges spoke of Montaigne: ‘No diré … la amistad, sino Montaigne’ (‘I will not say … friendship, but Montaigne’).
From the Montaigne LibraryThe Dead Sea’s unique ecology could be further damaged – along with Palestinian water rights – by new Israeli-Jordanian deal. (Colin Tsoi/Flickr)
World media recently lauded a new project, backed by the World Bank, that will allegedly “save” the Dead Sea and prove that peace is possible through cooperation to manage natural resources. But the scheme only threatens to make an already disastrous situation worse, as well as robbing Palestinians of their right to water.
The Dead Sea, the fabled salt lake bordered by Jordan, present-day Israel and the occupied West Bank, is shrinking at an alarming rate of around 1.5 meters per year. As a result, hotels built right at the shoreline just a few years ago are now dozens of meters from the water’s edge.
Environmental assessment studies show that some of the damage done — for instance to the Eastern Aquifer Basin — is already irreversible. To slow and reverse this catastrophe, Israel and Jordan proposed in 2002 to build a 180-kilometer canal to replenish the Dead Sea with water from the Red Sea. They claimed — falsely — that the project would prevent the destruction of the Dead Sea, but the plan never addressed the most obvious and direct cause: the diversion of the upstream waters of the Jordan River, which feed the salty lake, mainly by Israel.
As a consequence the natural flow of the Jordan River — the body of water in which Christian tradition holds that Jesus was baptized — has dropped from 1,350 million cubic meters (mcm) per year of fresh water to the Dead Sea, to a mere 20 mcm.
That is just two percent of its original flow. And even this sad remainder is mostly made up of raw sewage and brine — salty water — injected by Israel south of Lake Tiberias. Additionally, Israel’s Dead Sea industries — and on a smaller scale Jordan’s — extract potash (used for fertilizer) and other minerals from the southern end of the lake. This large-scale mining operation is greatly accelerating the disappearance of the Dead Sea. Palestinians, meanwhile — although they share the Dead Sea’s shore — have never been allowed to share in the region’s mineral wealth, nor to draw fresh water from the Jordan.
Devastating environmental consequences
On 12 December 2013, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority signed a memorandum of understanding in Washington. This deal should not be confused with the plans long floated by the World Bank for a Red Sea-Dead Sea mega-project.
The new deal outlines much smaller initiatives to develop a desalination plant located in Aqaba, Jordan’s port on the Red Sea. This would produce fresh water which would be sold to the adjacent city of Eilat in present-day Israel.
The agreement also includes a general suggestion for the construction of a pipeline to transport the desalination brine, a byproduct of the process, from Aqaba to the ever-diminishing Dead Sea. This component is as of yet only an option. The alternative would be to dump the brine into the Gulf of Aqaba whose fragile coral reefs could suffer devastating damage as a result.
In “exchange” for the Aqaba-Eilat deal, Israel would export more water to Jordan in the Lake Tiberias area, in the north, although the source of this extra water is as of yet unclear and it may require further treatment in Jordan.
The cost for the Aqaba desalination project is conservatively estimated at $400 million, while the World Bank’s notorious Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal project was estimated to cost well over $10 billion.
The World Bank’s scheme — officially known as the Red Sea-Dead Sea Conveyance Project (RSDSCP) — would, Palestinian groups and water experts warn, do irreversible environmental damage and help Israel further dispossess Palestinians of their water rights. However, Israel, and especially Jordan and the World Bank advertise the Aqaba desalination and water swap deal as a “pilot scheme,” or even as a first stage to test the environmental impact of adding the mix of Red Sea water and desalination byproducts to the Dead Sea.
It is clearly an effort to attract funding for their old RSDSCP.
Palestinians excluded
It should be emphasized that Palestinians are excluded from both the Aqaba and the Tiberias deals. Palestinian requests to be included in the northern supply scheme were brushed off by Israel. Hence, this project is purely a bilateral deal between Israel and Jordan. A side deal, however, involves potentially selling additional water to the Palestinians.
This water would come from as yet undisclosed sources out of the “Israeli system” — most probably not fresh water, but prohibitively expensive desalinated water from the Mediterranean Sea. Thus the riparian rights of Palestinians — the right to use the water because their territory borders on the banks of the Jordan and the shores of the Dead Sea — are exchanged for the opportunity to subsidize Israel’s mushrooming desalination industry.
Ironically, the Israeli chemical and petroleum conglomerates heavily involved in this industry include the Israeli Dead Sea works responsible for much of the environmental destruction in the region.
Falling short
The planned Aqaba plant would provide only moderate amounts of desalinated water (30-40 mcm per year) to Jordan, which is suffering from acute water shortages. Meanwhile, neighboring Eilat, which already has twice the domestic water consumption rates of the rest of Israel, would get a similar amount.
On the other hand, the Aqaba plant would only channel some 200 mcm per year to the Dead Sea, falling far short of reversing or even stopping the drastic declines in the lake’s water levels — while risking further damage to the region’s unique ecology.
Today, instead of international pressure to reverse the decades-long diversion and mismanagement of the Jordan River — which caused the unfolding environmental catastrophe — both Jordan and the Palestinian Authority are signing deals to make this untenable situation permanent. Their scheme also ignores the concerns — and rights — of the other riparians, Lebanon and Syria.
Neither the governments making the agreements, nor media lauding their plan, have seriously examined its consequences or the alternatives.
Nor do they question the conventional wisdom that more water is needed in a desperately parched region with a rapidly growing population.
Israel’s water surplus
The modest amount of water Jordan would gain from Israel in the north would be scarcely enough to meet the needs of the growing population, especially when there is an influx such as the hundreds of thousands of refugees
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alternatives to OBOR style investments in the BoB littorals. Intelligence sharing of Chinese submarine movements in the Indo-Pacific is also on the Indo-U.S. agenda.
However even as diplomacy takes its course, India will now have to focus on increasing its own submarine strength. Parrikar himself has recently commented about the need to augment India’s submarine force structure, which is inadequate (despite IN Chief S.K. Lamba’s claim that “as far as deployment of PLA Navy ships and submarines are concerned, we keep a close eye and monitor their movement”). An early decision on a second line of conventional SSKs is expected soon. New Delhi intends to have two diesel-electric submarine lines humming into the 2020s (in addition to nuclear submarine construction) not just to recapitalize its underwater fleet but to also offer units for export. After all, India had to turn down a Myanmarese request to refurbish an old Foxtrot-class submarine for the MN in 2008 as that boat was too outdated and it is reported that Bangladesh had actually asked India for submarines before it placed orders for the Mings. India would certainly not want to give Bangladesh or Myanmar that excuse for turning to China for submarines in the 2020s.HOUSTON (CN) — A small telecom in Texas claims in court that Comcast drove it out of business by digging up and destroying its cables after it refused a buyout offer.
Anthony Luna, owner of Telecom Cable, sued Comcast and its contractors Aspen Utility and A&A Cable Contractors in Harris County Court, claiming they cut Telecom’s underground cables and disrupted service to its 229 customers in Weston Lakes, west of Houston.
Telecom Cable was unable to repair the cables as fast as the defendants destroyed them, and had to fold after a battle of six weeks, according to the June 14 complaint.
“As Comcast well knows, cable television and internet customers will not wait indefinitely for resumption of service,” the complaint states. “Predictably, Telecom’s customers deserted it.”
Luna’s attorney Michael Yanochik said in an interview Tuesday that Comcast approached Luna in 2013 and offered to buy out Telecom Cable’s Weston Lakes operation, where Luna had been doing business since 2007. Luna declined and Comcast walked away.
“That was kind of the end of it,” Yanochik said. “Or so we thought.”
He said Comcast returned and began installing its own cable infrastructure in shared utility easements. “Luna had no problem with that,” Yanochik said. “It’s competition.”
Telecom Cable marked its underground cables with orange flags and spray paint, and sent a map of its infrastructure to Comcast to prevent its workers from accidentally damaging Telecom’s underground cables. Comcast already knew where the underground cables were, though, as it had not returned the map Telecom provided it during the buyout negotiations, according to the complaint.
Soon after Comcast began its own installation, Luna began receiving service outage notices. When he arrived to the job site, he found his underground cables had been cut.
The foreman on site told Luna that he and his workers had assumed the orange markers meant the cable beneath had been abandoned, and the foreman instructed Luna to contact Comcast, though he did not provide Luna with a contact number, the complaint states.
After that first incident, Luna says, Comcast and its contractors began a “campaign of destruction,” in which it cut service to all his customers. While Luna was trying to reach a “responsible party” at Comcast and its contractor, Aspen, three more of Telecom Cable’s lines were cut as workers continued to ignore the orange markers. Luna says the comprehensiveness of the damage makes it difficult to conclude it was a mistake.
“But whether it was intentional, negligent or grossly negligent, they put Telecom out of business and turned Luna’s life upside-down,” Yanochik said.
Luna was forced to close Telecom Cable as his customers abandoned it for Comcast. He and his family had to move from Texas to Upstate New York, where Luna and his wife took lower-paying jobs and gave up their retirement plans.
“The rapid and wrongful destruction of Telecom had clearly foreseeable consequences,” the complaint states. “But what befell the Luna family is the real tragedy of this story.”
Comcast did not return requests for comment.
Luna seeks more than $1 million in damages and punitive damages for negligence, tortious interference with contract, aiding and abetting and conspiracy.
Yanochik is with Murr & Yanochik in Houston.
Like this: Like Loading...While there is no shortage of puzzle and arcade games on the Android platform, it can be easy to get drawn into the mainstream hits like Angry Birds and Cut The Rope. The first time I stumbled onto a "darker" game, I had downloaded World Of Goo as part of a Humble Bundle, and was instantly mesmerized by its graphics and sounds. There was something hauntingly beautiful about it, and I ended up on the Play Store looking at the "Similar Apps" and "Users also installed" sections. Fast forward hours of going down that rabbit hole, jumping from one listing to another, I emerged with a collection of games that seemed to fit into that same category of atmospheric puzzles and adventures. Following are fifteen of them, though I am sure there are many more to be discovered and enjoyed.
World Of Goo
The game that started it all for me is a puzzler where the everyday icky becomes endearing. Dark goo balls bounce around the screen, waiting for you to drag and join them into complex structures. As you build your goo monument, the additional balls start gliding along the connecting lines. Your goal is to reach a pipe that will suck those unused balls.
The game would be simple if the only difficulty was reaching the pipe with a minimum number of goos. As you progress, you have friendly green goo balls that are reusable but don't count toward your total, and red balls that inflate into balloons. You also get windmills that divert your structure, various elements that destroy the balls, and obstacles you have to surpass.
World of Goo is innocent yet twisted, and that balance is attained with art and mastery. It's a testament to the game's graphics and soundtrack that you often find yourself transfixed and focused in almost equal amounts while playing it.
Badland
Android Police review: Badland Review: More Than A Pretty Face
In layman's terms, Badland is a more original and enjoyable Flappy Bird. The game's mechanics are similar: it's a side-scroller adventure where you have to tap to fly a creature through obstacles in a dark forest. However, unlike Flappy Bird, Badland is a lot more intricate than a series of pipes with openings at varying heights.
Your creature can tumble and fly again, push an obstacle by hitting it, multiply to give you more options for advancing, grow to apply its weight to structures, or shrink to fit through various sized conduits. On the other hand, the forest is merciless. Spikes are out to kill your creature, rocks fall from the sky, branches block your way, and most difficult of all is the fact that the scene moves at a specific speed. Stand still for a second, and it catches up with you, forcing you to start over from the last checkpoint.
Badland is unforgiving at times, challenging but manageable at others. But it remains enjoyable through this rise and fall of difficulties, never crossing the threshold into the frustrating territory of Flappy Bird. You can play this one without fear of addiction or an impulse to throw your poor phone across the room.
Miseria
Grey background, black graphics, a labyrinth. It's amazing what Miseria achieves with such simple basics. Lurk, the hero, has been torn apart from his love and imprisoned by an ogre, Grunzel. He has to find and fight his way through her many mazes and traps, avoid being eaten by her monsters, killed by her saws, or thrown out into her claws. The inevitability of those scenarios seems to be the driving force behind the game's soundtrack, as it plunges you into its mystic and twisted world.
Miseria uses incredibly easy controls: a tap on the right side of the screen tilts the maze clockwise, on the left, counter-clockwise. Gravity controls Lurk, and he will fall until there's ground beneath him, or slide until he hits an obstacle.
The game starts easy, with a few turns of the maze required to get Lurk to the end point. Level by level, the difficulty rises, with traps, portals, and breakable walls. Accurate timing of every flip of the maze becomes a requirement, not a commodity, and that is if you just want to finish the level. If you plan on getting three stars, you will have to master a balance of haste and precision to reach your target at breakneck speeds.
Past Memories
Nightmares are the main theme of Past Memories, with a heroine trying to escape from various monsters. As she runs, the game's only control is a tap that lets the character jump above obstacles, traps, or enemies. Her salvation is in reaching the end of the level, where the monsters disappear and she is engulfed in a mystic cloud.
The sinister side of Past Memories is very inventive. Sharks glide across the floor, octopuses and dinosaur-like birds fly after you, hands reach out of television sets to grab you, a clock slows you down, monsters throw teeth at you, and a blue potion changes the world's color between black and white. It's weirdly uncanny to the point where you smile while playing, without even noticing.
Although there is a cartoon-like feel to the nightmare's scene, Past Memories never feels juvenile. Its world is eerie and oddly beautiful, captivating with its many creatures. The game's soundtrack is as mystic as those graphics, fluid like the heroine's jumps, flowing effortlessly like her hair.
Naught 2
Naught 2 should come with a glowing warning: "Not for the faint of heart. Side effects include dizziness and high blood pressure." And that wouldn't even begin to describe the game's difficulty and mind-bending gymnastics.
Through his dark silhouette world, Naught runs, only directed by gravity. You use the accelerometer or on-screen controls to spin the world, turning it around to get Naught to go where you want him to. Naught is fast, very much so, and unstoppable. As you progress through the levels, you start doubting whether finishing the game is feasible with one set of human eyes and hands.
I often found myself twisting my tablet in all directions while using the accelerometer control, losing track of where Naught was and what I was supposed to do next, only to find him jumping toward a bunch of spikes and getting killed. If Badland was unforgiving at times, Naught 2 is close to impossible most times, with a playful soundtrack that often teases you into defeat and snickers along to your next try. But Naught 2's saving grace is that you do try again, if only because of the nagging voice in the back of your mind telling you that if there is a next level, then the current one must be solvable. Somehow.
The app was not found in the store. :-( Go to store Google websearch
Contre Jour
Not only is Contre Jour set in a silhouette world where everything is perceived against the light, it is also innovative in its gameplay. Instead of controlling Petit, the game's character, you have to manipulate his environment, and that is what sets him in motion and guides him through each level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPV7iHzCok0
Horizontal lands are grown to create hills that Petit rolls on or stops against, slingshots and tentacles reach out to swing him across, portals grab and throw him around. Contre Jour's puzzle difficulty rises through each of its 100 levels, often forcing you to stop and think before you start playing.
With a playful melody and stunning landscapes, Contre Jour takes you on a bewildering journey where you test your solving skills without ever being overwhelmed by the physics behind the game. However, should you take a minute to think about it, you will understand the intricate and advanced equations that control every element on the screen. It takes skilful art, visually and musically, to make the player forget about them, and Contre Jour wins that dare.
Firefly
I had one problem with Firefly: I couldn't put the game down to type this description. I started a new round, just to get a feel for the game again before writing about it, and I was instantly captivated by that tiny shiny object.
With one finger, you move the firefly through the labyrinth to reach the exit while avoiding multiple enemies and obstacles. Spikes rise from the ground or drop from the ceiling, PacMan-like monsters try to eat you, flowers block your way, portals transport you from one area to another, and, sometimes, the scene moves so you have to be fast in order to finish the level in time.
Firefly is accompanied by old-school arcade sounds, reminiscent of 8-bit side-scrollers. While that may seem a bit odd considering the game's darker graphics nature, the end result is an enjoyable mix that makes you tap your feet along with Firefly's progress.
Gravity Cave
Your round fur ball, Fluff, is lost on planet VX7. In each level, you have to guide him inside the cave to the exit by simply flipping the world's gravity upside down. Tap on the screen, and Fluff will start "falling" upward, tap again, and he goes down. You use the various inclined barriers to steer him in a specific direction.
That simplicity is behind the appeal of Gravity Cave. The mechanics are easy to understand, albeit a bit difficult to master. As you progress, you will discover how you can use Fluff's acceleration while sliding down to throw him over an obstacle without losing your momentum.
Gravity Cave's concept is a mix of Miseria and Naught 2, with mazes and gravity thrown in together to create a challenging yet manageable game. Unfortunately, it only has 12 levels, but it is still worth downloading for a short and fun gaming session.
Type:Rider
More cultural journey than an actual game, Type:Rider is a historical discovery of the beauty of the written word, starting with hieroglyphs in Egypt, and ending with the modern computer's serif and sans-serif fonts.
You control two black — sometimes white — dots, as they roll, jump, and bounce across letters against a gorgeous backdrop of era-inspired art. The dreamy feel of the music and animations plunges you into a hazy state of surrender, then the game nudges you back with challenging levels where you have to use your control skills to keep your two dots alive.
As you progress, you unlock pages in a typography book by grabbing asterisks from each level. More than a simple collectible bonus, this book is a detailed and riveting tale of each stage in the chronicle of written and typed letters. Type:Rider is a must-have experience for graphic artists, writers, and anyone interested in the origin of Helvetica, Garamond, Comic Sans, and all those fonts we now take for granted.
Blindscape
When I found out about Blindscape, I was intrigued and excited. This game promised to be an auditory experience, with nothing but a black screen and a narrated story mixed with sound effects.
Blindscape is engrossing, and the narrator's voice is both endearing and captivating. Although there is very little to do, in terms of gameplay, you are immediately drawn into his world. You'll want to plug in your earphones, turn off the lights, and completely immerse yourself in darkness. Your contribution to the plot is only required a few times to open doors, walk in certain directions, or lift objects.
I won't spoil the story for you, because that is Blindscape's main appeal, but I will say that it ends too quickly. When those last notes play, you will wish for more exploration and more auditory bliss.
Honorable Mentions
Should you find yourself riveted by this style of games, you can also try the five options listed below:
Freeze!: reminiscent of Miseria, Freeze! is a puzzle labyrinth game where you tilt the maze to advance the hero, but can also freeze time to avoid dangers.
Last Fish: a monochromatic adventure where you control a fish, feed it, grow, and avoid goo.
Furfur and Nublo: instead of controlling one character, Furfur and Nublo puts you in charge of both protagonists. You switch between them, and try to guide Furfur to the end of every puzzle.
Follow the light: a platformer where darkness isn't just a design style, but an intricate part of the plot. Jump and slide to follow the light and avoid darkness.
Dark Lands: a silhouette adventure where you run, fight enemies, develop your hero, and avoid traps.
While this is by no means an exhaustive list of the darker and more atmospheric games available on Android, it's a good place to start discovering the genre. Crank up the volume, immerse yourself, and let me know if there are any other alternatives that I haven't yet discovered.The Prog Report is pleased to announce the first book dedicated to the resurgence of one of music’s most enduring and underrated genres. Essential Modern Progressive Rock Albums: Images and Words Behind Prog’s Most Celebrated Albums 1990-2016, authored by Prog Report editor Roie Avin, shines a light on the important albums of the modern progressive rock era. The book features more than 50 albums from the last quarter century of Prog, with each chapter dedicated to one album.
Order the book here: https://progreport.com/product/essential-modern-progressive-rock-albums/
Featured in the book are prolific and pioneering artists such as Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, Opeth, Spock’s Beard, Marillion, The Flower Kings, Enchant, Fates Warning, Queensryche, and Big Big Train, along with more recent bands like Haken, Karnivool, Riverside, Between the Buried and Me, and The Dear Hunter, among the more than 30 bands included. Drawing on original interviews with band members such as Mike Portnoy, Neal Morse, Steven Wilson, John Petrucci, Mikael Åkerfeldt, Roine Stolt, Pete Trewavas, and dozens more, the book offers an in-depth look at the stories behind the albums that shaped the next wave of progressive rock. This book focuses solely on bands that carried the mantle of the genre’s initial ’70s explosion, artists that expanded the genre further, incorporating new sounds and elements to reach new audiences worldwide.
Featuring full color images of the artists live, original press photos and brilliant album cover art, this 280+ page book will be one every Prog fan will want to display proudly as a badge of their fandom.
Here is a teaser on the book.
Video music: “Hangman” by Drugstore Fanatics(Above, right, powerful and closeted gay lawyer Roy Cohn was instrumental in creating anti-Communist fervor.)
Tomorrow's a lamentable anniversary for the United States: it was 60 years ago, on April 27, 1953, that President Eisenhower put his John Hancock an executive order demanding all gay and lesbian government employees be fired. Not really something you want to celebrate, right? But it is something you should know about, which is why director Josh Howard began production on The Lavender Scare, a documentary based on Dr. David Johnson's book of the same name. It's also the first cinematic account of how our government tracked down gays and lesbians in the mid-20th Century.
This project began in 2009, when Howard, a former Emmy-winning producer for CBS' 60 Minutes and later CNBC, stumbled across Johnson's book. He hadn't intended on turning it into anything, and certainly didn't intend on leaving his job to direct a documentary, but as he read on, and researched on his own, the subject gripped him.
Unable to shake the feeling that there was more story to tell, Howard approached Johnson, now a professor at the University of South Florida, about optioning the book. Johnson agreed, and for the past two years Howard has tracked down as many sources as possible to fill in the gaps, including Frank Kameny, a government astronomer fired who was fired for being gay in 1957 and went on to lead the first public protests against the anti-American policy.
Howard also managed to find a few of the government agents tasked with spearheading the anti-gay witch hunt. One remains particularly unrepentant. "The people that I got rid of, they were faggots," he says, under the cloak of darkness, in the film's trailer, included below. "I didn't give a hoot; get rid of the son of a bitch. Put him in the bread line."
As far away as this may all seem, keep in mind that lawmakers and activists are still fighting for Employment Non-Discrimination, policies that would finally create federal laws making illegal to fire LGBT people. (As you know, it's legal in 29 states to fire gay and lesbian employees and legally acceptable in 34 to do the same for transgender people as well.) And this isn't simply about homophobia or jobs. It's about the nagging, tenacious ability of Americans to participate in or turn a blind eye to injustice, a trait foreign observer EM Forster saw right away. Whether it's scapegoating gays during then Lavender Scare or Muslims after 9/11 or Japanese-Americans during World War II, this a completely unattractive and persistent quality, and it's one that Howard hopes this film can help eradicate.
To get to that point, though, Howard and his team need to finish editing and licensing the bundle of archival materials they hope to include, and that requires money. Supporters can give them a little greenback love at Kickstarter. They're shooting for $50,000 and donations end on May 21, which would have been Kameny's 88th birthday.
Here, Howard offers us the basics on The Lavender Scare, the policies it spawned, what happened to those policies and why this son of a bitch story still matters.
(Left: Frank Kameny can be seen toward the left in this picture from a 1965 White House picket he helped organized. Right: an older Kameny poses with one of those signs.)
1. WHAT IS THE LAVENDER SCARE? It’s the first feature-length film documentary to tell the story of the U.S. government’s decades-long campaign to fire every federal employee found to be gay or lesbian. In what became the most successful witch hunt in American history, thousands and thousands of federal workers lost their jobs. More than a few, with their careers in ruins and unable to find work, committed suicide.
2. WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN, AND WHY? In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy ignited the Red Scare with his allegations that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government. He then added the claim that gay men and lesbians were even more dangerous than Reds, because they were susceptible to blackmail by foreign enemy agents and would give up government secrets in order to keep their sexual orientation from being exposed. The fear of this supposed homosexual menace became known as the Lavender Scare.
3. HOW MANY HOMOSEXUALS ACTUALLY GAVE UP SECRETS IN ORDER TO AVOID BEING EXPOSED? After several investigations over many years, not a single case was ever found.
4. WERE LGBT PEOPLE ALWAYS FEARED IN WASHINGTON? No! In fact, in the 1930s and 40s, there was a vibrant and very open gay community in Washington. A large number of new government jobs were created after the Great Depression, and many of the people who came to Washington to fill those jobs were gay men and lesbians. They were eager to make a new life in the growing city, and the government was eager to hire them. Same sex couples could be seen holding hands on the trolley or even kissing on the grounds of the Washington Monument. They enjoyed a comfortable work environment and a lively social life. No one could have anticipated the devastating events that were to come.
5. WAIT, WHY IS THE DATE APRIL 27, 1953 IMPORTANT? That is the day President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450, which made it official government policy that gay and lesbian employees were to be hunted down and fired. More than a thousand federal agents - a couple of whom are interviewed in our film -were assigned to the task of determining who was a homosexual. People were subjected to grueling interrogation: “Who do you live with? Who are your friends? What bars do you frequent? Would you like us to call your family back home and ask these questions?” People were ordered to give up the names of their gay and lesbian friends. Most chose to resign immediately, rather than face continued pressure or further scrutiny.
6. DID ANY GOOD COME OF THIS? Yes! In 1957, Dr. Franklin Kameny, a Harvard PhD who had been working for the U.S. Army Map Service, was fired from his job when the government found out he was gay. But unlike the thousands who had been fired before him, he fought back! The purges created a sense of anger and militancy in the gay community that sowed the seeds of the gay rights movement. In 1965, years before Stonewall, Kameny and a small band of brave men and women staged a picket in front of the White House, in what is believed to be the first gay rights demonstration in the country. Kameny went on to devote his entire life to the fight for LGBT rights, and just before his death saw his achievements honored by President Obama.
7. HOW LONG DID THE BAN ON GAY AND LESBIAN WORKERS REMAIN IN EFFECT? People continued to lose their jobs simply through the 1950s, ‘60s, 70s, and 80s. In 1995, President Clinton officially rescinded the policy that had been put in place by President Eisenhower in 1953, and for the first time in four decades, LGBT people could freely work for the civilian agencies of the federal government. Of course, the ban on service in the military continued for many years beyond that.
8. DOES THIS STORY HAVE ANY PRESENT DAY RELEVANCE? Oh, definitely. There are still 29 states in the country in which it is perfectly legal to fire people simply because they are LGBT – a direct result of our government’s homophobic policies that were put in place in the 1950s. We think the story of The Lavender Scare will help educate people about the need for laws on both the state and national level to protect LGBT people from employment discrimination. The federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would extend job protection to LGBT people nationwide, has just been re-introduced in Congress – ironically enough. just as we’re marking the 60th anniversary of the start of the government’s anti-gay witch hunts.
9. WHY DO SO FEW PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS? This is a classic example of the way in which the struggles and contributions of gay men and lesbians are ignored in the telling of American history. It is shocking that with all the books and films about the Cold War and the Red Scare, the story of the Lavender Scare is almost completely ignored. The Lavender Scare will be the first film to shine a light on this important subject – if we can raise the funds to finish production. As philanthropist and activist Jim Hormel has said, “If LGBT people don’t take the lead in preserving our history, who will?”
Now, without further ado, the trailer for The Lavender Scare.Here's discomforting news for Californians worried about the shifting ground under their toes: Four urban areas in the Bay Area have "stored enough energy to produce major earthquakes," according to new research.
Evidence that something nasty is rumbling comes from the behavior of the San Andreas fault system, which runs up the state and through San Francisco. When gargantuan blocks of the earth's crust press against each other, they can do a couple of things: One, they can slowly grind or "creep" against each other, a process that relieves stress. Two, they can butt heads and become "locked," a situation that causes energy to mount and mount until it's released in an earthquake.
About 28 percent of the San Andreas is now locked, say researchers in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. That means that several parts of heavily developed Northern California are sitting on seismic MOABs. Say the scientists involved in this study:
[F]our faults have accumulated sufficient strain to produce a major earthquake. Three creeping faults have large locked areas (less than 1 mm or.04 inches of creep per year) that have not ruptured in a major earthquake of at least magnitude 6.7 since the reporting of earthquakes by local inhabitants: Rodgers Creek, northern Calaveras and southern Green Valley. The southern Hayward fault, which produced a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in 1868, is now approaching its mean recurrence time based on paleoseismic studies. The authors also estimate three faults appear to be nearing or have exceeded their mean recurrence time and have accumulated sufficient strain to produce large earthquakes: the Hayward (M 6.8), Rodgers Creek (M 7.1) and Green Valley (M 7.1).
This map from a 2008 study shows the location of these faults north and east of San Francisco:
James Lienkaemper of the U.S. Geological Survey, one of the study's coauthors, says these findings are a "good reminder to prepare today for the next major earthquake." More support for that warning (though specific to Southern California) came from one of his colleagues at September's CityLab summit in Los Angeles. Lucy Jones, a USGS seismologist who's helping L.A. develop a quake-resiliency plan, gave a dire risk assessment for the expected "Big One." Her full comments are written up here, but these are some of her more fear sweat-inducing predictions:FEDERAL Attorney-General Nicola Roxon says the national schools chaplaincy program is the only one at risk from a landmark High Court decision handed down today.
A majority of the court today ruled payments from the Commonwealth to Scripture Union Queensland (SUQ) to provide chaplaincy services were invalid.
The High Court said executive power as defined in section 61 of the Constitution did not empower the Federal Government to enter a funding agreement to make the payments.
The decision raised concerns all such government programs were affected but Ms Roxon denied this.
"The only government program that was challenged and invalidated by this decision was the National School Chaplaincy Program," Ms Roxon said in a statement.
"The Government is committed to maintaining funding for important community programs."
About 3700 schools around the country have chaplains or student welfare workers funded under the current arrangements.
Ms Roxon said there were contingency plans in place for commonwealth funding and the Government was reviewing the judgment to determine if there were any wider implications.
SUQ said the ruling was only about "a particular historical funding model".
"Even though that model might be invalid, it does not keep chaplains from supporting school communities," a spokesman said in a statement.
"Instead, it means that a new funding model is needed."
The Atheist Foundation of Australia called the decision a victory for democracy and secularism in public schools.
However, High Court Chief Justice Robert French wrote the reasons for the decision were based upon constitutional provisions for executive power and did "not involve any judgment about the merits of public funding of chaplaincy services in schools".
The ruling relates to a case brought by Queensland father Ronald Williams and was heard by the full bench of the court in August 2011.
Mr Williams had four children attending Darling Heights State School in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, where there has been a chaplain funded under the national program since 2007.
As well as arguing payments for the program were invalid, he also challenged it on the grounds of the Constitution banning religious tests for Commonwealth officers.
The court unanimously dismissed that part of the challenge, saying chaplains employed by SUQ did not hold office under the Commonwealth.
Originally published as Landmark ruling affects chaplains only - RoxonRestoring Greatness to Utah (2014)
Utah’s main population corridor, the Wasatch Front, could more properly be called the Wasatch Oasis, a land of lakes as much as mountains. But Utahns have largely turned their backs on the history and ecology of Utah Lake and Great Salt Lake, not to mention the geoheritage of ancestral Lake Bonneville. The valleys below the ancient shorelines have become showcases for improvident land use. Utah’s strong sense of place lacks a complementary ethic of place. In a long-form illustrated essay—a sort of manifesto—I describe a once-and-future Salt Lake City affiliated with its namesake lake. I argue that Utahns will become better stewards of historic landscapes as well as better builders of urban habitats if they work from the bottom up, and turn from the lofty to the lowly. Historic maps, documentary photographs, and artistic imagery accompany my 12,000-word essay—a couple hours’ worth of reading. Freely available for downloading in two formats: PDF and iBooks (for iOS devices).
The Image of Mormons: A Sourcebook for Teachers and Students (2013)
A visual anthology of 700+ depictions of Latter-day Saints, including historic anti-Mormon propaganda as well as more recent public relations images promulgated by the LDS Church. Other than headings and citations, this curated picture book (freely available in PDF format) contains practically no text. It was designed so that teachers can easily extract material for lectures and primary source assignments.
Mormons in the Media, 1830–2012 (2012)
My outline history of Mormonism from the “Restoration” by Joseph Smith to the “Mormon Moment” starring Mitt Romney, with special attention given to Utah Mormons in the U.S. public sphere. Written for a general audience, this e-book includes more than 500 illustrations. Available in PDF and iBooks formats. (To learn about the origin of this project, read this Q&A.)Editorial: Failing grade for school funding fix
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This could be an expensive session of the Illinois General Assembly for suburban taxpayers.
At the same time Gov. Pat Quinn is pushing to make permanent an income tax increase that was to expire at year's end, legislation that would significantly alter the state's school funding formula -- and no doubt result in property tax increases in the suburbs -- is being debated.
We agree that the school funding formula is complicated, potentially unfair and needs to be studied. But we don't agree that it should be changed on the backs of suburban taxpayers.
"We're having rich and thoughtful discussions about the haves and have-nots and how money's being distributed," state Superintendent of Education Christopher Koch told The Associated Press in a story published in the Daily Herald Monday. "We need this conversation."
Yes, it's helpful to have a meaningful conversation to make sure needs of the entire state are met. But that AP story highlights the problem for many of the school districts in the Daily Herald circulation area. Under the proposal put forth by state Sen. Andy Manar, a Democrat from downstate Bunker Hill, downstate Pana's school district would receive a 30 percent increase in state funding or about $1.7 million. In contrast, Barrington Unit District 220 would lose $5.3 million a year -- about 80 percent of what it currently receives. That's too much of a hit and would almost assuredly need to be replaced by higher property taxes from District 220 taxpayers.
"I would agree that the current way we're doing things is not making sense and it's probably not fair across the state," District 220 Superintendent Ton Leonard told the AP. "But some of the costs we have are not the same as others."
For example, he said, teacher salaries are much higher in the suburbs than downstate. All of that needs to be taken into account with a funding fix. According to the AP, 69 of 78 districts in Cook County would lose funding under the proposed scenario and 122 of 143 districts in the collar counties.
We urge suburban representatives to fight the current legislation but to continue working on finding a more equitable solution to the school aid formula. It was last changed in 1997. While general state aid for education is based on a formula that factors in poverty levels, grants for special education, transportation and vocational training do not factor in poverty. The money for those programs has increased greater than general state aid has as the state deals with its financial woes.
One offset we liked hearing from Koch was a possibility of removing a requirement that forces school districts to pay for state mandates the state doesn't fund. More of that kind of thinking is what's needed if a compromise is to be found.A Canadian military garrison has a rush order out for 500 video games, a requisition that a headquarters spokeswoman admitted is "strange."
The government tender, which closes Dec. 2, asks for Gears of War, Grand Theft Auto 4 and Assassin's Creed 2, in addition to rhythm gaming titles, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, and X-Men Origins. The spread and the appeal of the games, plus the fact they asked for Gears of War on the PC, make the tender extremely curious. No one's going to be playing Fallout 3 in a rec hall, you know.
The shipment is to be delivered "as soon as possible" to the Longue-Pointe Garrison in Montreal. For Gears of War, 93 copies are requested. For Modern Warfare 2, the garrison requires 82 copies. Longue-Pointe Garrison is a supply depot.
The complete list in the Canadian Forces order according to the CP:
Gears of War (PC)
Rock Band 2 (Xbox 360)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360)
Guitar Hero 3 (Xbox 360)
Assassin's Creed 2 (Xbox 360)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360)
Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox 360)
Gears of War (Xbox 360)
Mortal Kombat DC Universe (Xbox 360)
Rock Band (Xbox 360)
Tiger Woods 2011 (Xbox 360)
X-Men Origins (Xbox 360)
Guitar Hero 3 Legends of Rock (Xbox 360)
Fallout 3 (Xbox 360)
Assassin's Creed 2 (PS3)
Ghost Recon (Xbox 360)
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‘Gears of War,' ‘Call of Duty' on Canadian Forces' Hit List [Canadian Press via GamePolitics]The slow moving Senate debate over climate change offers an opportunity to revisit the fundamentals of climate change. While the physical science about natural and anthropogenic forcings is the place to start, the economics of climate change is highly relevant for the policy debate. In this regard, a perfectly timed literature review in the Spring 2009 The Journal of Economic Perspectives is worth
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Michael Sherwood joins Malwarebytes to focus on creating innovative tools for technicians
San Jose, Calif. – February 13, 2015: Malwarebytes, the company founded to protect people and businesses from sophisticated data-stealing software, today announced the appointment of Michael Sherwood as Senior Director of Technician Services. In his new role, Michael will work closely with the technician community to help Malwarebytes develop a toolset which creates new standards in the diagnosis and repair of infected computers.
Previously, Michael was a Director and Lead Architect at Geek Squad. There, he formulated the company’s strategy towards advanced technical toolsets, initiating a project which saved $1.5bn in support costs over nine years. Michael also assumed the role of ‘Chief Inspector’ at Geek Squad, acting as a global ambassador and implementing and guiding culture for 20,000 technicians worldwide.
Building on this experience, he will work with technicians to help Malwarebytes develop innovative, easy to use tools for diagnosing and repairing the increasing number of machines infected with advanced malware that defeats traditional anti-virus.
“Given that I was working in tech support when I first developed the product, we have a strong understanding of what this community wants,” said Marcin Kleczynski, CEO of Malwarebytes.
“Michael will help us build on this to create a set of innovative tools, developed in close partnership with technical support teams, which we hope will set new standards when it comes to diagnosing and repairing infected machines.”
“I am looking forward to helping Malwarebytes build a toolset by techs, for techs,” Mr. Sherwood said. “Being part of the community means we can create something which hopefully becomes a de-facto standard for technicians – combining innovative tools with an approach that helps them operate an effective business.”
More information on Malwarebytes can be found on the website here.
About Malwarebytes
Malwarebytes provides software designed to protect consumers and businesses against advanced threats that consistently escape detection by traditional antivirus solutions. Founded in 2008, the company is headquartered in California, operates offices in Europe, and employs a global team of researchers and experts. For more information, please visit us at www.malwarebytes.orgPhoto
LEXINGTON, S.C. – Gov. Scott Walker, who recently expressed support for a ban on gay Boy Scout leaders because it “protected children,” said Wednesday that he did not mean that children needed “physical protection” from gay scoutmasters — but rather protection from the debate over the ban.
In comments published on Tuesday by The Independent Journal Review, a news website that is popular with young conservatives, Mr. Walker, a former Eagle Scout, said, “I have had a lifelong commitment to the Scouts and support the previous membership policy because it protected children and advanced Scout values.” Yet during a brief news conference in South Carolina on Wednesday, Mr. Walker said that he was not pushing to save the ban — “it’s up to the Boy Scouts” — and that his earlier remarks were not about protecting children from gay people.
“The protection was not a physical protection,” he said, but rather about “protecting them from being involved in the very thing you’re talking about right now, the political and media discussion about it, instead of just focusing on what Scouts is about, which is about camping and citizenship and things of that nature.”
Embracing popular positions with conservative and evangelical voters has increasingly become a key part of Mr. Walker’s strategy to compete for votes against the 14 other Republicans running for president, especially in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, which he considers a must-win contest. Mr. Walker has been especially firm in his support for amending the United States Constitution to allow states to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Mr. Walker’s comments on the Scout policy drew sharp criticism from gay rights groups.
“Scott Walker’s suggestion that the Boy Scouts of America’s current discriminatory policy somehow ‘protects’ children from gay adults is offensive, outrageous and absolutely unacceptable,” said Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign. “His comments imply that we represent a threat to the safety and well-being of young people. For a sitting governor and presidential candidate to make such a disgraceful claim is unconscionable.”
Mr. Walker also indicated on Wednesday that he would consider Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina as a vice presidential running mate if he won the Republican Party’s nomination, though he repeatedly emphasized that the notion was premature.
“Certainly Nikki’s a friend of mine, she has been a very capable governor, and there will be a long list of people like her, but again, like I said, it’s premature,” Mr. Walker said.The struggle for supremacy dates to the nation’s birth. George Washington fought with Congress over its right to investigate a botched military expedition. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and freed the slaves, with Congress ratifying his actions only afterward. Franklin D. Roosevelt quarreled so much with Congress and the courts over enacting the New Deal that he tried to pack the Supreme Court with more justices. Congress tried to restrain Dwight D. Eisenhower’s ability to negotiate diplomatic agreements with a constitutional amendment that barely failed. Ronald Reagan tripped up during the Iran-contra scandal by defying a Congressional ban on aid to Nicaraguan rebels. And Bill Clinton was impeached by the House (but acquitted in the Senate) for lying under oath about sexual trysts in the Oval Office.
The modern nadir in presidential power came during the administration of Richard M. Nixon, whose extra-constitutional adventures resulted in his resignation and a burst of Congressional activism intended to constrain the executive’s ability to wage war, conduct intelligence operations and spend money. A young Dick Cheney, chief of staff for the weak, unelected president who followed Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, resolved when he returned to the White House a quarter-century later to do all he could to restore that lost power.
The “unitary executive” theory he embraced held that because the Constitution provides for only one executive branch, Congress cannot intrude upon the president’s duties to manage the government. “Congress has by nicks and cuts over the last 30 years done a lot to limit presidential authority,” said Shannen W. Coffin, Mr. Cheney’s counsel until last year. “The president and vice president did put their foot down to Congress. A lot of the things the president stood up to have been happening since the Nixon White House.”
With the acquiescence of a Republican Congress and a public eager to fight terrorism, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney advanced their cause for years — the secret deliberations of an energy task force; the Patriot Act; “signing statements” that express reservations about enforcing a bill; warrantless surveillance; unrestricted detention of terrorism suspects; the reinterpretation of the Geneva Conventions.
But as Mr. Bush’s sky-high approval ratings collapsed, so did his capacity to preserve that newfound power. Lawmakers and judges began forcing him to seek legislative approval for military commissions and eavesdropping, proscribing interrogation techniques and trimming back some investigative powers. Even many Republicans, resentful of the White House dictating what they should do, joined with Democrats who recaptured Congress in 2006.
“The fact that presidential leadership stalled here is a return to normalcy in presidential-Congressional relations,” said Andrew Rudalevige, author of “The New Imperial Presidency” and a Dickinson College professor. “After all, presidential influence in Congress is usually a matter of degree, not of decree.”
So where is Mr. Bush leaving things? Many in Washington believe the presidency remains stronger but faces a rocky road ahead. “As of this moment, I think he has succeeded,” said Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a Republican who fought Mr. Bush’s expansive view of executive prerogative. But when January arrives, Mr. Specter said, “there’s going to be a strong view to reasserting Congressional authority.”
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Norman J. Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said that for now “the institutional presidency is marginally stronger” but the counterrevolution will leave it weaker. Ronald A. Klain, who was chief of staff to Vice President Gore, said that on paper Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have accrued more power, “but their abuse of that power has raised new scrutiny, doubts and skepticism about such power.”
Mr. Berenson, the White House lawyer who helped develop Mr. Bush’s early policies, said he now believed it was a mistake to move without getting Congress to buy in, at least eventually. He said he agreed with Jack Landman Goldsmith, a former Bush Justice Department official, who wrote in a recent book that such an approach would have built a stronger foundation for policies on detention and interrogation. After all, despite the furor over the eavesdropping program, Congress ultimately agreed to a modified version of it.
Others dismiss that. “It’s naïve,” said David B. Rivkin Jr., a former Justice Department official who served under Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush. A wartime president must act boldly without 535 second-guessers, he said, so the proper question is not whether Mr. Bush expanded his office’s power, but whether he did so compared to past wartime presidents. “What we’re seeing is the weakest independent executive authority in wartime in American history,” he said.
While the debate has focused on security, the lurching path to a bailout bill showed some the need for a strong president who can confront economic threats, too. “The financial crisis reminds us just how indispensable the executive is for navigating an exceedingly complex policy challenge,” said Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution, who with Mr. Ornstein wrote “The Broken Branch,” a Congressional history. But Mr. Mann said Congress tried to avoid giving the president a blank check by erecting a scaffolding of oversight, monitoring and transparency.
Mr. Bush’s would-be successors are promising more restraint. Barack Obama told a group of congressmen over the summer that he would review Mr. Bush’s executive orders and cancel those that infringe civil liberties. John McCain even said he would come to Congress to submit to questions in the well, as British prime ministers do.
But that invites some skepticism. “The question is, will the next president ratchet back the power taken by the president? I don’t think so,” said James Thurber, director of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. “I believe in the Ratchet Theory of Power. Once you see how you can use the power of signing statements, nobody wants to go back on it.”At last report, the Prime Minister said he had “no immediate plans” to appoint another senator and when I asked last week about the Prime Minister’s current plans I was referred to those comments of his in August.
The Prime Minister’s last round of appointees was announced on January 25 (the appointment of Scott Tannas was announced on March 25, but Mr. Tannas had the benefit of having been elected in Alberta). Less than a week later, the Harper government announced that it was referring Senate reform to the Supreme Court.
Of course, the last 12 months have perhaps made it more difficult to be seen appointing someone to the upper chamber. And at least until the Supreme Court rules on the Senate reference, Mr. Harper can imagine that getting to an elected Senate is as easy as passing legislation through Parliament and waiting for the provinces to comply.
But there is some interesting math involved here.
With the departures of Gerald Comeau and David Braley, there are currently nine vacancies in the Senate and Hugh Segal is now due to retire next June. Another five senators will reach the mandatory retirement age of 75 in 2014: three Conservatives and two Liberals.
Even with the vacancies and even with the departures from caucus of Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin, the Conservatives still enjoy a 57-32 advantage in the Senate. If Mr. Harper filled all of the above vacancies with Conservatives, Mr. Harper could give the Conservatives a 68-30 advantage by the end of 2014.
Senator Segal’s impending departure also marks the slow decline of senators who were not appointed by Stephen Harper. Of the six known departures for 2014, including Mr. Segal, two were appointed by Paul Martin, two were appointed by Jean Chretien and one by Brian Mulroney. Of the current senators, three were appointed by Pierre Trudeau, seven by Mr. Mulroney, 22 by Mr. Chretien and 13 by Mr. Martin. The remaining 51 were appointed by Mr. Harper.
(Mr. Harper has so far made 59 appointments, good for sixth in the all-time standings, but three of those appointees were elected, so he could still be said to rank just below Mr. Mulroney’s 57 appointees. If Mr. Harper gets ambitious and fills all or most of the potential vacancies, he could get past Robert Borden for fifth all-time. He’d need some early retirements to get past Mr. Chretien for fourth.)
If Stephen Harper left the Conservatives with 68 members of the Senate, how long would a Conservative majority in the Senate remain in place? Obviously that depends on how quickly after 2015 a non-Conservative party or coalition formed government. But if there is a spring election in 2015 and the appointing of Conservative senators ceased shortly thereafter, it could be another four years before the Conservatives lost their Senate majority with the retirement of Raynell Andreychuk in August of 2019. That could, conceivably, reduce the Conservative count to 57. Jacques Demers’ retirement a week and a half later would reduce the count to 56.
On the other hand, if Mr. Harper declines to appoint another senator, the Conservatives could be down to 53 (or fewer, if anyone retires early) by the spring of 2015.This article is about the strait in Turkey. For other uses, see Bosphorus (disambiguation)
A map depicting the locations of the Turkish Straits, with the Bosporus in red, and the Dardanelles in yellow. The territory of Turkey is highlighted in green.
Close-up satellite image of the Bosporus strait, taken from the ISS in April 2004. The body of water at the top is the Black Sea, the one at the bottom is the Marmara Sea, and the Bosporus is the winding waterway that connects the two. The western banks of the Bosporus constitute the geographic starting point of the European continent, while the banks to the east are the geographic beginnings of the continent of Asia. The city of Istanbul is visible along both banks.
Aerial view of the Bosporus taken from its northern end near the Black Sea (bottom), looking south (top) toward the Marmara, with the city center of Istanbul visible along the strait's hilly banks.
The Bosporus () or Bosphorus ( or ;[1] Ancient Greek: Βόσπορος Bosporos [bós.po.ros]; also known as The Strait of Istanbul; Turkish: İstanbul Boğazı) is a narrow, natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in northwestern Turkey. It forms part of the continental boundary between Europe and Asia, and separates Asian Turkey from European Turkey. The world's narrowest strait used for international navigation, the Bosporus connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, and, by extension via the Dardanelles, the Aegean and Mediterranean seas.
Most of the shores of the strait are heavily settled, straddled by the city of Istanbul's metropolitan population of 17 million inhabitants extending inland from both coasts.
Together with the Dardanelles, the Bosporus forms the Turkish Straits.
Name [ edit ]
The name of the channel comes from the Ancient Greek Βόσπορος (Bosporos), which was folk-etymologised as βοὸς πόρος, i.e. "cattle strait" (or "Ox-ford"[2]), from the genitive of bous βοῦς "ox, cattle" + poros πόρος "passage", thus meaning "cattle-passage", or "cow passage".[3] This is in reference to the mythological story of Io, who was transformed into a cow, and was subsequently condemned to wander the Earth until she crossed the Bosporus, where she met the Titan Prometheus, who comforted her with the information that she would be restored to human form by Zeus and become the ancestress of the greatest of all heroes, Heracles (Hercules).
The site where Io supposedly went ashore was near Chrysopolis (present-day Üsküdar), and was named Bous "the Cow". The same site was also known as Damalis, as it was where the Athenian general Chares had erected a monument to his wife Damalis, which included a colossal statue of a cow (the name Damalis translating to "calf").[4]
The English spelling with -ph-, Bosfor has no justification in the ancient Greek name, and dictionaries prefer the spelling with -p-[1] but -ph- occurs as a variant in medieval Latin (as Bosfor, and occasionally Bosforus, Bosferus), and in medieval Greek sometimes as Βόσφορος,[5] giving rise to the French form Bosphore, Spanish Bósforo and Russian Босфор. The 12th century Greek scholar John Tzetzes calls it Damaliten Bosporon (after Damalis), but he also reports that in popular usage the strait was known as Prosphorion during his day,[6] the name of the most ancient northern harbour of Constantinople.
Historically, the Bosporus was also known as the "Strait of Constantinople", or the Thracian Bosporus, in order to distinguish it from the Cimmerian Bosporus in Crimea. These are expressed in Herodotus' Histories, 4.83; as Bosporus Thracius, Bosporus Thraciae, and Βόσπορος Θρᾴκιος, respectively. Other names by which the strait is referenced by Herodotus include Chalcedonian Bosporus (Bosporus Chalcedoniae, Bosporos tes Khalkedonies, Herodotus 4.87), or Mysian Bosporus (Bosporus Mysius).[7]
The term eventually came to be used as common noun βόσπορος, meaning "a strait", and was also formerly applied to the Hellespont in Classical Greek by Aeschylus and Sophocles.
Geography [ edit ]
As a maritime waterway, the Bosporus connects various seas along the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Near East, and Western Eurasia, and specifically connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. The Marmara further connects to the Aegean and Mediterranean seas via the Dardanelles. Thus, the Bosporus allows maritime connections from the Black Sea all the way to the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean via Gibraltar, and the Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal, making it a crucial international waterway, in particular for the passage of goods coming in from Russia.
Formation [ edit ]
The exact cause and date of the formation of the Bosporus remain the subject of debate among geologists. One recent hypothesis, dubbed the Black Sea deluge hypothesis, which was launched by a study of the same name in 1997 by two scientists from Columbia University, postulates that the Bosporus was formed around 5600 BC when the rising waters of the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Marmara breached through to the Black Sea, which at the time, according to the hypothesis, was a low-lying body of fresh water.
Many geologists,[who?] however, claim that the strait is much older, even if relatively young on a geologic timescale.
From the perspective of ancient Greek mythology, it was said that colossal floating rocks known as the Symplegades, or Clashing Rocks, once occupied the hilltops on both sides of the Bosporus, and destroyed any ship that attempted passage of the channel by rolling down the strait's hills and violently crushing all vessels between them. The Symplegades were defeated when the lyrical hero Jason obtained successful passage, whereupon the rocks became fixed, and Greek access to the Black Sea was opened.
Present morphology [ edit ]
The limits of the Bosporus are defined as the connecting line between the lighthouses of Rumeli Feneri and Anadolu Feneri in the north, and between the Ahırkapı Feneri and the Kadıköy İnciburnu Feneri in the south. Between these limits, the strait is 31 km (17 nmi) long, with a width of 3,329 m (1.798 nmi) at the northern entrance and 2,826 m (1.526 nmi) at the southern entrance. Its maximum width is 3,420 m (1.85 nmi) between Umuryeri and Büyükdere Limanı, and minimum width 700 m (0.38 nmi) between Kandilli Point and Aşiyan.
The depth of the Bosporus varies from 13 to 110 m (43 to 361 ft) in midstream with an average of 65 m (213 ft). The deepest location is between Kandilli and Bebek with 110 m (360 ft). The shallowest locations are off Kadıköy İnciburnu on the northward route with 18 m (59 ft) and off Aşiyan Point on the southward route with 13 m (43 ft).[8]
The Golden Horn is an estuary off the main strait that historically acted as a moat to protect Old Istanbul from attack, as well as providing a sheltered anchorage for the imperial navies of various empires until the 19th century, after which it became a historic neighborhood at the heart of the city, popular with tourists and locals alike.
Newer explorations [ edit ]
It had been known since before the 20th century that the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara flow into each other in a geographic example of "density flow", and in August 2010, a continuous 'underwater channel' of suspension composition was discovered to flow along the floor of the Bosporus, which would be the sixth largest river on Earth if it were to be on land.[9] The study of the water and wind erosion of the straits relates to that of its formation. Sections of the shore have been reinforced with concrete or rubble and sections of the strait prone to deposition are periodically dredged.
The 2010 team of scientists, led by the University of Leeds, used a robotic "yellow submarine" to observe detailed flows within an "undersea river", scientifically referred to as a submarine channel,[9] for the first time. Submarine channels are similar to land rivers, but they are formed by density currents—underwater flow mixtures of sand, mud and water that are denser than sea water and so sink and flow along the bottom. These channels are the main transport pathway for sediments to the deep sea where they form sedimentary deposits. These deposits ultimately hold not only untapped reserves of gas and oil, they also house important secrets—from clues on past climate change to the ways in which mountains were formed.[9]
The team studied the detailed flow within these channels and findings included:
The channel complex and the density flow provide the ideal natural laboratory for investigating and detailing the structure of the flow field through the channel. Our initial findings show that the flow in these channels is quite different to the flow in river channels on land. Specifically, as flow moves around a bend it spirals in the opposite direction in the deep sea compared to the spiral found in river channels on land. This is important in understanding the sedimentology and layers of sediment deposited by these systems.[10]
The central tenet of the Black Sea deluge hypothesis is that as the ocean rose 72.5 metres (238 ft) at the end of the last Ice Age when the massive ice sheets melted, the sealed Bosporus was overtopped in a spectacular flood that increased the then fresh water Black Sea Lake 50%, and drove people from the shores for many months. This was supported by findings of undersea explorer Robert Ballard, who discovered settlements along the old shoreline; scientists dated the flood to 7500 BP or 5500 BC from fresh-salt water microflora. The peoples driven out by the constantly rising water, which must have been terrifying and inexplicable, spread to all corners of the Western world carrying the story of the Great Flood, which is how it probably entered most religions. As the waters surged, they scoured a network of sea-floor channels less resistant to denser suspended solids in liquid, which remains a very active layer today.
The first images of these submarine channels were obtained in 1999, showing them to be of great size[11] during a NATO SACLANT Undersea Research project using jointly the NATO RV Alliance, and the Turkish Navy survey ship Çubuklu. In 2002, a survey was carried out on board the Ifremer RV Le Suroit for BlaSON project (Lericolais, et al., 2003[12]) completed the multibeam mapping of this underwater channel fan-delta. A complete map was published in 2009[13] using these previous results with high quality mapping obtained in 2006 (by researchers at Memorial University of Newfoundland who are project partners in this study).
The team will use the data obtained to create innovative computer simulations that can be used to model how sediment flows through these channels. The models the team will produce will have broad applications, including inputting into the design of seafloor engineering by oil and gas companies.
The project was led by Jeff Peakall and Daniel Parsons at the University of Leeds, in collaboration with the University of Southampton, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and the Institute of Marine Sciences. The survey was run and coordinated from the Institute of Marine Sciences research ship, the R/V Koca Piri Reis.
History [ edit ]
As part of the only passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the Bosporus has always been of great importance from a commercial and military point of view, and remains strategically important today. It is a major sea access route for numerous countries, including Russia and Ukraine. Control over it has been an objective of a number of conflicts in modern history, notably the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), as well as of the attack of the Allied Powers on the Dardanelles during the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli in the course of World War I.
Ancient Greek, Persian, Roman and Byzantine eras (pre-1453) [ edit ]
Map of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ), designed in 1422 by Florentine cartographer Cristoforo Buondelmonti. This is the oldest surviving map of the city, and the only surviving map which predates the Turkish conquest of 1453. The Bosporus is visible along the right hand side of the map, wrapping vertically around the historic city.
The strategic importance of the Bosporus dates back millennia. The Greek city-state of Athens in the 5th century BC, which was dependent on grain imports from Scythia, maintained critical alliances with cities which controlled the straits, such as the Megarian colony Byzantium.
Persian King Darius I the Great, in an attempt to subdue the Scythian horsemen who roamed across the north of the Black Sea, crossed through the Bosporus, then marched towards the River Danube. His army crossed the Bosporus over an enormous bridge made by connecting Achaemenid boats.[14][15] This bridge essentially connected the farthest geographic tip of Asia to Europe, encompassing at least some 1,000 metres of open water if not more.[16] Years later, a similar boat bridge would be constructed by Xerxes I on the Dardanelles (Hellespont) strait, during his invasion of Greece.
The Byzantines called the Bosporus "Stenon" and most important toponyms of it Bosporios Akra, Argyropolis, St. Mamas, St. Phokas, Hestiai or Michaelion, Phoneus, Anaplous or Sosthenion in European side and Hieron tower, Eirenaion, Anthemiou, Sophianai, Bithynian Chryspolis in Asian side in this era[17]
The strategic significance of the strait was one of the factors in the decision of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great to found there in AD 330 his new capital, Constantinople, which came to be known as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. The expressions "swim the Bosporus" and "cross the Bosporus" were and are still used to indicate religious conversion to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Ottoman era (1453–1922) [ edit ]
The Bosphorus, with the Castles of Europe & Asia. 19th-century engraving by [18]. 19th-century engraving by Thomas Allom. The castles are Rumelihisarı and Anadoluhisarı, respectively. The original is a watercolor available in the online collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
On 29 May 1453, the then-emergent Ottoman Empire conquered the city of Constantinople following a lengthy campaign wherein the Ottomans constructed fortifications on each side of the strait, the Anadoluhisarı (1393) and the Rumelihisarı (1451), in preparation for not only the primary battle but to assert long-term control over the Bosporus and surrounding waterways. The final 53-day campaign, which resulted in Ottoman victory, constituted an important turn in world history. Together with Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas in 1492, the 1453 conquest of Constantinople is commonly noted as among the events that brought an end to the Middle Ages and marked the transition to the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.
The event also marked the end of the Byzantines—the final remnants of the Roman Empire—and the transfer of the control of the Bosporus into Ottoman hands, who made Constantinople their new capital, and from where they expanded their empire in the centuries that followed.
At its peak between the 16th and 18th centuries, the Ottoman Empire had used the strategic importance of the Bosporus to expand their regional ambitions and to wrest control of the entire Black Sea area, which they regarded as an "Ottoman lake", on which Russian warships were prohibited.[19]
Subsequently, several international treaties have governed vessels using the waters. Under the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi of 8 July 1833, the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits were to be closed on Russian demand to naval vessels of other powers.[20] By the terms of the London Straits Convention concluded on 13 July 1841, between the Great Powers of Europe—Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Austria and Prussia—the "ancient rule" of the Ottoman Empire was re-established by closing the Turkish Straits to any and all warships, barring those of the Sultan's allies during wartime. It thus benefited British naval power at the expense of Russian, as the latter lacked direct access for its navy to the Mediterranean.[21]
Following the First World War, the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres demilitarized the strait and made it an international territory under the control of the League of Nations.
Turkish republican era (1923–present) [ edit ]
This was amended under the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), which restored the straits to Turkish territory—but allowed all foreign warships and commercial shipping to traverse the straits freely. Turkey eventually rejected the terms of that treaty, and subsequently Turkey remilitarised the straits area. The reversion was formalised under the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits of 20 July 1936. That convention, which is still in force, treats the straits as an international shipping lane save that Turkey retains the right to restrict the naval traffic of non–Black Sea states.
Turkey was neutral in the Second World War until February 1945, and the straits were closed to the warships of belligerent nations during this time, although some German auxiliary vessels were permitted to transit. In diplomatic conferences, Soviet representatives had made known their interest in Turkish concession of Soviet naval bases on the straits. This, as well as Stalin's demands for the restitution of the Turkish provinces of Kars, Artvin and Ardahan to the Soviet Union (which were lost by Turkey in the Russo–Turkish War of 1877–1878, but were regained with the Treaty of Kars in 1921), were considerations in Turkey's decision to abandon neutrality in foreign affairs. Turkey declared war against Germany in February 1945, but did not engage in offensive actions.[22][23][24]
Turkey joined NATO in 1952, thus affording its straits even more strategic importance as a commercial and military waterway.
During the early 21st century, the Turkish Straits have become particularly important for the oil industry. Russian oil, from ports such as Novorossyisk, is exported by tankers primarily to western Europe and the U.S. via the Bosporus and the Dardanelles straits. In 2011 Turkey planned a 50 km canal through Silivri as a second waterway, reducing risk in the Bosporus.[25][26]
Crossings [ edit ]
Bosphorus Bridge, the first to be built across the Bosphorus, completed in 1973
Maritime [ edit ]
The waters of the Bosphorus are traversed by numerous passenger and vehicular ferries daily, as well as recreational and fishing boats ranging from dinghies to yachts owned by both public and private entities.
The strait also experiences significant amounts of international commercial shipping traffic by freighters and tankers. Between its northern limits at Rumeli Feneri and Anadolu Feneri and its southern ones at Ahırkapı Feneri and Kadıköy İnciburnu Feneri, there are numerous dangerous points for large-scale maritime traffic that require sharp turns and management of visual obstructions. Famously, the stretch between Kandilli Point and Aşiyan requires a 45-degree course alteration in a location where the currents can reach 7 to 8 knots (3.6 to 4.1 m/s). To the south, at Yeniköy, the necessary course alteration is 80 degrees. Compounding these difficult changes in trajectory, the rear and forward sight lines at Kandilli and Yeniköy are also completely blocked prior to and during the course alteration, making it impossible for ships approaching from the opposite direction to see around these bends. The risks posed by geography are further multiplied by the heavy ferry traffic across the strait, linking the European and Asian sides of the city. As such, all the dangers and obstacles characteristic of narrow waterways are present and acute in this critical sea lane.
In 2011, the Turkish Government discussed creating a large-scale canal project roughly 80 kilometres (50 mi) long that runs north-south through the western edges of Istanbul Province as a second waterway between the Black Sea and the Marmara, intended to reduce risk in the Bosphorus.[25][26] This Kanal İstanbul project currently continues to be debated.[27][28][29]
Land [ edit ]
Two suspension bridges and a cable-stayed bridge cross the Bosphorus. The first of these, the 15th July Martyrs Bridge, is 1,074 m (3,524 ft) long and was completed in 1973. The second, named Fatih Sultan Mehmet (Bosphorus II) Bridge, is 1,090 m (3,576 ft) long, and was completed in 1988 about 5 km (3 mi) north of the first bridge. The first Bosphorus Bridge forms part of the O1 Motorway, while the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge forms part of the Trans-European Motorway. The third, Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, is 2,164 m (7,100 ft) long and was completed in 2016.[30][31] It is located near the northern end of the Bosphorus, between the villages of Garipçe on the European side and Poyrazköy on the Asian side,[32] as part of the "Northern Marmara Motorway", integrated with the existing Black Sea Coastal Highway, and allowing transit traffic to bypass city traffic.[30][31]
Submarine [ edit ]
The Marmaray project, featuring a 13.7 km (8.5 mi) long undersea railway tunnel, opened on 29 October 2013.[33] Approximately 1,400 m (4,593 ft) of the tunnel runs under the strait, at a depth of about 55 m (180 ft).
An undersea water supply tunnel with a length of 5,551 m (18,212 ft),[34] named the Bosporus Water Tunnel, was constructed in 2012 to transfer water from the Melen Creek in Düzce Province (to the east of the Bosphorus strait, in northwestern Anatolia) to the European side of Istanbul, a distance of 185 km (115 mi).[34][35]
The Eurasia Tunnel is a 5.4 km (3.4 mi) undersea highway tunnel, crossing the Bosphorus for vehicular traffic, between Kazlıçeşme and Göztepe. Construction began in February 2011, and was opened on 20 December 2016.[36]
Up to 4 submarine fibre optics lines (MedNautilus and possibly others) approach Istanbul, coming from the Mediterranean through the Dardanelles.[37][38]
Sightseeing [ edit ]
The Bosphorus has 620 waterfront houses (yalı) built during the Ottoman period along the strait's European and Asian shorelines. Ottoman palaces such as the Topkapı Palace, Dolmabahçe Palace, Yıldız Palace, Çırağan Palace, Feriye Palaces, Beylerbeyi Palace, Küçüksu Palace, Ihlamur Palace, Hatice Sultan Palace, Adile Sultan Palace and Khedive Palace are within its view. Buildings and landmarks within view include the Hagia Sophia, Hagia Irene, Sultan Ahmed Mosque, Yeni Mosque, Kılıç Ali Pasha Mosque, Nusretiye Mosque, Dolmabahçe Mosque, Ortaköy Mosque, Üsküdar Mihrimah Sultan Mosque, Yeni Valide Mosque, Maiden's Tower, Galata Tower, Rumelian Castle, Anatolian Castle, Yoros Castle, Selimiye Barracks, Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Sadberk Hanım Museum, Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Borusan Museum of Contemporary Art, Tophane
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statement.
But authorities say he cooled down.
A parishioner gave the pastor a ride from the apartment, and police later helped him retrieve his clothes and car, the report said.
Police elected not to charge the husband, saying he never pointed a gun at the pastor or his wife, who said she never felt threatened he would shoot them.
But by that Sunday, the story had spread. And Simmons found himself making a statement of his own.
“I’m hurting because I’ve hurt you,” Simmons told the church on the video recorded by a parishioner. “I can’t speak to people on the outside. I am not Tallahassee’s pastor. I am not Florida’s pastor. I am Jacob Chapel’s pastor.
“It hurts me that you have to defend my actions. You cannot defend sin.”
The congregation responded with loud applause.
[Youth pastor arrested at church after admitting he impregnated a 15-year-old, police say]
Simmons could not be reached for comment this week, and he’s been silent on Twitter since the day he got caught having an affair.
But earlier this week, Jacob Chapel Baptist Church posted an undated sermon from Simmons on its YouTube page.
“Beware of people that’s gotta tear down your reputation, throw dirt on your name, and throw salt in your game — not because you’re doing anything wrong, but because they’re so small, they gotta keep their foot on you, in order for them to feel like somebody,” he said in the video.
A woman who answered the phone at the church Tuesday told The Washington Post that “the official comment is we are still prayerful about the situation.”
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A 14-year-old student extorted $28,000 from the teacher he was having sex with, police say
A family suspected a caregiver was abusing an Alzheimer’s patient. So they installed a camera.
A crooked cop’s execution-style killing in Texas exposes the ruthless inner workings of the Mexican MafiaA Calgary couple who lost their jobs due to the economic downturn before both being diagnosed with cancer will have a merry Christmas with their two teenage boys after all, thanks to the generosity of strangers.
By Friday night, a GoFundMe page started by Dan and Darlene Desgagne has raised more than $55,000 in a matter of days, easily eclipsing its $15,000 goal.
Dan was laid off from his job in the oil and gas sector in the spring of 2015. He went as far as going back to school in a bid to find full-time work and began taking construction jobs wherever possible to pay the bills.
It was at a wedding over the September long weekend that Darlene noticed Dan's neck looked "quite lumpy" on both sides.
When they returned home, Dan went to see a doctor and received some bad news.
"They did an ultrasound on his neck and there were some really bad things happening," said Darlene.
"They thought at the time it was Hodgkin's disease, did some more blood work and then we had more appointments to see a surgeon and an ear, nose and throat specialist, and they finally found the primary tumour."
Cancer had spread to Dan's lymphatic system but the primary tumour was at the base of his tongue.
"They told us he was at stage 4," said Darlene. "That was kind of the beginning. September was just a whole series of appointments to get a proper diagnosis and get some more biopsies taken."
In October, the couple received more devastating news — Darlene was laid off from her job in the accounting field, leaving them without a stable income.
"It was unexpected and it was a devastating blow," she said. "How do you try to find work when your husband is dying?"
'We know when we need help'
Darlene was able to find another job in a matter of weeks, but eight days after she started, in early November, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer.
That forced her to give up the job she'd just found and undergo a radical hysterectomy, which she is now recovering from.
A friend then suggested they start a GoFundMe page to try and raise some much-needed money.
Dan was initially against the idea, but the friend convinced Darlene to go through with it.
"We know when we need help," she said.
"I talked to him and he was kind of [unsure] about it so I talked to my friend further and she said 'I think it's really essential right now because you two need to focus on getting better.'"
Dan and Darlene Desgagne wrap Christmas presents in their Calgary home. (Mike Symington/CBC)
The response was overwhelming, said Darlene.
"It skyrocketed. We were stunned with the amount of compassion that we received," she said. "It was just amazing how people reached out. It really has lifted a huge burden off of us."
As Darlene recovers, Dan is now in his second week of radiation and chemotherapy.
"He's about to enter the uglies of his disease, so it's going to be [grueling] for him," said Darlene.
Along with being on his tongue and in his lymph nodes, some 20 nodules were also found in Dan's lungs.
Through it all, the couple said their love for each other — and their family — has kept them strong.
"We just look at it as a building character to the next step," said Dan.
"I've always been under the impression our struggles on Earth are what they are, they build character, they allows us an opportunity to be benchmarked on our entry through the gates perhaps."A FURTHER 200 staff are being made redundant at BlackBerry - 125 at the company's HQ in Waterloo, Ontario and 75 at a manufacturing facility in Sunrise, Florida.
BlackBerry made the announcement following speculation that as much as 35 per cent of the company - about 2,000 staff - was to be made redundant, despite broadly positive financial results reported in December.
The move follows a cull of around 200 staff in September among teams that had been working on BlackBerry 10 devices in advance of the company's first Android-based smartphone, the BlackBerry Priv. Some key figures have also left, including Dan Hodge, who led the QNX real-time operating system division and left in September.
The job losses come as CEO John Chen, the highly regarded former chief at Pyramid Technology and Sybase, considers the future of BlackBerry's handset hardware business.
BlackBerry's smartphone market share has dropped from 20 percent to less than one percent since 2010, a decline surpassed only by Nokia, whose Symbian-based devices comprised 47 percent of the market back then, according to analyst group Gartner.
However, the size of the job losses indicates that Chen is not planning to exit smartphones, according to Cormark Securities analyst Richard Tse.
"The reality is they are really trying to make a pivot to a software business, so everything they are doing is laser-focused on that. There may be people from the legacy business who are not attuned to that," he told the local Globe and Mail newspaper.
"I think there's a chance, maybe later this year, they will consider shutting that business down but I don't think it's now. They are still rolling the Priv out in new markets."
BlackBerry shipped 700,000 handsets in the past quarter but announced further distribution deals with major US mobile telecoms operators.
Carphone Warehouse was the only distributor on launch in the UK, but Vodafone and EE are now offering the BlackBerry Priv. The company is reportedly planning to launch a second Android device very soon.
BlackBerry has struggled to persuade telecoms operators to offer its devices after they were left with millions of unsold Z10s in 2013. µEverything from the tough but nebbish Guy Pearce, and his inverse tough guy par excellence a then newcomer Crowe (who rumored to have gotten the part thanks to his performance in Romper Stomper) lead the film and stalwart character players provide the foundation. Our sounding board, the hypnotically grizzled timbre of Danny Devito, whose Hush Hush narration could be a lesson in itself if you want to learn about effective exposition. The brilliant (but underutilized) David Strathairn as the foppish asexual, high-class pimp, if classic cinema has taught us anything, never trust the slender moustached man. We have John Sayles to thank for Strathairn, and his subsequent performances to sustain his legacy this is one of his best. Ron Rifkin is ideally suited as the weasley DA; Graham Beckel embodies those types of cops we can’t wish away Dick Stensland, out of shape, drunk, and probably racist, like Captain Dudley Smith says “he's a disgrace". Speaking of the Captain who might be my favorite character in the film, there’s James Cromwell, who might be my favorite performance in the movie, I’m not sure if it’s the way he nails that first (or second) generation Irish immigrant accent, that gaunt, lengthy fatherly demeanor. James Cromwell is doing some of his best work. Has Kevin Spacey ever had a “weak” role? I don’t think so, and his "Hollywood Cop" Jack Vincennes is politically canny and cooler than thou who plays him smart, but not too smart.He estimates he has given out at least half of what he has earned throughout his career: “My goal is to have a $0 in my bank account the day I die.”
HONG KONG — Help for the people of Japan suffering the effects of earthquake, tsunami and radioactive fallout was only a phone call away. It helped that Jackie Chan was on one end of the call.
“When I picked up the phone and called my friends in the entertainment business in Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Singapore, right away, they all agreed to come over,” Chan said.
The Hong Kong-born action superstar called in favors from across Asia for his disaster relief fund-raising concert, Artiste 311 Love Beyond Borders, which raked in more than HK$26 million ($3.3 million) — and counting — in donations in just three hours.
The concert was held Friday, but the cash kept flowing the next night at Chan’s wrap dinner for the production team, where co-organizers Eric Tsang and John Shum toasted their crew and wound down. “I still have some of the cash donations that people gave me today in my pocket,” Chan told The Hollywood Reporter.
Chan initiated the fund-raiser, held at the Victoria Park in Hong Kong, with longtime buddy Tsang, a film and TV multi-hyphenate who is always the first person Chan calls to kick off a disaster relief show, and John Shum, a veteran producer, director, actor, writer and political activist. The three organized the seven-hour Crossing Borders Fundraising Show for the Indian Ocean tsunami victims in January 2005 and the eight-hour Artistes 512 Fund Raising Campaign for those affected by the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China.
“It’s got to be a record to raise so much in just three hours,” Chan said of the show, which was headlined by Chan; Tsang; actors Andy Lau and Donnie Yen; the Wonder Girls and singer-songwriter Park Jin-young from South Korea; and from Japan, singer Sen Masao, actor Masatoshi Nakamura, girl group AKB48 and Judy Ongg, who is the best-known Chinese singer in that nation.
Even American Lionel Richie put in an appearance from Australia via satellite with a rendition of his “Say You, Say Me.”
“I’ve known Lionel Richie for 16 or 17 years,” Chan said. “We’re great friends. He has written a song called ‘One World’ for me.”
Chan rang up Richie during dinner to affectionately thank him.
“The only reason we couldn’t do a longer show is because of the venue,” Chan said. “We didn’t want to put on the show on April Fools’ Day, but with everyone’s schedules and the venue, we’d rather go ahead for April 1.”
Chan said organizers put the show together in only 11 days.
Chan has a long relationship with Japan, having established his enormous popularity in the early 1980s. The disasters that shook the country had a personal dimension for the actor, too. “Forty of my Japanese fans are now missing; my fan club there is trying their best to find them and keep me posted,” Chan said.
“Earthquakes have struck Japan many, many times before. But what shocked me was the tsunami, especially when we saw all the videos of strong waves hitting the towns. Then there was the nuclear crisis. Even when we wanted to help, we didn’t know where to start. After the Sichuan earthquake in China, I chartered planes to deliver provisions to the affected population, but this time, there was no road to reach the disaster-struck areas.”
The fund-raiser took place three weeks after the disaster, which some deemed too late a response. Said Chan: “Japan is a developed, wealthy nation and has all kinds of resources and experience for disaster relief. We tried to wait and see what we could do to help, but the situation just got worse and worse. For years, my Japanese fans have made a great effort to raise money for my charity, to build schools in China and to help the victims of the Sichuan earthquake. It’s time for me to return the favor and do what we can to help.”
To Chan, the most difficult part of organizing the event was the overwhelming number of willing participants. “There are just too many performers,” he said. “The production team consists of fewer than 40 people, but 300 performers showed up. Almost everyone from Japan that we asked agreed to come over. But then we had to ask ourselves, what role could they play? What should they perform? Because, you know, every guest means a plane ticket, a hotel room, each for the guest and their assistants.”
Chan paid for the plane tickets and accommodations for all the overseas performers and their assistants and contributed nearly HK$5 million ($643,000).
All proceeds from the concert, minus expenses, will be passed on to the Salvation Army, which will deliver emergency relief packs to people in the affected areas. The $60 packs include a 15-day supply of food and water, personal care and hygiene products and blankets.
For all his physical comedies and international celebrity, Chan is also a philanthropist. He established his Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation in 1988 in Hong Kong and has since set up branches in China and Hawaii. In 2004, he set up Dragon’s Heart Foundation expressly for the children in China. Through his charitable foundations, he has raised and donated millions to such diverse efforts as the aid for the disaster victims in Haiti, emergency assistance in Japan, orphans in South Korea and schools in China.
The energetic star estimates that he has given out at least half of what he had earned throughout his career. “I guess more than HK$100 million ($12.8 million), but not as much as $100 million,” he said. Now he tries to match what the foundations raise. “It’d be more substantial if I can match the sum,” he said. “The worst thing would be to ask others to give but not give yourself.”
“My goal is to have a $0 in my bank account the day I die,” the 56-year-old Chan said with a shrug. “I get very happy when I think about that, no more worries. I buy the things I like, I give money to charity, and then I try to make more money. I’ll be frank with you: It’s not difficult for me to make money. If it’s easy, why shouldn’t I give it away?”His stand has had a tangible effect on Muslims. One, Rania El-Alloul, was told earlier this year by a judge in a Quebec court that she would not hear her case (a property matter) unless she removed her headscarf. A Conservative minister called the hijab a perversion of Canadian values.
No, the attempt to undermine Canadian values was Harper’s — and Canadians saw through him. They rejected his crass divisiveness. Trudeau was forthright in standing up for the right of Canada’s Muslim women to wear what they like. “Diversity is at the very heart of Canada. It is who we are and what we do,” he declared in March. A “Francophone Quebecer,” as he has called himself, Trudeau knows how central diversity and multiculturalism are to the delicate weave of Canadian unity.
“We are a mosaic and Trudeau felt strongly about it,” Chrystia Freeland, a Liberal Member of Parliament, told me. “There was a very narrow and very partisan attempt by the government to play on baser instincts and create animosity that was not there.”
In short, a positive campaign won. Killer politics lost. Trudeau likes to talk about finding “common ground,” where Harper was all about winner take all. At a time when American politics are dismally polarized, this other North American political story is interesting, perhaps even instructive.
Republicans still seem to believe the unlikely proposition that elections are won on the angry margins. The two leading Republican candidates, Donald Trump and Ben Carson, try to outgun each other in attacking, respectively, Mexican immigration and the idea of a Muslim president in the White House (don’t hold your breath). The Trudeau story suggests limits to the bullying politics of anger and fear. Not even Lynton Crosby, the legendary Australian master of the take-no-hostage dark political arts, could revive Harper’s fortunes.Jaipur: In a praiseworthy display of honesty, a rickshaw puller here handed over to police a bag containing more than Rs 1.17 lakh in cash which he had found lying on a road here.
Abid Qureshi, aged 25, found the cash wrapped inside a polythene bag near a government hostel here on Wednesday evening and waited at at the spot till 10 P.M. in the hope that the person who had misplaced the bag would return looking for it.
However, with nobody turning up to claim the bag, Qureshi, who is illiterate, carried it with himself as he headed to his rented room in the walled city area.
Once home, Qureshi narrated the incident to his wife Ameena and together they decided to return the money. However, they were scared that they might face problems at the police station.
"We were restless the whole night. Next morning, we shared the matter with our neighbours, who asked us to keep the money to change our life.
"But we know that ill-gotten wealth brings problems and we did not think of keeping the money even for a second," the couple told reporters today.
Qureshi and Ameena yesterday approached police commissioner Janga Srinivas Rao and handed over the money.
"We highly appreciate the honesty of this man. Jaipur police will felicitate him soon," Rao told PTI. Meanwhile, SHO Kotwali police station, Chiranji Lal, said that a man today approached them claiming the money belonged to him.
"The man claimed that his bag containing over Rs 2 lakh went missing near government hostel and we are verifying his claim," said Lal, adding that the cash will be released only by a court.
PTI
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.Marianus Sae, a district chief from the Indonesian island of Flores, found himself in a tight spot last weekend. He was visiting another city but couldn’t get a seat on a fully booked flight home for a budget meeting. His solution: call his hometown airport and order security officers to block the runway with their cars, preventing the Merpati Nusantara Airlines plane from landing, and forcing its return.
“It is outrageous,” an unrepentant Sae told the Jakarta Globe. ”I begged for a ticket for five hours to fly to Ngada and their answer was: ‘The flight is full.'” In another interview, he said, “The airline has hampered my state duty as the government official, it should be a lesson for its management.”
After a public outcry, the country’s transport ministry said Sae’s move was unlawful, and that the matter had been resolved—but that the it had no plans to take legal action.
That will come as little surprise to most Indonesians, where corruption and abuse of power are common complaints. The country sits at 114th out of 175 countries in Transparency International’s 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index. Last year 88% of Indonesians polled said government corruption was widespread; in October, the chief judge of the country’s Constitutional Court was arrested for allegedly taking a bribe in return for a favorable verdict. Moreover, Sae’s act is just another worry for those who travel on Indonesian airlines, which are struggling to deal with a surge in passengers and several recent fatal crashes.PECO and PennDOT crews are scheduled to begin major repairs of utilities and sidewalks at the intersection of 33rd and Market streets on Monday, Feb. 11. In addition to the northeast (Nesbitt Hall) and southeast (Dragon Statue) corners of 33rd and Market streets, which continue to be inaccessible to pedestrians, larger portions of the sidewalk around Nesbitt Hall will be closed to pedestrians during this work. Both the Dragon (Center City) and Powelton-Spring Garden campus shuttle buses will pick up and drop off at 33rd and Ludlow streets, by the Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building (not outside of Nesbitt Hall).
The expanded sidewalk closure includes:
The east side of 33rd Street, from Lancaster Walk to the Market Street corner; and
The north side of Market Street, from the entrance to Nesbitt to the 33rd Street corner.
To avoid this area, pedestrians are advised to use the following alternatives:
Cross Market Street at the traffic light at 32nd and Market streets; or
Use the crosswalk at 33rd and Lancaster Walk and proceed to Market Street at the Recreation Center.
Construction on this intersection is expected to continue for the next few weeks. Pedestrians are advised to follow all posted signage and use caution when traveling through the area.
Please consult Drexel's Construction and Traffic Advisories webpage for more information about areas near campus that are under construction, and for pedestrian and driver safety tips.Tristan Walker is no stranger to the startup hustle.
As a first year student at Stanford Business School, Walker emailed Foursquare founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai. He parlayed the email into a job heading up business development for the startup. Walker later left Foursquare to become an entrepreneur in residence at investment firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Now Walker is ready for the next step in his career: heading up his own company.
His new venture, Walker & Company, just raised $6.9 million in a round of financing led by Andreessen Horowitz. It will provide products made specifically for people of color. The idea stemmed from his own experience.
Walker, who is African American, found men's razors difficult to use due to his hair and skin type. As a solution, the first brand under the Walker & Company umbrella is called Bevel -- a six-piece razor kit selling for $59.95 that is designed specifically for people with coarse, curly hair.
"I know when I started a company, there's one thing that was very important to me, and that was developing something with real authenticity," Walker told CNNMoney.
Walker says that with a single blade, the Bevel razor cuts the hair level with the skin rather than beneath like multi-blade razors. The kit also includes creams aimed at reducing irritation and bumps. The idea is to tap into the health and beauty market for people with curly and coarse hair.
According to Walker, a large number of black males are interested in a product that helps combat razor burn. In addition to African Americans, Walker & Company products will address specific needs faced by Latinos and Asians.
"When I think of other issues that exist in the community, I think about things like Vitamin D deficiency, I think about hyperpigmentation, I think about natural hair transitioning," Walker says. "We're going to develop brands to solve each of those problems."
While the Bevel is currently available only online, Walker says his goal is to have it sold in major retailers.A report shows independent Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders made more than $1 million last year, when he ran for president as a Democrat.
The Burlington Free Press cites a U.S. Senate financial disclosure report showing the bulk of Sanders' earnings in 2016 came from his books.
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Sanders netted a $795,000 advance for his book detailing his presidential campaign called "Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In." A second version of the book and a 1997 memoir brought his income from books to $865,000.
Sanders earned $174,000 as a public servant. He also made $7,000 from his pension from Burlington for his time as mayor and royalties from a 1987 folk album.
Sanders donated proceeds from his book "The Speech" and several public speaking fees to charity.
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Information from: The Burlington Free Press, http://www.burlingtonfreepress.comIt's pretty cool to see all the attention that DC Entertainment's Wonder Woman film is getting. A lot of people didn't think that DC would be able to make a truly great film, but they proved them wrong. I'll admit, I was a little apprehensive, but they pulled it off and made a great movie! I loved it!
Now today, Square Enix has released the photos and details for their upcoming Wonder Woman Play Arts Kai Figure and I think fans will like what they see. The design of the character is based on the same design from the movie.
The figure will stand about 10″ tall and she will include multiple interchangeable hands, a lasso of truth, a sword, a shield and a figure stand. The sword and the Lasso of Truth can also both be stored on her hip.
The figure will be released in September and will cost about $134.I'm on the verge of the Fringe. I leave Wednesday for Edinburgh, to perform my solo show, Learning to Pray in Front of the Television, at the Festival for the week of August 13-20. I would like to perform longer and was actually given the opportunity to do so by the folks at the Fringe, but my superior said no, and since his word is like the voice of God, I had to go along with it.
And when I say superior -- or write superior as the case may be -- I mean, full on, full out, full-frontal religious superior. As in The Sound of Music's Mother Superior-type religious superior, we're talking the full stop, no-holds-bar-Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act-here is the church-here is the steeple- Catholic religious superior superior. And if you don't know what the heck I'm writing about... well, get in line.
I'm a Jesuit, that is, a member of the Society of Jesus, the largest Roman Catholic religious congregation in the world. You might know us from our educational institutions, such as, Georgetown, Boston College or Loyola Marymount. Perhaps you've heard of some of our more high profile members: St. Ignatius of Loyola (our founder), St. Francis Xavier, Pedro Arrupe (he made the cover of Time back in the 70s), Daniel Berrigan (big political activist in the 60s), or Jim Martin, Steven Colbert's religious consultant in residence on The Colbert Report. Maybe you know the Jesuits through the Internet where numerous conspiracy theorists in their tin hats have indicted us for everything from the fall of the Roman Empire to the assassination of JFK. Or maybe you don't know us at all, and that is just fine.
I'm also a comedian. I did sketch and improv comedy for years in Chicago before deciding to change courses and enter the Jesuits eight years ago. The thing is, I never stopped doing comedy, even after I became a "Lord Lover" as some of my secular pals like to call what I do. It's a bit of a weird situation, I admit, being both a comedian and a Jesuit; living in two seemingly disparate worlds, the world of religion and all its accompanying reverence and piety and the world of comedy with all the irreverence and toppling of sacred cows that it necessitates.
Anyway, that's kind of the gist of my show, except funnier, I hope. Oh yeah and in between putting up my solo show in Edinburgh and all the shenanigans it entails, I'm also moving to Berkeley, CA from Chicago to finish up my Theology studies (it takes 11 years to be ordained a priest in the Jesuits) and so the past week or so has been spent packing, rehearsing, and saying goodbye to all the good folks I know and love in Chicago.
Last night at one of these farewell soirees (okay it was actually a retirement party for my uncle Chuck, but I like to think it was also a farewell party for me) my cousin Chris asked me how I felt about going to Edinburgh and doing my show. I said, "I feel like I want to vomit all of the time." So pretty usual for me and performing.
Getting ready to open a show is always the worst, all sorts of second guessing and doubt. I thought that being all religious now that this would go away. After all, I have faith now, right? No go. It's still there. And this day or two before departure is the worst. Everything is about anticipation and "what if..." and quickly spirals into a worst case scenario. And when I say worst case scenario, I don't mean, my show is not a success, no I mean that I wind up homeless eating my dinner out of a can. It's a very quick trip from Edinburgh to homelessness in my brain so I try to stay out of there as much as possible.
So that's me as I prepare to leave. I have to pack now. More later.- Advertisement -
Senator Obama, you've asked of your supporters to believe not just in your ability to do the same, as concerned and caring American citizens who love our country.
I hear your clarion call, and I believe. I believe in you as a candidate and as a leader. And I believe that the American people, in this crucial time for the future of our country, are coming together to stand up for our freedom.
I believe that the people who support you and who believe in you are speaking loudly and clearly. I believe you will hear them and will uphold your promise to oppose any FISA bill which includes immunity for for the telecommunications companies which unlawfully went along with President George W. Bush's program of warrantless wiretapping of ordinary American citizens.
It is at times like these, with our country on the brink of losing some of the greatest attributes that define us as a nation, that we must step up to the crucial role that destiny has handed us.
This is a defining moment in the history of our country. Do we let ourselves be taken into an age of fear, mistrust, and paranoia, forever feeling that we are being watched and that everyone is a spy? Or do we hold our heads up, unafraid, and as Americans declare that enough is enough?
We don't want any more of the paranoid culture of fear that is seemingly the Bush administration's meager vision of our future. We are tired of being told that as Americans we must mistrust and be afraid.
We must stand, tall and united, against those who seek to turn the United States into a surveillance society. We must stand up and say "NO!" to those who would turn us into a nation of fearful, isolated citizens, fearing each other, fearing the government, fearing the massive technological complex which has been turned to the ignoble end of monitoring our every word in some misguided attempt to provide an illusory security at the very real cost of our highest ideals.
A government which operates on the basic belief that it must keep its citizens silent and fearful through some sort of all-seeing, all-hearing intelligence apparatus is a government which has already destroyed that which it seeks to defend.
If we forsake our highest ideals of liberty in the name of defending ourselves from a foreign enemy which seeks to take our freedom, then we have already handed them the victory which they seek. For in so doing we have indeed allowed them to destroy our greatness and our freedom by intimidating us into doing their work for them.
A proud group of your supporters who believe in your call for hope and a new kind of politics, and who also realize the importance of the FISA telecom immunity issue, has come together and organized themselves on your website. We are among your most loyal and enthusiastic supporters. Our group has already grown to more than 2,000 members in just a couple of days, and it continues to grow as I write this.
Please, Senator Obama, reject the politics of fear on national security, vote against this bill and lead other Democrats to do the same!
A proud supporter,
Steve Elliott
Kingston, WA
To Join Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right
If you already have an account at mybarackobama.com, just click on "Join Group" on the upper left portion of the page.
If you don't have an account, it's quick and easy to get one! Just click on "New Account" on the lower left portion of the page.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/SenatorObama-PleaseVoteAgainstFISA ability to bring about change in Washington, but to believe inThe City of Chicago officially opened the new bike lanes on a key section of Milwaukee Avenue today, the city’s busiest cycling street. This complete roadway redesign improves safety for all users, and includes dedicated bicycle traffic signals and Chicago’s first bike passing lane.
The safety improvements along the 0.85-mile stretch of Milwaukee between Kinzie Street and Elston Avenue include: a resurfaced roadway; bike lanes in each direction that are protected from vehicular traffic with physical barriers and buffers; improved pedestrian crossings; and increased bike parking opportunities.
Since Mayor Emanuel took office two years ago, CDOT has built more than 60 miles of new bikeways, half of which are protected with barriers or buffers. The City is keeping pace with the mayor’s commitment to build 100 such protected bike lane miles in his first term in office.
“Improving our bicycling facilities is critical to creating the quality of life in Chicago that will attract businesses and families to the city,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “As our city grows, it is imperative that our streets include safe bicycle infrastructure that encourages all residents to ride their bikes.”
The new Milwaukee design will complement Chicago’s Divvy bike share system and makes the corridor a “complete street” by improving transportation options for all roadway users.
“We are redesigning intersections to ensure they are safer for bicyclists, and improve hundreds of miles of residential and commercial streets for the people who use them every day,” said CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein. “Chicago is planning to build more protected bike lanes than any other city in the country, and will soon be the most bike-friendly city in the United States.”
On the bridge over the Ohio Street Feeder Ramp, the new protected bike lanes double in size to allow for a passing lane for faster cyclists – the first of its kind in Chicago. Each intersection in the corridor now has bicycle-specific pavement markings to provide guidance to bicyclists. At the intersection of Milwaukee and Elston, a new bicycle signal and right-turn arrows have been installed to reduce conflicts between cyclists and motorists and improve capacity for right-turning motorists.
Due to the width of the roadway, CDOT reduced on-street parking on Milwaukee and is working with the community to increase parking opportunities on side streets where possible.
“This project balances roadway space to ensure pedestrians, transit users, bicyclists and motorists can travel along and across the street safely,” said Ald. Walter Burnett (27th). “These improvements provide bicyclists with a safe and comfortable route, while making a key connection for all Chicagoans who commute to and from downtown.”
CDOT resurfaced much of the route using an asphalt mix that included a significant percentage of recycled material. In the nearly 2,000 tons of material laid down, there was recycled rubber from 1,800 car tires, enough discarded roofing shingles to cover 30 homes and 15 truckloads of reclaimed asphalt pavement.
The Chicago Streets for Cycling Plan 2020 sets forth a strategy to achieve Mayor Emanuel’s goal of making Chicago the best big city for bicycling in America. It calls for a 645-mile network of biking facilities to be in place by 2020 to provide a bicycle accommodation within half-mile of every Chicagoan.
Milwaukee is a “Spoke Route,” defined in the plan as 60 miles of direct routes in and out of the Loop that provide safe, continuous bikeways connecting all areas of Chicago with the downtown. The primary goal of the Spoke Routes is to increase commuting by bicycle citywide.
Since 2005, Chicago has seen the number of people commuting to downtown via bicycle increased by 200 percent. Today, there are nearly 20,000 people who commute daily on their bicycles.
It is estimated that more than 40 percent of the traffic on this part of Milwaukee during peak rush hours are bicycles. It is estimated that before the roadway redesign, 30 percent of the 12,000 vehicles that pass through the exceeded the speed limit. There were more than 600 reported crashes along the route from 2006 to 2011.
# # #The North Korean military on Monday warned of “physical measures” to turn future South Korean sites for Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), the U.S. made missile defense system, into a “sea of fire” and a “pile of ash.”
The North Korean announcement, which was reported through its state-owned Rodong Sinmun and Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), was released three days after Washington and Seoul made the decision for THAAD to be deployed in South Korea, though a specific location has yet to be decided.
“The day when the South Korean site for the THAAD deployment – the U.S.’ aggressive weapon system aimed for world domination – is confirmed, our physical measures will follow, on the moment of confirmation, to completely suppress the system,” the Artillery Bureau of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) General Staff said.
“By making the decision to deploy America’s THAAD system, South Korean puppets have only moved up the time of their miserable self-destruction which will be caused by our merciless thunderbolt.”
The final decision to deploy THAAD, the controversial U.S.-made missile defense system, to South Korea was made and announced by both the U.S. and South Korean governments last Friday.
The system is reported to have the capability to intercept North Korea’s ballistic missiles, which could possibly be equipped with nuclear warheads, at higher-altitudes compared to current missile defense systems in South Korea such as the Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2), lessening the chance of North Korean missile striking South
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and will look at the connection between the right to science and culture and patent policy, according to Shaheed.
[Update:] Most of the oral statements made during the presentation of the Special Rapporteur can be found on the OHCHR website (requires registration).
Copyright Lacks Human Rights Dimension, Report Says
“Copyright laws prohibit much more than literal copying,” Shaheed said in her presentation [pdf]. “They generally also render illegal translating, publicly performing, distributing, adapting or modifying a copyrighted work without permission or licence from the copyright holder,” she said. And, she added, copyright holders may not be the original authors.
Shaheed said a “widely shared concern stems from the tendency for copyright protection to be strengthened with little consideration to human rights issues.” This is illustrated by trade negotiations conducted in secrecy, and with the participation of corporate entities, she said.
She stressed the fact that one of the key points of her report is that intellectual property rights are not human rights. “This equation is false and misleading,” she said.
The report also suggests that authors must be distinguished from copyright holders, she said, adding, “We should always keep in mind that copyright regimes may under-protect authors because producers/publishers/distributors and other ‘subsequent right-holders’ typically exercise more influence over law-making.”
Shaheed said that exceptions and limitations to copyright “should be developed to ensure the conditions for everyone to enjoy their right to take part in cultural life by permitting legitimate educational usages, expanding spaces for non-commercial culture and making works accessible for persons with disabilities or speakers of non-dominant languages.”
She described the main challenge as being related to international copyright treaties making copyright protection mandatory, while treating exceptions and limitations as optional.
As a recommendation to address this issue, she advised in the report to “explore the possibility of establishing a core list of minimum required exceptions and limitations incorporating those currently recognized by most States, and/or an international fair use provision.”
The report gives recommendations on a number of issues, such as ensuring transparency and public participation in law-making, ensuring the compatibility of copyright laws with human rights, and the protection of the moral and material interests of authors.
Furthermore, the report advises WIPO members to support the adoption of international instruments on copyright exceptions and limitations for libraries and education. It also suggests that the World Trade Organization “should preserve the exemption of least developed countries from complying with provisions of the TRIPS Agreement [Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights at WTO] until they reach a stage of development where they no longer qualify as least developed countries.” This was requested by LDCs when the last extension was discussed at the WTO in 2013, but refused by some developed countries (IPW, WTO/TRIPS, 12 June 2013).
Developing Countries See Concern Over Rights Inhibiting Access
Reactions to the special rapporteur’s report were an echo of discussions taking place at the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) where delegates are trying to agree on exceptions and limitations to copyright for libraries, education, and people with other disabilities than visual impairment (IPW, WIPO, 14 December 2014).
A number of developing countries supported the conclusions of the report, such as Ecuador on behalf of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Egypt, Iran, Venezuela, and Algeria, which said in its statement that impact studies should be carried out on national policies and international instruments relating to copyrights to see how they impact human rights. Access to education, Algeria said, should be taken into account in the discussion on exceptions and limitations to copyright.
Several countries, such as Indonesia and Brazil, commented on the issue of the protection of local and indigenous communities, which is mentioned in the report, for which they said “intellectual property historically failed” to take into account the issues of indigenous peoples.
Some developing countries said the current copyright system hinders the right to development by a violation of the right to education, health and progress and many other rights related to affording a basic decent life to millions in developing countries, according to UN sources.
Countries considered that an appropriate balance between the legitimate aspiration to participate in cultural life and the protection of authorship and copyright is crucial to guarantee the diffusion of knowledge and the development of creativity, the sources said.
Developed Countries Defend Copyright System
The United States said in its statement that copyright laws in the US and other countries “foster and promote culture, science, and the arts, for the benefit not only of their creators, but also the general public.”
The report, the US found, “does not adequately acknowledge that copyright can serve as a means to promote human rights.” The report, it said, should have “more fully addressed the pressing challenges posed to creators by lack of respect of intellectual property rights and for all individuals’ human rights to freedom of expression.”
The US said it disagrees with the report, in particular the recommendation related to copyright norm-setting activities at experts’ discussion in other international fora. They also disagreed on the suggestion that individucal creators and corporations or businesses should merit different protections.
Portugal said the current copyright framework constitutes an important tool for human development, especially for cultural and scientific advancement. The current framework provides “ample flexibility to devise, adopt and implement meaningful exceptions and limitations that take into account both the interests of copyright holders and users…..,” said the delegate, adding that no new legally binding instruments in this field are needed.
The European Union said it was surprised that the report had not taken into account “many comments” from member states and relevant stakeholders, which it said would have ensured a more balanced outcome.
“Copyright is fundamental to creation, and as such plays an essential role in human development. It provides the necessary reward and incentive for those that stand at the heart of the creative process, advancing the sum of human understanding to the benefit of all,” the EU delegate said in his statement [pdf]. France concurred.
Japan said that the ongoing discussions at WIPO on copyright exceptions and limitations should not be prejudiced.
Special Rapporteur Answers Concerns
Shaheed, who will be leaving office after 6 years of tenure and was the first special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, fended off remarks and explained that her work was not to summarise the views that were submitted to her. Her work, she said, was driven by human rights concerns, not merely reflecting the perspective of the cultural industry.
A number of states today insisted on the need for balance, she said. To countries suggesting that the Human Rights Council was not the appropriate forum to discuss copyright policies, she said moral material interests are enshrined in international human rights instruments and thus should be looked into from the human rights perspective.
She said she cannot agree that copyright is the only privileged driver of creativity and innovation. “I don’t think anyone really believes it was always the case,” she said. “Imagine how impoverished we would be if we had had no copyright and thus had had no contributions” from artists such as Rembrandt, whose work was not copyrighted but still contributed to art, culture and thinking, she said.
“Not everything can be judged by monetised considerations,” she added.
Shaheed also disagreed with the suggestion that individual creators and corporations or businesses do not merit different protection. From the human rights perspective, “they absolutely do,” she insisted. Corporations and businesses are not human beings and as such cannot enjoy human rights, she said.
“What we need is a balance and a discussion on how to go forward and ensure that everyone’s rights are protected adequately,” she said.
Copyright at it stands does protect the rights of a number of artists but not sufficiently the rights of all artists and in some ways prevents access of the public to creative work, she said.
She said she engaged with both WIPO and UNESCO in the course of her mandate and hoped that her report will spark discussions at WIPO and introduce a human rights approach into those discussions.
Publishers Question Objectivity of Report
Jens Bammel, secretary general of the International Publishers Association, said in his statement that “rapporteurs are required to be unbiased and objective.”
“The rapporteur intends to defend the rights of authors against their publishers,” he said, hinting at the fact that the submission of the International Authors Forum and its response to the report had not been correctly reflected in the report.
“IPA values this report as a unique perspective, a singular contribution to a broader, more objective, fact-based and fair analysis of how the international copyright framework is currently balancing the human rights of creators with those of consumers.” He suggested a “more inclusive dialogue” on the subject, “preferably at WIPO.”
Image Credits: Catherine Saez(Frederick, MD) – …at least for the time being.
Update I: A sixth state?
Update II: Beer Advocate reports that Flying Dog has notified an additional seven states that they are halting distribution there. The total is now at thirteen.
Here’s the new list:
Alaska
Washington
Oregon
Idaho
Montana
New Mexico
Arizona
Nebraska
Iowa
Missouri
Kansas
Louisiana
Arkansas
Original Article:
Flying Dog Brewery General Partner and CEO, Jim Caruso, confirmed today that the company is halting distribution in five states: Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas and Louisiana. Caruso said that they will re-consider those markets this coming fall.
In a letter to distribution partners, Caruso writes:
As local demand for Flying Dog beers continues to soar, we are concentrating our distribution in our home markets and Flying Dog beers will not be available in your territory for some unknown period of time.
This is no doubt disappointing news, but it is a necessary decision and consistent with the new age of craft beer and the focus on local markets.
Author and beer industry expert, Andy Crouch, sums it up very well in a recent [Beer Advocate] article titled, “The Good Old Days of Craft Beer.” According to Andy, “consumers should appreciate losing a few brands. Dedication to local markets will define the next generation of craft beer, resulting in lower shipping costs, fresher beer, more direct attention from breweries and their staff, and deeper, stronger distributor relationships. So while disappointment is understandable, craft beer will be better for it.”
I cannot thank you enough for your support over the years and all of us at Flying Dog wish you continued success in your local market.
Flying Dog is among the fastest growing regional breweries in the country. Having grown 40% to nearly 70,000 barrels produced in 2010, due in large part to the launch of its controversial Raging Bitch, the brewery is struggling to meet high demand in some of its markets.
Flying Dog isn’t alone in having to re-evaluate its distribution. Dogfish Head, Avery Brewing, Great Divide and others have contracted the number of markets that they serve in recent months. With distribution in 45 states and 20 countries prior to this contraction, the move seemed inevitable.
That said, there are states farther west than these five that are still being served so it isn’t all about meeting the demand of local markets.
Glazer’s Distributing handles the company’s portfolio in some (if not all?) of the markets listed here.
With Missouri being the new hotbed of activity for regional (and micro) craft breweries, the pendulum is due to swing the other way and knock out a few breweries. The “Show Me State” is becoming an increasingly competitive battleground in which to compete with new 2011 entrants like Deschutes, Stone, Firestone Walker and Green Flash. One retailer noted that Flying Dog has been one of their slowest movers.In the long run, the internal combustion engine (ICE) is on the way out and electric motors are on the way in, but ICEs have been around for so loooong that we should be careful about announcing their demise. They're going to stick around a while longer, and so it's very important to make them as efficient and clean as possible.
Car and Driver looks at 5 fuel-saving technologies that are keeping the ICE relevant (if far from ideal). As they say, they still work on basically the same principle as they ever did, but old 4-cylinder engines produced about 20 horsepower while modern ones can generate up to 250 hp while being cleaner and burning less gas. Read on for more details on the 5 fuel-saving technologies: Clean diesel, direct injection, cylinder deactivation, turbochargers, and variable valve timing and lift.Clean Diesel
Various advances such as the availability of ultra low sulfur diesel fuel, better catalysts and particulate matter traps, better control over combustion are making diesel engines cleaner, so you can expect a new wave of diesel passenger vehicles to come to the US in the next few years.
Diesel engines are certainly far from perfect, but they have inherently better thermal efficiency than gasoline engines, and they are usually more durable (if also more expensive and heavier). Another benefit is that they can run on biodiesel, which if you can find fuel made from waste cooking oil or (in the next few years) from algae can be very green.
Before direct injection, the fuel was mixed with air in the car's intake manifold. Now, with direct injection, the fuel is mixed with air inside the cylinder, allowing for better control over the amount of fuel used, and variations depending on demand (acceleration vs. cruising). This makes the engine more fuel efficient.
Cylinder Deactivation
The name says it all. ICEs with this feature can simply deactivate some cylinders when less power is required, temporarily reducing the total volume of the engine cylinders and so burning less fuel. This feature is found on V6 and V8 engines.
Turbochargers
Turbochargers increase the pressure inside cylinders, cramming more air and allowing combustion to generate more power. This doesn't make the engine more economical in itself, but since a smaller displacement engine can generate more peak power, you can more easily downsize and save there.
Valves open and close to allow air and fuel to enter cylinders and for the products of combustion to exit. Different valve timings produce different results (more power, better fuel economy). Traditionally, you couldn't vary that timing, so the choice had to be made once when the engine was designed. But many modern engines can vary valve timing, allowing for example the default low RPM range of the engine to have more economical timing, and the higher RPM range to go for max power. This allows a smaller displacement engine to produce more peak power, so it allows for downsizing and fuel savings.
One Big Problem With All of This
The problem is that most of the gains from these technological breakthroughs have been used to increase power instead of reducing fuel consumption. At best, fuel economy stayed the same while power increased.
Now that environmental awareness is increasing, that global warming is on everybody's mind and that oil is very expensive, we can hope that carmakers will end the horsepower arms race and finally use these technologies to truly make more efficient cars.
All the technologies listed above (and more, like Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition ) could be useful for longer than we think. If series plug-in hybrids like the GM Volt become popular and battery-only electric cars (or hypercapacitors ) take a while to mature fully and come down in price, many cars could still have an ICE as a range-extending generator that only kicks in when the batteries are low. The more efficient and clean these are, the better.
Hypermiling & Fuel Efficiency
Number of the Day: 38 MPG
Hypermiling Causes Road Rage? Hypermiling a Fad?
Honda Insight Hybrid Wins Hypermiling Competition with 124 Miles per Gallon
Hypermiling Couple Gets Two Entries in Guiness World Records Book
Hypermiling Becoming More Popular as Gas Prices Rise
More on these 5 Fuel-Saving Technologies
Car and Driver MagazineCHEYENNE, Wyo. – Handing a major victory to environmentalists, a court cast doubt Friday on a longstanding U.S. government argument that blocking federal coal leasing won’t affect climate change because the coal could simply be mined elsewhere.
Environmentalists have been trying for years to block federal coal leases on climate-change grounds with limited success. The ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will require the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to provide more data to support its argument that coal makes no net contribution to climate change after it’s burned in power plants. The BLM oversees leasing of vast Western tracts that supply much of the nation’s coal.
“This is big. And we’re certainly going to be wielding this and using it to confront other mining approvals both in the Powder River Basin and beyond,” said Jeremy Nichols with WildEarth Guardians.
The Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardians sued to block four leases that would allow mining to continue at the Black Thunder and North Antelope Rochelle mine, the two biggest in the U.S. by production. Both are in the Powder River Basin, where vast, open-pit mines supply around 40 percent of the nation’s coal.
In analyzing the leases, the BLM found that burning the coal deposits would result in 382 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, or about 6 percent of the U.S. total in 2008.
But the BLM argued that because utilities could simply get their coal from mines that don’t lease federal deposits, blocking the leases would have no net effect on climate change.
The appeals court wasn’t persuaded, ruling that the BLM didn’t provide sufficient data to back up that argument. It told a lower court to seek more analysis from the agency.
In the meantime, mining will continue at three of the contested leases the BLM sold to Peabody Energy and Arch Coal, the St. Louis-based companies that own the two mines. A fourth contested lease near Black Thunder hasn’t sold yet.
BLM officials didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment. Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, a staunch supporter of the coal industry, said he was disappointed in the ruling but pleased that mining could continue.
Wyoming Mining Association Director Travis Deti also called the ruling disappointing.
Wyoming’s coal industry has rebounded somewhat since competition from cheaper natural gas made 2016 its worst year in decades. Around 500 miners were laid off in the state’s coal patch, and the state continues to face an inability to build new schools, which are funded by coal leasing.
“Wyoming can continue to cling to the past or get out ahead of these changes by producing the clean power that consumers are demanding,” said Sierra Club Wyoming Director Connie Wilbert in a release.“The difference between something that can go wrong and something that can’t possibly go wrong is that when something that can’t possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.” –Douglas Adams
I’ve been trying to get this from draft to published for almost six months now. I might edit it later but for now, what the hell. It’s about James Bond, Jason Bourne, old laptops, economies of scale, design innovation, pragmatism at the margins and an endless supply of breadsticks.
You’re in, right?
Bond was a character that people in his era could identify with: Think about how that works in the post war era. The office dwelling accountant/lawyer/ad man/salesman has an expense account. This covers some lunches at counters with clients, or maybe a few nice dinners. He flirts with the secretaries and receptionists and sometimes sleeps with them. He travels on business, perhaps from his suburb into Chicago, or from Chicago to Cleveland, or San Francisco to LA. His office issues him a dictaphone (he can’t type) or perhaps a rolling display case for his wares. He has a work car, maybe an Oldsmobile 88 if he’s lucky, or a Ford Falcon if he’s not. He’s working his way up to the top, but isn’t quite ready for a management slot. He wears a suit, tie and hat every day to the office. If he’s doing well he buys this downtown at a specialty men’s store. If he’s merely average, he picks this up at Macy’s, or Sears if he’s really just a regular joe. If he gets sick his employer has a nice PPO insurance plan for him. Now look at Bond. He has an expense account, which covers extravagant dinners and breakfasts at the finest 4 star hotels and restaurants. He travels on business, to exotic places like Istanbul, Tokyo and Paris. He takes advantage of the sexual revolution (while continuing to serve his imperialist/nationalist masters) by sleeping with random women in foreign locations. He gets issued cool stuff by the office– instead of a big dictaphone that he keeps on his desk, Bond has a tiny dictaphone that he carries around with him in his pocket! He has a work car — but it’s an Aston Martin with machine guns! He’s a star, with a license to kill, but not management. Management would be boring anyways, they stay in London while Bond gets to go abroad and sleep with beautiful women. Bond always wears a suit, but they’re custom tailored of the finest materials. If he gets hurt, he has some Royal Navy doctors to fix him right up. In today’s world, that organization man who looked up to James Bond as a kind of avatar of his hopes and dreams, no longer exists. Who is our generations James Bond? Jason Bourne. He can’t trust his employer, who demanded ultimate loyalty and gave nothing in return. In fact, his employer is outsourcing his work to a bunch of foreign contractors who presumably work for less and ask fewer questions. He’s given up his defined benefit pension (Bourne had a military one) for an individual retirement account (safe deposit box with gold/leeching off the gf in a country with a depressed currency). In fact his employer is going to use him up until he’s useless. He can’t trust anyone, other than a few friends he’s made on the way while backpacking around. Medical care? Well that’s DIY with stolen stuff, or he gets his friends to hook him up. What kinds of cars does he have? Well no more company car for sure, he’s on his own on that, probably some kind of import job. What about work tools? Bourne is on is own there too. Sure, work initially issued him a weapon, but after that he’s got to scrounge up whatever discount stuff he can find, even when it’s an antique. He has to do more with less. And finally, Bourne survives as a result of his high priced, specialized education. He can do things few people can do – fight multiple opponents, hotwire a car, tell which guy in a restaurant can handle himself, hotwire cars, speak multiple languages and duck a surveillance tail. Oh, and like the modern, (sub)urban professional, Bourne had to mortgage his entire future to get that education. They took everything he had, and promised that if he gave himself up to the System, in return the System would take care of him. It turned out to be a lie. We’re all Jason Bourne now. – posted by wuwei at 1:27 AM on July 7, 2010
I think about design a lot these days, and I realize that’s about as fatuous an opener as you’re likely to read this week so I’m going to ask you to bear with me.
If you’re already rolling out your “resigned disappointment” face: believe me, I totally understand. I suspect we’ve both dealt with That Guy Who Calls Himself A Designer at some point, that particular strain of self-aggrandizing flake who’s parlayed a youth full of disdain for people who just don’t understand them into a career full of evidence they don’t understand anyone else. My current job’s many bright spots are definitely brighter for his absence, and I wish the same for you. But if it helps you get past this oddly-shaped lump of a lede, feel free to imagine me setting a pair of Raybans down next to an ornamental scarf of some kind, sipping a coffee with organic soy ingredients and a meaningless but vaguely European name, writing “Helvetica?” in a Moleskine notebook and staring pensively into the middle distance. Does my carefully manicured stubble convey the precise measure of my insouciance? Perhaps it does; perhaps I’m gazing at some everyday object nearby, pausing to sigh before employing a small gesture to convey that no, no, it’s really nothing. Insouciance is a french word, by the way. Like café. You should look it up. I know you’ve never been to Europe, I can tell.
You see? You can really let your imagination run wild here. Take the time you need to work through it. Once you’ve shaken that image off – one of my colleagues delightfully calls those guys “dribble designers” – let’s get rolling.
I think about design a lot these days, and I realize that’s about as fatuous an opener as you’re likely to read this week so I’m going to ask you to bear with me.
Very slightly more specifically I’ve been thinking about Apple’s latest Macbook, some recent retrospeculation from Lenovo, “timeless” design, spy movies and the fact that the Olive Garden at one point had a culinary institute. I promise this all makes sense in my head. If you get all the way through this and it makes sense to you too then something on the inside of your head resembles something on the inside of mine, and you’ll have to come to your own terms with that. Namasté, though. For real.
There’s an idea called “gray man” in the security business that I find interesting. They teach people to dress unobtrusively. Chinos instead of combat pants, and if you really need the extra pockets, a better design conceals them. They assume, actually, that the bad guys will shoot all the guys wearing combat pants first, just to be sure. I don’t have that as a concern, but there’s something appealingly “low-drag” about gray man theory: reduced friction with one’s environment. – William Gibson, being interviewed at Rawr Denim
At first glance the idea that an Olive Garden Culinary Institute should exist at all squats on the line between bewildering and ridiculous. They use maybe six ingredients, and those ingredients need to be sourced at industrial scale and reliably assembled by a 22-year-old with most of a high-school education and all of a vicious hangover. How much of a culinary institute can that possibly take? In fact, at some remove the Olive Garden looks less like a restaurant chain than a supply chain that produces endless breadsticks; there doesn’t seem to be a ton of innovation here. Sure, supply chains are hard. But pouring prefab pomodoro over premade pasta, probably not.
Even so, for a few years the Tuscan Culinary Institute was a real thing, one of the many farming estates in Tuscany that have been resurrected to the service of regional gastrotourism booked by the company for a few weeks a year. Successful managers of the Garden’s ersatz-italian assembly lines could enjoy Tuscany on a corporate reward junket, and at a first glance amused disdain for the whole idea would seem to be on point.
There’s another way to look at the Tuscan Culinary Institute, though, that makes it seem valuable and maybe even inspired.
One trite but underappreciated part of the modern mid-tier supply-chain-and-franchise engine is how widely accessible serviceable and even good (if not great or world-beating) stuff has become. Coffee snobs will sneer at Starbucks, but the truck-stop tar you could get before their ascendance was dramatically worse. If you’ve already tried both restaurants in a town too remote to to be worth their while, a decent bowl of pasta, a bottle of inoffensive red and a steady supply of garlic bread starts to look like a pretty good deal.
This is one of the rare bright lights of the otherwise dismal grind of the capitalist exercise, this democratization of “good enough”. The real role of the Tuscan Culinary institute was to give chefs and managers a look at an authentic, three-star Tuscan dining experience and then ask them: with what we have to hand at the tail end of this supply chain, the pasta, the pomodoro, the breadsticks and wine, how can we give our customers 75% of that experience for 15% the cost?
It would be easy to characterize this as some sort of corporate-capitalist co-option of a hacker’s pragmatism – a lot of people have – but I don’t think that’s the right thing, or at least not the whole picture. This is a kind of design, and like any design exercise – like any tangible expression of what design is – we’re really talking about the expression and codification of values.
I don’t think it’s an accident that all the computers I bought between about 1998 about 2008 are either still in service or will still turn on if I flip the switch, but everything I’ve bought since lasts two or three years before falling over. There’s nothing magic about old tech, to be sure: in fact, the understanding that stuff breaks is baked right into their design. That’s why they’re still running: because they can be fixed. And thanks to the unfettered joys of standard interfaces some them are better today, with faster drives and better screens, than any computer I could have bought then.
The Macbook is the antithesis of this, of course. That’s what happened in 2008; the Macbook Pro started shipping with a non-removable battery.
If you haven’t played with one Apple’s flagship Macbooks, they are incredible pieces of engineering. They weigh approximately nothing. Every part of them seems like some fundamental advance in engineering and materials science. The seams are perfect; everything that can be removed, everything you can carve off a laptop and still have a laptop left, is gone.
As a result, it’s completely atomic, almost totally unrepairable. If any part of it breaks you’re hosed.
“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs
This is true, kind of; it depends on what you believe your scope of responsibility is as a designer. The question of “how a device works” is a step removed from the question of “how does a person engage with this device”; our aforementioned designer-caricature aside, most of us get that. But far more important than that is the question of how the device helps that person engage the world. And that’s where this awful contradiction comes in, because whatever that device might be, the person will never be some static object, and the world is seven billion people swimming in a boiling froth of water, oil, guns, steel, race, sex, language, wisdom, secrets, hate, love, pain and TCP/IP.
Our time is finite, and entropy is relentless: knowing that, how long should somebody be responsible for their designs? Are you responsible for what becomes of what you’ve built, over the long term? Because if you have a better way to play the long game here than “be a huge pile of rocks” you should chisel it into something. Every other thing of any complexity, anything with two moving parts to rub together that’s still usable or exists at all today has these two qualities:
It can be fixed, and When it breaks, somebody cares enough about it to fix it.
And that’s where minimalism that denies the complexity of the world, that lies to itself about entropy, starts feeling like willful blindness; design that’s a thin coat of paint over that device’s relationship with the world.
More to the point, this is why the soi-disant-designer snob we were (justly and correctly) ragging on at the beginning of this seemingly-interminable-but-it-finally-feels-like-we’re-getting-somewhere blog post comes across as such a douchebag. It’s not “minimalist” if you buy a new one every two years; it’s conspicuous consumption with chamfered edges. Strip away that veneer, that coat of paint, and there are the real values designer-guy and his venti decaf soy wankaccino hold dear.
Every day I feel a tiny bit more like I can’t really rely on something I can’t repair. Not just for environmentalism’s sake, not only for the peace of mind that standard screwdrivers and available source offers, but because tools designed by people who understand something might fall over are so much more likely to have built a way to stand them back up. This is why I got unreasonably excited by Lenovo’s retro-Thinkpad surveys, despite their recent experiments in throwing user security overboard wearing factory-installed cement boots. The prospect of a laptop with modern components that you can actually maintain, much less upgrade, has become a weird niche crank-hobbyist novelty somehow.
But if your long game is longer than your workweek or your support contract, this is what a total-cost-accounting of “reduced friction with your environment” looks like. It looks like not relying on the OEM, like DIY and scrounged parts and above all knowing that you’re not paralyzed if the rules change. It’s reduced friction with an uncertain future.
I have an enormous admiration for the work Apple does, I really do. But I spend a lot of time thinking about design now, not in terms of shapes and materials but in terms of the values and principles it embodies, and it’s painfully obvious when those values are either deeply compromised or (more typically) just not visible at all. I’ve often said that I wish that I could buy hardware fractionally as good from anyone else for any amount of money, but that’s not really true. As my own priorities make participating in Apple’s vision more and more uncomfortable, what I really want is for some other manufacturer to to show that kind of commitment to their own values and building hardware that expresses them. Even if I could get to (say) 75% of those values, if one of them was maintainability – if it could be fixed a bit at a time – I bet over the long term, it would come out to (say) 15% of the cost.
Late footnote: This post at War Is Boring is on point, talking about the effects of design at the operational and logistical levels.The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is hoping to lift the veil on the use of anonymous companies for financial transactions by forcing financial firms to disclose and verify the identities of the actual people, or “beneficial owners,” behind the transactions.
FinCEN issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Wednesday to amend the existing regulations under the Bank Secrecy Act to help prevent the use of anonymous companies to engage in or launder the proceeds of illegal activity in the U.S. financial sector.
The proposed rule aims to clarify and strengthen the customer due diligence obligations of banks and other financial institutions (including brokers or dealers in securities, mutual funds, futures commission merchants, and introducing brokers in commodities).
The proposed amendments would also add a new requirement that these entities know and verify the identities of the real people who own, control and profit from the companies they service.
“The beneficial ownership requirement is intended to provide us with an important new tool to track down the real people behind companies that abuse our financial system to secretly move and launder their illicit gains,” said David S. Cohen, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in a statement. “Along with meeting our international commitments, this rule would make our financial system more transparent by exposing the activities of illicit actors who will no longer be able to hide behind their anonymity.”
The proposed rule comes after the Treasury conducted extensive outreach and discussion with various financial institutions and regulatory agencies. The proposed amendments would build upon post-9/11 augmentation of the regulations designed to protect the U.S. financial system.
The Treasury contended that it would make valuable information needed to disrupt illicit finance networks available to law enforcement, and the resulting increase in financial transparency would enhance the ability of financial institutions and law enforcement to identify the assets and accounts of criminals and national security threats.
The rule also would further U.S. commitments in the G-8 Action Plan for Transparency of Company Ownership and Control, which was published in June 2013.
Customer due diligence would include four core elements: identifying and verifying the identity of customers; identifying and verifying the beneficial owners of legal entity customers; understanding the nature and purpose of customer relationships; and conducting ongoing monitoring to maintain and update customer information and to identify and report suspicious transactions. Financial institutions would need to collect the beneficial ownership information in a standardized format. They would also have to identify and verify any individual who owns 25 percent of more of a legal entity, and an individual who controls the legal entity.
Comments on the proposal will be accepted for 60 days from the date of its publication in the Federal Register.Thomas Hodgson, sheriff of Bristol County in Massachusetts, spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Wednesday regarding his recent testimony before the House Subcommittee on Immigration.
Hodgson argued that if “sanctuary cities are going to harbor and conceal criminal illegal aliens from ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], which is in direct violation of Title 8 of the U.S. Code, federal arrest warrants should be issued for their elected officials.”
Hodgson reiterated his point Wednesday, saying, “It is a felony under federal law for anyone to harbor or conceal someone they know to be in the country illegally. And in the instances of sanctuary cities, we have mayors who are saying, ‘Look, we’re not going to allow our law enforcement people to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they have someone that they know to be illegal in their custody.'”
Hodgson later added, “This is all about following our laws, and we can’t have elected officials in this country saying that they’re going to be exempt from any consequences and they’re going to choose what laws they want to follow. That can’t happen in America. What we need to do is send a clear message. If these elected officials are going to say, ‘Okay, I’m going to defy federal law,’ and their leadership positions are going to encourage that kind of thing, they need to be, absolutely, issued arrest warrants.”
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
LISTEN:Things That Really Need To Go In 2013 Posted by Pile (13989 views) [E-Mail link] [ BSAlert *exclusive* ]
In the last few years, a number of social constructs seem to have become so engorged and dramatic, I desperately want to assume they've peaked and thus, offer up my hopeful plea that perhaps these things should decline if not begin to disappear from our social radar in the coming year. Read on as I'm sure not everyone will agree with me...
"REALITY" TELEVISION
I know it's foolish to think that "reality tv" is going to go away. That cat's out of the bag, but can we stop pretending that it's anything more than pretend?
If you think those people and scenarios on Pawn Stars, Storage
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Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album at the 1975 Grammy Awards.
During the legal battle, Stax briefly closed its doors. At this time, Pryor returned to Reprise/Warner Bros. Records, which re-released That Nigger's Crazy, immediately after...Is It Something I Said?, his first album with his new label. Like That Nigger's Crazy, the album was a hit with both critics and fans; it was eventually certified platinum by the RIAA and won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording at the 1976 Grammy Awards.
Pryor's release Bicentennial Nigger (1976) continued his streak of success. It became his third consecutive gold album, and he collected his third consecutive Grammy for Best Comedy Recording for the album in 1977. With every successful album Pryor recorded for Warner (or later, his concert films and his 1980 freebasing accident), Laff quickly published an album of older material to capitalize on Pryor's growing fame—a practice they continued until 1983. The covers of Laff albums tied in thematically with Pryor movies, such as Are You Serious? for Silver Streak (1976), The Wizard of Comedy for his appearance in The Wiz (1978), and Insane for Stir Crazy (1980).[15]
Pryor co-wrote Blazing Saddles (1974), directed by Mel Brooks and starring Gene Wilder. Pryor was to play the lead role of Bart, but the film's production studio would not insure him, and Mel Brooks chose Cleavon Little, instead. Before his horribly damaging 1980 freebasing incident, Pryor was about to start filming Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part I (1981), but was replaced at the last minute by Gregory Hines.[citation needed] Pryor was also originally considered for the role of Billy Ray Valentine on Trading Places (1983), before Eddie Murphy won the part.[citation needed]
In 1975, Pryor was a guest host on the first season of Saturday Night Live and the first black person to host the show. Pryor took longtime girlfriend, actress-talk show host Kathrine McKee (sister of Lonette McKee), with him to New York, and she made a brief guest appearance with Pryor on SNL. He participated in the "word association" skit with Chevy Chase.[16] He would later do his own variety show,The Richard Pryor Show, which premiered on NBC in 1977. The show was cancelled after only four episodes probably because television audiences did not respond well to his show's controversial subject matter, and Pryor was unwilling to alter his material for network censors. During the short-lived series, he portrayed the first black President of the United States, spoofed the Star Wars Mos Eisley cantina, took on gun violence, and in another skit, used costumes and visual distortion to appear nude.[17]
In 1979, at the height of his success, Pryor visited Africa. Upon returning to the United States, Pryor swore he would never use the word "nigger" in his stand-up comedy routine again.[18][19]
1980s [ edit ]
Pryor in February 1986
Late in the evening of June 9, 1980, during the making of the film Stir Crazy, and after days of freebasing cocaine, Pryor poured 151-proof rum all over himself and lit himself on fire. While ablaze, he ran down Parthenia Street from his Los Angeles home, until being subdued by police. He was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for second- and third-degree burns covering more than half of his body. Pryor spent six weeks in recovery at the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital. His daughter, Rain, stated that the incident happened as a result of a bout of drug-induced psychosis.[20]
Pryor incorporated a description of the incident into his comedy show Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982). He joked that the event was caused by dunking a cookie into a glass of low-fat and pasteurized milk, causing an explosion. At the end of the bit, he poked fun at people who told jokes about it by waving a lit match and saying, "What's that? Richard Pryor running down the street."
After his "final performance", Pryor did not stay away from stand-up comedy long. Within a year, he filmed and released a new concert film and accompanying album, Richard Pryor: Here and Now (1983), which he directed himself. He also wrote and directed a fictionalized account of his life, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986), which revolved around the 1980 freebasing incident.
In 1983, Pryor signed a five-year contract with Columbia Pictures for $40 million and he started his own production company, Indigo Productions.[21][22] Softer, more formulaic films followed, including Superman III (1983), which earned Pryor $4 million; Brewster's Millions (1985), Moving (1988), and See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989). The only film project from this period that recalled his rough roots was Pryor's semiautobiographic debut as a writer-director, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986), which was not a major success.
Despite a reputation for constantly using profanity on and off camera, Pryor briefly hosted a children's show on CBS called Pryor's Place (1984). Like Sesame Street, Pryor's Place featured a cast of puppets, hanging out and having fun in a surprisingly friendly inner-city environment along with several children and characters portrayed by Pryor himself. However, Pryor's Place frequently dealt with more sobering issues than Sesame Street. It was cancelled shortly after its debut, despite the efforts of famed puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft and a theme song by Ray Parker, Jr. of "Ghostbusters" (1984) fame.
Pryor co-hosted the Academy Awards twice and was nominated for an Emmy for a guest role on the television series Chicago Hope. Network censors had warned Pryor about his profanity for the Academy Awards, and after a slip early in the program, a five-second delay was instituted when returning from a commercial break. Pryor is also one of only three Saturday Night Live hosts to be subjected to a rare five-second delay for his 1975 appearance (along with Sam Kinison in 1986 and Andrew Dice Clay in 1990).[citation needed]
Pryor developed a reputation for being demanding and disrespectful on film sets, and for making selfish and difficult requests. In his autobiography Kiss Me Like a Stranger, co-star Gene Wilder says that Pryor was frequently late to the set during filming of Stir Crazy, and that he demanded, among other things, a helicopter to fly him to and from set because he was the star. Pryor was also accused of using allegations of on-set racism to force the hand of film producers into giving him more money:
One day during our lunch hour in the last week of filming, the craft service man handed out slices of watermelon to each of us. Richard, the whole camera crew, and I sat together in a big sound studio eating a number of watermelon slices, talking and joking. As a gag, some members of the crew used a piece of watermelon as a Frisbee, and tossed it back and forth to each other. One piece of watermelon landed at Richard's feet. He got up and went home. Filming stopped. The next day, Richard announced that he knew very well what the significance of watermelon was. He said that he was quitting show business and would not return to this film. The day after that, Richard walked in, all smiles. I wasn't privy to all the negotiations that went on between Columbia and Richard's lawyers, but the camera operator who had thrown that errant piece of watermelon had been fired that day. I assume now that Richard was using drugs during Stir Crazy.[23]
He appeared in Harlem Nights (1989), a comedy-drama crime film starring three generations of black comedians (Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and Redd Foxx).
1990s and 2000s [ edit ]
In his later years starting in the early to mid-1990s, Pryor used a power-operated mobility scooter due to multiple sclerosis (MS, which he said stood for "More Shit").[citation needed] He appears on the scooter in his last film appearance, a small role in David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) playing an auto-repair garage manager named Arnie.
Rhino Records remastered all of Pryor's Reprise and WB albums for inclusion in the box set...And It's Deep Too! The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings (2000).
In late December 1999, Pryor appeared in the cold open of The Norm Show in the episode entitled "Norm vs. The Boxer". He played Mr. Johnson, an elderly man in a wheelchair who has lost the rights to in-home nursing when he kept attacking the nurses before attacking Norm himself. This was his last television appearance.[24]
In 2002, Pryor and his wife/manager, Jennifer Lee Pryor, won legal rights to all the Laff material, which amounted to almost 40 hours of reel-to-reel analog tape. After going through the tapes and getting Richard's blessing, Jennifer Lee Pryor gave Rhino Records access to the tapes in 2004. These tapes, including the entire Craps album, form the basis of the February 1, 2005, double-CD release Evolution/Revolution: The Early Years (1966–1974).[25]
Health [ edit ]
In November 1977, after many years of heavy smoking and drinking, Pryor suffered a mild heart attack. He recovered and resumed performing by January the following year. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986.[26] In 1990, Pryor suffered a second heart attack while in Australia.[27] He underwent triple heart bypass surgery in 1991.[28]
In late 2004, his sister said he had lost his voice as a result of his multiple sclerosis. However, on January 9, 2005, Pryor's wife, Jennifer Lee, rebutted this statement in a post on Pryor's official website, citing Richard as saying: "I'm sick of hearing this shit about me not talking... not true... I have good days, bad days... but I still am a talkin' motherfucker!"[29]
Death [ edit ]
On December 10, 2005, nine days after his 65th birthday, Pryor suffered a heart attack in Los Angeles. He was taken to a local hospital after his wife's attempts to resuscitate him failed. He was pronounced dead at 7:58 a.m. PST. His widow Jennifer was quoted as saying, "At the end, there was a smile on his face."[22] He was cremated, and his ashes were given to his family.[30][31] Forensic pathologist Michael Hunter believes Pryor's fatal heart attack was caused by coronary artery disease that was at least partially brought about by years of tobacco smoking.[32]
Legacy [ edit ]
Jerry Seinfeld called Pryor "the Picasso of our profession"[33] and Bob Newhart heralded Pryor as "the seminal comedian of the last 50 years".[34] Dave Chappelle said of Pryor, "You know those, like, evolution charts of man? He was the dude walking upright. Richard was the highest evolution of comedy."[35] This legacy can be attributed, in part, to the unusual degree of intimacy Pryor brought to bear on his comedy. As Bill Cosby reportedly once said, "Richard Pryor drew the line between comedy and tragedy as thin as one could possibly paint it."[36]
Awards and honors [ edit ]
In 1998, Pryor won the first Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. According to former Kennedy Center President Lawrence J. Wilker, Pryor was selected as the first recipient of the Prize because
as a stand-up comic, writer, and actor, he struck a chord, and a nerve, with America, forcing it to look at large social questions of race and the more tragicomic aspects of the human condition. Though uncompromising in his wit, Pryor, like Twain, projects a generosity of spirit that unites us. They were both trenchant social critics who spoke the truth, however outrageous.[citation needed]
In 2004, Pryor was voted number one on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.[1] In a 2005 British poll to find "The Comedian's Comedian", Pryor was voted the 10th-greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
Pryor was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.[37]
The animal rights organization PETA gives out an award in Pryor's name to people who have done outstanding work to alleviate animal suffering. Pryor was active in animal rights and was deeply concerned about the plight of elephants in circuses and zoos.[citation needed]
Artist Preston Jackson created a life-sized bronze statue in dedication to the beloved comedian and named it Richard Pryor: More than Just a Comedian. It was placed at the corner of State and Washington Streets in downtown Peoria, on May 1, 2015, close to the neighborhood in which he grew up with his mother. The unveiling was held Sunday, May 3, 2015.[38]
Retrospectives [ edit ]
In 2002, a television documentary entitled The Funny Life of Richard Pryor depicted Pryor's life and career.[39] Broadcast in the UK as part of the Channel 4 series Kings of Black Comedy,[40][41] it was produced, directed and narrated by David Upshal[39] and featured rare clips from Pryor's 1960s stand-up appearances and movies such as Silver Streak (1976), Blue Collar (1978), Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (1978), and Stir Crazy (1980). Contributors included George Carlin, Dave Chappelle, Whoopi Goldberg, Ice-T, Paul Mooney, Joan Rivers, and Lily Tomlin. The show tracked down the two cops who had rescued Pryor from his "freebasing incident", former managers, and even school friends from Pryor's home town of Peoria, Illinois. In the US, the show went out as part of the Heroes of Black Comedy[42][43] series on Comedy Central, narrated by Don Cheadle.[44][45]
A television documentary, Richard Pryor: I Ain't Dead Yet, #*%$#@!! (2003) consisted of archival footage of Pryor's performances and testimonials from fellow comedians, including Dave Chappelle, Denis Leary, Chris Rock, and Wanda Sykes, on Pryor's influence on comedy.
On December 19, 2005, BET aired a Pryor special, titled The Funniest Man Dead or Alive. It included commentary from fellow comedians, and insight into his upbringing.[46]
A retrospective of Pryor's film work, concentrating on the 1970s, titled A Pryor Engagement, opened at Brooklyn Academy of Music Cinemas for a two-week run in February 2013.[47] Several prolific comedians who have claimed Pryor as an influence include George Carlin, Dave Attell, Martin Lawrence, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Colin Quinn, Patrice O'Neal, Bill Hicks, Sam Kinison, Bill Burr, Louis C.K., Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Eddie Murphy, Eddie Griffin, and Eddie Izzard.[citation needed]
On May 31, 2013, Showtime debuted the documentary Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic directed by Emmy Award–winning filmmaker Marina Zenovich. The executive producers are Pryor's widow Jennifer Lee Pryor and Roy Ackerman. Interviewees include Dave Chappelle, Whoopi Goldberg, Jesse Jackson, Quincy Jones, George Lopez, Bob Newhart, Richard Pryor, Jr., Lily Tomlin, and Robin Williams.[48][49]
From June 7 to 9, 2013, SiriusXM hosted "Richard Pryor Radio", a three-day tribute which featured his stand-up comedy and full live concerts. "Richard Pryor Radio" replaced The Foxxhole for the duration of the event.[citation needed]
Portrayals [ edit ]
In the episode "Taxes and Death or Get Him to the Sunset Strip"[50](2012), the voice of Richard Pryor is played by Eddie Griffin in the satirical TV show Black Dynamite.
A planned biopic, entitled Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said?, was being produced by Chris Rock and Adam Sandler.[51] The film would have starred Marlon Wayans as the young Pryor.[52] Other actors previously attached include Mike Epps and Eddie Murphy. The film would have been directed by Bill Condon and was still in development with no release date, as of February 2013.[53]
The biopic remained in limbo, and went through several producers until it was announced in January 2014 that it was being backed by The Weinstein Company with Lee Daniels as director.[54] It was further announced, in August 2014, that the biopic will have Oprah Winfrey as producer and will star Mike Epps as Pryor.[55]
He is portrayed by Brandon Ford Green in Season 1 Episode 4 "Sugar and Spice" of Showtime's I'm Dying Up Here
Relationships and children [ edit ]
Pryor was married seven times to five women:[7][8][11]
Patricia Price, whom he married in 1960 and divorced the following year Shelley Bonus, whom he married in 1967 and divorced in 1969 Deborah McGuire, whom he married on September 22, 1977; they divorced the following year. Jennifer Lee, whom he married in August 1981. They divorced in October 1982, but remarried on June 29, 2001, and remained married until Pryor's death. Flynn Belaine, whom he married in October 1986. They were divorced in July 1987, but remarried on April 1, 1990. They divorced again in July 1991.
Pryor had seven children with six different women:
Renee Pryor, born February 13, 1957, the child of Pryor and girlfriend Susan, when Pryor was 16[8][56][57] Richard Pryor Jr., born July 31, 1962, the child of Pryor and his first wife, Patricia Price Elizabeth Ann, born April 28, 1967, the child of Pryor and girlfriend Maxine Anderson Rain Pryor, born July 16, 1969, the child of Pryor and his second wife, Shelley Bonus Steven, born August 1, 1984, the child of Pryor and Flynn Belaine, who later became his fifth wife Franklin, born April 11, 1987, the child of Pryor and actress/model Geraldine Mason Kelsey, born October 25, 1987, the child of Pryor and his fifth wife, Flynn Belaine
Pryor also had relationships with actresses Pam Grier and Margot Kidder.[58] In 2018, Quincy Jones and Jennifer Lee claimed that Pryor had had a sexual relationship with Marlon Brando, and that Pryor was open about his bisexuality with his friends.[59][60] Pryor's daughter Rain later disputed the claim.[61] In his autobiography, Pryor admitted to having a two-week sexual relationship with a transvestite, which he called "two weeks of being gay".[62]
Discography [ edit ]
Albums [ edit ]
Compilations [ edit ]
Filmography [ edit ]
Books [ edit ]
References [ edit ]So, you’ve got your damage hitboxes for flinging people about, you’ve got your chain hitboxes for racking up hits, you’ve got your funnel hitboxes for drawing people in for a big hit, but what if you want to do something really, really cool?
Well, the new Event system has you covered! A new addition to hitboxes will allow a lot more customization without needing to resort to using code. In overview, you can now execute a list of subactions on yourself or your opponent when a hitbox makes contact. This means you could switch out your action, teleport an opponent, or, if you’re okay with an incompatibility error here and there, change the opponent’s action or sprites for them!
How it works is similar to how conditional actions work. You define an Event in an action, and give it a name. When creating a hitbox, you’ve got two new fields you can add, onHitOwner and onHitOther. Pass them the name of the Event you have defined and it will execute those subactions on the owner of the hitbox, or the foe who gets hit. Inside of the event, you can add any subactions you could do on a Fighter and they’ll be executed as if that fighter’s action had called them.
A warning when using these, though. If you’re executing actions on your opponent, be aware that they might not be built the same way as yours. Telling a fighter to switch to a prone action will work fine if the fighter is built using the BaseActions, but what if this character doesn’t have a prone action? For the most part, if a subaction is impossible, it is quietly ignored, but sometimes it can lead to crashes and other errors. Best to stick with the basic subactions like movement and sprite shifting unless you really need it. Despite the risks, this is a powerful tool for fighter packs, where different fighters are meant to play with each other, allowing for things like custom status effects and other unique abilities that couldn’t be done otherwise.
Announcements
This week, there’s a few announcements to make beyond the usual stream reminder. For one, we’re trying out a new time slot for the stream! Tomorrow’s stream will start at 2PM MST (1PM PST). Two hours before the previous streams have started. This means that the streams will end when they previously used to begin. This schedule should make things easier for everyone on my end to get ready, and we might be using this new schedule for every week moving forward. In case you’ve missed it, you can find the stream at https://www.twitch.tv/digiholic or catch the archive at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC416SW5rkbsc6zuJclwMNvQ (by the way, still hoping to hit that 100 subscriber mark where we can get a real URL and not that auto-generated one, so please help out by subscribing!)
Additionally, there will probably be no update next week. A friend is moving in before the start of next month so a lot of my free time is going to involve moving furniture and I don’t expect there to be a major new feature to show off next week. I’m still going to try to get some coding done, so if there’s a breakthrough, I might wind up making a blog post anyway (I just can’t leave you guys!) but I don’t expect much. There will likely also be no stream next week, but if I don’t get through what I have scheduled this week, it might be just a continuation. Hopefully Zero will be finished soon and we can start working on some stages.
And that about wraps it up for this week, Tusslers! I’ll see you all in two weeks time with another update!The explosive growth of so-called "sanctuary cities," under fire Wednesday by President Trump, has reached over 300 and blocked federal officials from seizing, and likely deporting, more than 17,000 criminal illegals.
The Center for Immigration Studies, which has collected the names of every sanctuary, reports:
"Over the 19-month period from January 1, 2014, to September 30, 2015, more than 17,000 detainers were rejected by these jurisdictions. Of these, about 11,800 detainers, or 68 percent, were issued for individuals with a prior criminal history."
"Detainers" are requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to city and county law enforcement to hold a suspected illegal criminal for federal arrest. Cities around the country, from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco, refuse the detainers, claiming that it's unfair to remove illegal immigrants.
However, in some cases, those the cities and counties let go commit other horrible crimes including drunk driving deaths and murder.
Near the end of the Obama administration, and under pressure from House Republicans, sanctuary cities were warned that if they continued to block ICE, they would lose federal funding for jails and law enforcement. Several, however, ignored the threat.
On Wednesday, Trump is expected to put more pressure on the law-breaking jurisdictions.
CIS Policy Director Jessica Vaughan explained the issue in a recent post that accompanied her map of sanctuaries:
These cities, counties, and states have laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies, or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from ICE — either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, denying ICE access to interview incarcerated aliens, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers.
A detainer is the primary tool used by ICE to gain custody of criminal aliens for deportation. It is a notice to another law enforcement agency that ICE intends to assume custody of an alien and includes information on the alien's previous criminal history, immigration violations, and potential threat to public safety or security.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at [email protected] Secretary of State John Kerry hinted at greater US support for Syria's opposition Wednesday, saying it needs "more help" in the struggle against Bashar al-Assad and that Washington wants to speed up a political transition.
US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks on February 27, 2013 to members of the US Embassy in Paris. Kerry hinted at greater US support for Syria's opposition Wednesday, saying it needs "more help" in the struggle against Bashar al-Assad and that Washington wants to speed up a political transition.
In Paris on the eve of a meeting in Rome of the Friends of Syria group, Kerry said boosting support for the opposition would be a key part of the talks Thursday bringing together foreign powers and the main opposition National Coalition.
"We are examining and developing ways to accelerate the political transition that the Syrian people seek and deserve, and that is what we will be discussing in Rome," Kerry said at a joint press conference with French counterpart Laurent Fabius.
He said he wanted to hear from the opposition about how best to end the violence in Syria, where the United Nations says at least 70,000 have died and hundreds of thousands have been uprooted in the two-year conflict.
"That may require us to change president Assad's current calculation. He needs to know he can't shoot his way out of this," Kerry said. "I think the opposition needs more help in order to be able to do that and we are working together to have a united position."
Kerry said there was a desire to help the opposition deliver assistance and basic services in areas it has "liberated from the regime" and also to "protect the legitimate institutions of the state".
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the White House was considering a policy shift to supply rebels with "non-lethal" aid, including armoured vehicles and perhaps even military training.
CNN ran a similar story on its website.
Kerry's remarks also came ahead of a weekend opposition gathering in Istanbul to elect a prime minister and government to run "liberated" parts of Syria.
-- Opposition's'struggle' important --
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called for more support from the international community for Syria's opposition, saying the lack of a clear leader among the opposition was no reason to back Assad's "cruel" regime.
"The struggle of the opposition is important and should be appreciated. Their effort is the way to prepare the ground for a democratic process to take hold for the Syrian people," Erdogan said at a United Nations event in Vienna.
But combatants in Syria seemed deaf to the diplomacy, with fighting and bombardment reported near Damascus as the regime renewed its campaign to suppress the insurgency.
Kerry had on Tuesday met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for talks in Berlin and while initially at odds over the two-year-old conflict, Washington and Moscow have sought to find common ground.
Russia, the most powerful supporter of Assad, this week urged his regime to open talks to end the conflict, with Lavrov also urging the opposition to "declare itself in favour of dialogue".
Washington has recently toned down its criticism of Moscow's perceived intransigence despite Russia having vetoed UN Security Council resolutions which threatened sanctions against Damascus.
"We've been absolutely clear that there needs to be a political transition, and we felt that Russia could play a key role in convincing the regime... that there needs to be that political transition," a State Department official said.
The umbrella opposition National Coalition cancelled a planned boycott of the 11-nation meeting in Rome after the US and Britain "promised specific aid to alleviate the suffering of our people".
Meanwhile, Damascus has decided to renew the passports of any Syrians abroad, in an apparent concession after Coalition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib demanded such a move as a condition for talks.
Washington is expected to use the Rome meeting to boost the morale of the opposition, which has grown frustrated at the lack of progress on the diplomatic front.
In Rome, "the Americans want to boost the opposition's morale... because they are aware negotiations with the Russians could last several months," said Karim Bitar of the French Institute of International and Strategic Studies.
On Saturday in Istanbul the Coalition is to appoint the head of an interim cabinet in a secret ballot.
Among those tipped to fill the post are Burhan Ghalioun, the former head of opposition faction the Syrian National Council and ex-prime minister Riad Hijab who defected in mid-2012.
On the ground, fierce battles rocked towns near Damascus as the regime renewed its campaign to crush the insurgency around the capital, a watchdog said.
Tanks pounded the rebel-held town of Daraya, southwest of Damascus, while new clashes broke out in Irbin to the northeast, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The conflict has at times spilled over Syria's borders, notably with Lebanon and Turkey, and a stray mortar shell landed in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Wednesday, Israel's military said.0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
Democracy is a form of government in which all citizens participate equally either directly or indirectly through elected representatives in government. Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is either held by one person, as in a monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in America’s burgeoning oligarchy. Several variants of democracy exist, but of the two basic forms which concern how the whole body of all citizens executes its will, America’s form is representative democracy where the whole body of all eligible citizens remains the sovereign power, but political power is exercised indirectly through elected representatives. Yesterday, the Koch-Adelson conservative’s on the Supreme Court made an important ruling that was yet another step toward taking political power away from the “whole body of all citizens” and giving a great advantage to a very, very tiny percentage of the population to exercise direct political power by granting them a greater degree of free speech than nearly the entirety of the population.
America’s democracy has been bludgeoned over the past four years whether it was the Supreme Court striking down the Voting Rights Act, Republicans enacting voter suppression laws in states they control, or the Supreme Court giving corporations a “voice” to spend unlimited amounts on campaigns in the Koch brothers’ Citizens United ruling. Yesterday the conservative Court issued another “free speech ruling” striking down limits on individual campaign donations as a gift to the extremely wealthy and Republican Party that was part of the McCutcheon v. Federal Elections Commission case. The Koch-Adelson conservatives felt the overall federal limit on individuals’ contributions of $123,200 was a violation of the wealthy’s free speech and unconstitutional, and concluded that to be fair and constitutional, the wealthy should be limited to spending $3.6 million on individual donations. For perspective, the old limit of $123,200 is about two-and-a-half times the $49,900 median family income and although millions of Americans donate to individual political campaigns in America, it is incomprehensible that the Court ruling benefitted any American that is not filthy rich. In fact, only 644 wealthy elite donors contributed the maximum amount to candidates in the last election cycle, so the Court’s decision benefitted an infinitesimal percentage of the American population; the very, very, very richest percentage of over 316 million Americans.
It was a ruling that benefits 0.000002% of the population and no man, woman, child, Republican, or wild beast can say this particular group of conservative SCOTUS Justices is not ruling solely for the extremely wealthy. John Roberts certainly was looking out for the people in the richest micro-percentage of the population because he wrote that “The overall limits intrude without justification on a citizen’s ability to exercise ‘the most fundamental First Amendment activities.” Roberts may as well have been speaking about “a citizen,” and if he was referring to freedom of speech of the very rich, the High Court already granted corporations owned by the richest Americans “free speech” in elections in Citizens United four years ago; freedom of speech was not an issue in McCutcheon. Allowing the rich to speak with a louder voice was the issue and the conservative Court gave the top two-one-millionths of one percent of the population a much, much louder voice than the bottom 99.99998% of the population to sway elections with typical conservative lies, misinformation, and propaganda.
Justice Stephen Breyer, in writing for the dissenting opinion, said that the court’s conservatives “eviscerated our nation’s campaign finance laws” with yesterday’s ruling and that “If the court in Citizens United opened a door, today’s decision we fear will open a floodgate. It understates the importance of protecting the political integrity of our governmental institution and creates a loophole that will allow a single individual to contribute millions of dollars to a political party or to a candidate’s campaign.” Breyer is right, the court’s conservatives are eviscerating campaign finance laws and with the Citizens United ruling, yesterday’s decision sets a very dangerous precedent Republicans are certain to take to heart and completely eliminate campaign finance laws, the Federal Elections Commission, and voting laws that do not favor Republican candidates for political office. It is important to note that in Citizens United v FEC, McCutcheon v FEC, and Shelby County v. Holder (Voting Rights Act), Republicans simply went to the Supreme Court and asked the conservatives to strike down longstanding voting rights or campaign finance laws and the conservatives granted their request per their orders from the Koch brothers.
In McCutcheon v. FEC, a wealthy Republican did not like the FECs limitation on individual campaign donations and filed suit complaining that being limited to spending $123,200 on individual candidates just was not fair and violated his 1st Amendment right of free speech. The conservatives on the High Court agreed wholeheartedly and gave McCutcheon more free speech than over 99% of the population to financially support Republican candidates. How long before the Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson convince another uber-wealthy donor to file suit against the federal government because they think the Federal Elections Commission is an unconstitutional violation of their free speech or that all campaign finance laws are unconstitutional? Republicans have already slashed FEC funding below levels from before 2010 that the elections commission complains restricts them from doing their jobs of policing violators.
It is true that one wealthy individual spending $3.6 million dollars on Republican candidates is not going to buy one American’s vote, but that proposition is likely in the offing. But it does unfairly give the 644 wealthy donors a greater voice in buying television ads, billboards, campaign flyers, and radio spots to spread lies and misinformation about Democrats while extolling the virtues of Republicans and teabaggers. The High Court’s ruling for McCutcheon is not the end of America’s democracy yet, but as Senator Charles Schumer said, “This in itself is a small step, but another step on the road to ruination. It could lead to interpretations of the law that would result in the end of any fairness in the political system as we know it.” Schumer is right and it is but a short matter of time before tax-exempt evangelical churches go crying to the conservatives on the Supreme Court that their obligation to not campaign from the pulpit at the expense of the American taxpayer is a violation of their 1st Amendment right of free speech and unconstitutional; everyone with a brain knows exactly how the Court will rule on that abomination.Income splitting would not benefit single parents because the majority are considered low income, says the Minister of State for Social Development, Candice Bergen.
In an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio's The House, host Evan Solomon asked Bergen whether the government would consider adopting income splitting for single parents — similar to what is offered in France where a parent could split their income with their child, instead of a spouse.
According to Bergen, that option would not be of benefit to many of Canada's single parents, because about two-thirds of them wouldn't qualify.
"We're still at a point where the majority of single parents are low income and so income splitting wouldn't benefit them. That's why we want to do things like the universal child care benefit in which they would be obviously either not taxed or taxed at a much lower rate," she said.
According to 2011 tax data from Finance Canada, about 55 per cent of single parents do not pay income taxes, based on tax liabilities before refundable credits. After taking into account refundable credits, the proportion of non-taxpaying single parents increases to about 75 per cent.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced on Thursday "the family tax cut," which will allow two-parent families with children under 18 to split their household income up to $50,000.
For a family with a stay-at-home spouse or someone working part-time, the new policy means the partner with the larger income could assign up to $50,000 of their income to the lower earner for tax purposes.
There is a $2,000 cap on the maximum benefit a family can earn. It does not apply to households with only one parent.
The program will cost about $2.4 billion in foregone revenues this year, and an average of about $2 billion per year over the next five years.
Good public policy?
The NDP questioned Bergen's comments and the need for income splitting, suggesting it is designed to only benefit wealthy families.
Greta Levy, a spokeswoman for the NDP, said in a written statement to CBC News that Bergen is "highlighting that her party has made a choice to reward a core constituency, as opposed to those of us who
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to carry a weapon if they meet the rules in the law.
Police cannot be everywhere at all times, and most often are not in a position to provide protection from a potentially deadly criminal attack that occurs in seconds. That’s when a person’s right and responsibility to defend themselves and their family members from death or serious harm would call for use of a firearm.
Our nation’s founders put their own lives at grave risk to break free of a tyrannical king and give us liberty, something that nobody but us Americans has ever tasted so fully in the history of mankind.
Out of that crucible of the American Revolution, the founders drew up the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
Second only to free speech, they emphasized the right to keep and bear arms for defense — a right the Supreme Court recently said belongs to each individual, not just collectively to create state militias.
So, back to Lorain County and concealed carry. Time and events have proven that concealed carry is safe for the public in general. Gun ownership is perfectly fine. Both carry an obligation to follow well-known laws and rules for safety, and that’s exactly what law abiding citizens will do by their nature. It’s criminals, by their nature, that we should worry about.
This column, and Taylor Dungjen’s front page story by no means cover every aspect of the long-running debates over firearms. That would take a book, or several books.
For now, let’s just say I freely admit I was on the wrong side of this argument for too long, and the facts presented by gun rights advocates over the years finally have brought me to see the issue with appropriate clarity.
If you want to be a gun owner or even a concealed carry license holder, fine. Just do it right.
It’s one of our most fundamental rights as Americans.
Tom Skoch is editor of The Morning Journal and www.MorningJournal.com, where his Tell the Editor blog appears. He is on Twitter as MJ_Tom_Skoch and can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected].
undefinedRoy S. Moore, who won a special Republican primary runoff for an Alabama Senate seat on Tuesday, is a staunch evangelical Christian, and his often-inflammatory political beliefs are informed by his strongly held religious views.
He has condemned homosexuality and used offensive language when talking about race, recently referring to Native Americans and Asian-Americans as “reds and yellows.”
His insistence on the primacy of religion over American law has twice led him to be taken off the Alabama Supreme Court: once in 2003, for refusing to remove a statue of the Ten Commandments from the courthouse, and again in 2016, when he asked state probate judges to disregard a federal ruling on same-sex marriage.
Here are some of the ways that Mr. Moore has described his own views in the past.
On gay marriage
Mr. Moore has long been virulently opposed to gay marriage and has condemned same-sex relations altogether.Windscion wrote:
Yeah, I just realized how being a'scab' -- a non-extortionist -- reflects well on Sizemore.
Lipkin wrote:
Do we know if Jed can contact Maggie? Or does he have to wait until Mmaggie makes contact? Because Wanda getting free is something Parson would probably want to know.
Mecharic wrote:
She didn't lose the bubble, it failed. Fate is powerful, but even Fate isn't unstoppable. There were so many casters targeting Wanda that Fate couldn't protect her from their attacks. That is why the bubble "failed". It likely restored the moment Wanda was no longer the center of attention (considering she survived the battle when others like Marie did not).
Erlkoenig wrote:
On the other hand, I found the escape quite plausible under the circumstances. Keep in mind that most of the time in Erfworld, a group trying to act together will be a group of ordinary infantry under the (direct or indirect) leadership of a warlord. They essentially pop with military discipline already build in, always know and follow their orders when they have them, and behave in a predictable fashion when they don't.
The Dirtamancers here are nothing like an ordinary stack in that sense. Every single one of them is a warlord, none of them is capable of issuing "orders" in the Erfworld sense to the others, and it's likely that none of them have recent experience on the battlefield, working as part of a larger organization. Reacting chaotically, especially when things are happening fast, especially when those things are unusual and not easily made sense of, is only realistic. Imagine a small group of civilians with guns in the real world faced with similarly weird and outside their experience. How many do you think would act rationally at all? How many do you think work together with any sort of coherence?
If the first touch had been something they could easily understand--a stack of enemies showing up on the stairs, or Ivan straight away trying to burrow under the prisoner--they probably would have all done mostly the obvious thing, and only got in each other's way a little bit. But this was neither an obvious attack nor a straightforward snatch-the-prisoner-and-run rescue attempt, so it wouldn't be at all clear what the best way to respond was.
Keep in mind, Ivan and Claud didn't need it to play out exactly like it did. They just needed to a) cause enough confusion to briefly keep the Dirtamancers from focusing on the right things and croaking themselves or Wanda and b) get a precise fix on Wanda's location. If anything, it rather unlucky for them that one of the Dirtamancers had the presence of mind and resolution to jump from seeing a weird hopping doll to taking upon himself to croak the prisoner: that's not a decision most people are going to make and act on in a couple seconds, not without a clear imperative to do so.
I do hope Wanda gets a'let my people go'moment. And not just because of the frogs.For all his faults, there is no denying Sizemore's generosity, which is to his credit. And to Wanda's, for allowing him the freedom to do so. Stanley too, to a lesser extent (I doubt he pays that much attention).I believe she has to be touching the doll (until she recovers her juice of course). But there are other ways they may discover this. If Wanda were reappointed Chief Caster for example, they may know automatically, or deduce it from increased bonuses if she provided any without the pliers in hand.It should be remembered that Wanda has been incapacitated at least once in every book and was captured by Haffaton. And also, that the linked casters had been stealing numbers from the fated units to give to the fateless. The 'failing bubble' thing was blown completely out of proportion. With that said...I agree with this, also. With the possible exception of the pink one (who is Wanda's friend, or a possessor of the cretin special) any one one of those dirtamancers would have been more of a problem alone than they were as a group, because they fought as a mob. They had several plans that could have worked if used exclusively that were hopeless when combined, while getting into each others lines of fire really didn't help. And Ivan knew them very well, the chaos was entirely predictable.And even without pinkies help, once Wanda was free, well... "If Jillian could manage to stack up with any regular unit from her side, then she would be considered ârescuedâ and would be a Faq field unit once more. She would even pop new equipment, at the expense of the treasury, of course." So yeah, even without juice, she'd be armed (her old Goodmintion gear came with a staff, while the signamancy of her Vader garb screams 'light sword'(perfect for scaring archons in the dark tunnels)) and dangerous (being that rare thing, a battle hardened caster) with her enemies within easy reach. Between that and the aforementioned crossfire situation, the dirtamancers are lucky to be alive.After gaining the support of most House members last week, a bill legalizing medical marijuana was declared dead Tuesday night by its authors — a Republican and a Democrat who vowed to continue working on the issue.
“The clock ran out,” Representative Jason Isaac, R-Dripping Springs, told the Observer Tuesday evening. Representative Eddie Lucio III, a Brownsville Democrat who authored House Bill 2107, and Isaac, the bill’s first co-author, said they were able to build “unheard-of” momentum for the bill — more than half of the Texas House signed on to the legislation — but weren’t able beat legislative deadlines.
In a late-night Facebook Live video, the pair said they would work in the interim to educate people on the importance of medical cannabis and pledged to be better prepared to pass the legislation next session.
House Bill 2107 would allow patients with certain debilitating illnesses to use medical marijuana at the recommendation of their doctor. The bill would expand the Compassionate Use Act passed in the Texas Legislature in 2015, which allows certain doctors to prescribe cannabis with very low levels of THC — the chemical that creates the high — to patients with severe epilepsy under specific conditions. Supporters of HB 2107 say current law is too limited, and has no benefit for individuals who suffer from cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), autism and other ailments.
The legislation was bottled up in the House Public Health Committee for most of the session by Representative Four Price, the Republican chair of the committee. Last week, committee members heard four hours of emotional testimony on the measure from patients who said cannabis was the only treatment that helped ease their suffering while pharmaceuticals caused new problems. About 70 people testified; only one was against the bill.
In the two days after the hearing, the number of co-authors on the bill grew from six to 76, with 29 Republicans signing on. The bipartisan support is unusual for a measure dealing in any way with marijuana — a word that supporters say scares off many conservative lawmakers who worry that their constituents will believe they favor legalizing recreational pot and hold it against them in the Republican primary.
Price called an impromptu committee vote late Friday afternoon as pressure from activists and lawmakers built. The bill passed the committee 7-2, with Price and fellow Republican Stephanie Klick, of Fort Worth, opposing.
But the legislation never made it to the House calendar. As contentious bills drew hours of debate on the House floor and priority measures for Republican leadership took a front seat, HB 2107 was too far behind to make a May 11 legislative deadline, the authors said.
Despite HB 2107’s demise, Isaac said he will look for ways to add the legislation as amendments to other bills still up for debate this session. On Monday, Isaac added an amendment to House Bill 7, a high-priority child welfare proposal that would protect parents who give medical cannabis to their child.
Isaac named the legislation “Kara’s amendment,” after Kara Zartler, a 17-year-old who suffers from cerebral palsy and severe autism. Her father, Mark, released a video showing the effect of cannabis on Kara’s tendency to self-harm that has gotten over 1 million views. He testified in favor of the bill last week, saying cannabis is the only thing that has helped his daughter.Timothy Vincent Johnson (born July 23, 1946) was the U.S. Representative for Illinois's 15th congressional district, serving from 2001 to 2013. He is a member of the Republican Party and did not run for re-election in 2012.
Early life, education, and early political career [ edit ]
Johnson was born in Champaign to Robert and Margaret Evans Johnson and spent his childhood in Urbana where he graduated from Urbana High School.
He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1964[1] followed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Johnson majored in history and graduated in 1969 Phi Beta Kappa, receiving the Bronze tablet,[2] an honor given to the top 3% of undergraduates.[3] In 1972, Johnson graduated with honors from the University of Illinois College of Law and was elected to the Order of the Coif, a national legal honor society.[4][5]
Johnson greets constituents at the annual Mill Creek Lake Steak Fry, held in Edgar County, Illinois
In 1971, Johnson was elected to the city council of Urbana, Illinois.
Illinois House of Representatives [ edit ]
In 1976, Johnson was elected to serve as a representative in Springfield, after besting five other Republican candidates in the 1976 Republican primary.[4] Johnson remained a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1976 to 2000.[6]
While running for re-election in 1980, a photograph was published showing Johnson had rigged a paper clip so that in his absence he would vote "yes" during any roll call; he initially denied installing it, but later said it was "accepted practice" in the legislature.[7] Twenty years later, when Johnson ran for U.S. Congress, Mike Kelleher, his Democratic rival, had the story documented on a website dedicated to the photograph and Johnson's reactions, saying "It would be funny, if it weren't so serious..."[8]
U.S. House of Representatives [ edit ]
Elections [ edit ]
2004
In 2004, Johnson raised $533,478 in campaign funds,[9] less than half the national average for a Republican running for reelection ($1,206,138). The 2004 campaign fundraising was about a quarter of the[10] $1,943,630 raised by his initial campaign in 2000; that in turn was nearly double the amount raised by his fellow freshmen Republicans ($1,171,118).[9] Johnson defeated Democratic candidate David Gill 61% to 39%.
2006
In his 2000 campaign, Johnson pledged not to serve more than three terms. However, he ran for re-election in 2008 and 2010. Johnson "underestimated the value of seniority," spokesman Phil Bloomer says of his boss' decision to run for a fifth term. "As a rookie going in, (he) didn't understand what he could accomplish for his district by being there a longer period."[11]
In the 2006 election in November, Johnson again faced Democrat David Gill.
At the end of June 2006, Johnson had over $130,000 available for spending for his 2006 campaign, more than double the total amount raised by his opponent at that point. In the 2006 midterm elections, he was reelected by a slightly narrower 58-42% margin.[12]
2008
Johnson received 64.19% of his district's votes, defeating Democratic nominee Steve Cox.
2010
Johnson defeated Democratic nominee David Gill.
2012
Due to congressional apportionment following the 2010 Census, Johnson ran in the Republican primary to represent Illinois's 13th congressional district for the 2012 elections.[13] That new district "juts southwest nearly to St. Louis" and includes only about 30 percent of the district he had previously represented.[13]
On March 14, 2012, Johnson endorsed Texas Congressman Ron Paul for the 2012 Republican primary in Illinois.[14]
On April 5, 2012, Johnson announced his retirement from office, to the surprise of many.[15]
Tenure [ edit ]
Outside of meetings, committee hearings, and votes, Johnson has been said to spend "nearly every waking minute" cold-calling his constituents; the practice amounts to calls to "more than a half-million constituents" during his first six terms in office.[13]
In the House, Johnson's voting record has been the most moderate among Illinois Republicans outside of the Chicago metropolitan area. In 2010, American Conservative Union gave him its second-lowest rating among Illinois Republicans,[citation needed] behind only Mark Steven Kirk of the 10th District. However, he is a member of the conservative Republican Study Committee.
For each of the 107th, 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses Johnson received a score of 0% from the Human Rights Campaign. This was for, among other things, voting against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would have prohibited discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation, and for refusing to adopt a written policy for his own office pledging not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in employment decisions.[16] Meanwhile, the Family Research Council, a conservative watchdog, in its most recent scorecard gives Johnson a 100%.[17]
From 2003 through 2005, $14.7 billion in crop subsidies went to the congressional districts of members on the House Committee on Agriculture, an analysis by the non-partisan Environmental Working Group found. That was 42.4% of the total subsidies. Johnson is reported to have brought $716 million to his District.[21]
Committee assignments [ edit ]
Caucus memberships [ edit ]
Congressional Central Aisle Caucus (Co-founder)
Congressional Fire Services Caucus
Congressional Internet Caucus
Congressional Rural Caucus
International Conservation Caucus
Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth
Personal life [ edit ]
Johnson has nine children and ten grandchildren.[4] He was an attorney and senior partner at Johnson, Frank, Frederick and Walsh from 1972 to 2001.[1]
Awards and honors [ edit ]
Johnson was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State’s highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 2013 in the area of Communications.[22]
Post congressional career [ edit ]
In 2015, Johnson was elected to the Parkland College Board of Trustees.[23]
As of November 2015, Johnson was petitioning to become a delegate for Senator Marco Rubio's Presidential campaign.[citation needed]Why you being so messed up to me, Kirk? (Click to Enlarge)
Though there is some debate, The Wrath of Khan is consistently and correctly praised as being the best of all of the Star Trek films. And while Trekkies might debate on its influence, there is something essential about The Wrath that sets it apart from all the other movies, and really, every other version of Star Trek. The movie is what everyone wants out of Star Trek, and yet contains its own emotional rules that fly in the face of the rest of Star Trek. It is truly unique and great.
But, like a lot of cinematic triumphs, The Wrath almost wasn’t the film we know it to be and it has an odd legacy. Because it’s 30 years to the day it was released, here are five big things you might not know about the most famous Trek of them all.
5.) Originally, Spock Didn’t Die Because Spock Wasn’t In the Script
Leonard Nimoy’s contemporary love affair with Star Trek and Star Trek fandom wasn’t quite the same back in the 1970s and early 1980s. Instead, Nimoy had to be dragged kicking and screaming to appear in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and was originally not going to be involved in the aborted second Star Trek TV show, Star Trek: Phase II. So, when the first person assigned to script writing duty—producer Harve Bennett—sat down to write a script, Spock wasn’t really in it. This script was called Star Trek II: War of the Generations and featured Khan, Kirk’s son, and a renegade Federation colony. To help him with the script, Bennet brought in Jack B. Sowards, who introduced the idea of killing Spock off as a way to coerce Nimoy back into the fold. Nimoy was told Spock would be offed early in the script. It worked. Nimoy came back.
4.) Nicholas Meyer Wrote the Shooting Script in 12 Days, Waived Screenwriting Credit
Though detailed much better in this awesome excerpt from his memoir, Director Nicholas Meyer was attached to Star Trek II late in the game. At this point there were various versions of the script floating around, and Meyer felt the only way to get something he could shoot was to cobble all of them together into one story. Harve Bennett told him they had 12 days to get ILM a script, which was not enough time to get Meyer a screenwriting deal. Because of the time constraints, Meyer told them he would forgo screenwriting credit in the interests of fixing the script. The rest is history.
3.) Meyer Wanted the Title of Star Trek II to Be The Undiscovered Country
According to William Shatner’s Star Trek Movie Memories book, Meyer really, really wanted to have the subtitle of Star Trek II reference the famous “undiscovered country” line from Hamlet’s well-known “To be or not to be” soliloquy. Apparently, the studios were adamantly against this idea, and instead wanted to call the movie The Vengeance of Khan. At the time, the third Star Wars film was still know as Revenge of the Jedi, a point which Meyer made to the studio. (Reportedly, he also didn’t care for the Vengeance title.) In the end, it was changed to The Wrath of Khan, to avoid the Vengeance/Revenge problem, which didn’t matter with the re-titled Return of the Jedi. According to the same book, Meyer didn’t like that title either. Of course, Meyer eventually got his way when he directed Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, by calling the film well you get it.
2.) Saavik Is Half Romulan. Was Almost a Dude.
Though mentioned in various versions of the screenplay, Saavik was originally conceived to be half-Romulan, which would account for some of her overt emotionalism. Her utterance of the very un-Vulcan word “damn” at the beginning of the film might be an indication of this. Much of Saavik’s half-Romulan heritage is fleshed out in various Star Trek novels and comics, notably The Pandora Principle by Carolyn Clowes, which details Saavik’s origin, and how she first entered Starfleet Academy.
Another earlier version of the script had Saavik entering a relationship with David, something which is mildly hinted at in both Star Trek II and Star Trek III. But even earlier than that, she was set to be a male Vulcan protégé of Spock’s named Wicks.
1.) The Wrath is Rarely Directly Referenced in Subsequent Films or TV Shows
Naturally the next two Trek films both deal with the fallout from the events of The Wrath, but direct references (not homages!) to the events of this film in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise are very uncommon. Sure, it’s a big universe, but when you consider how popular this movie is, one would think Khan, the Genesis Device and Spock dying would be brought up more often. Khan himself is directly name-checked in the Deep Space Nine episode “Doctor Bashir, I Presume” in reference to the fact Julian Bashir is genetically engineered. Picard references Khan in “A Matter of Time” when chatting with faux-future historian Berlinghoff Rasmussen.
The biggest Khan snub of all? Carol Marcus is never once mentioned again by anyone in the original series movies, nor TNG, nor DS9. Ever. No one brings up poor Carol Marcus until Captain Janeway makes an odd reference to Dr. Marcus (or maybe David too?) in the episode “The Omega Directive.” This is interesting because in early drafts of The Wrath, the Genesis Device was referred to as “The Omega Device.”
The biggest reference to The Wrath in a spin-off series actually comes from Enterprise, in the three episodes “Borderland,” “Cold Station 12,” and “The Augments” where an entire crew of genetically engineered augments runs around the galaxy causing problems and talking about Khan.
Special Bonus: Owen Wilson Time-Travelled And Played Khan in An Alternate Universe
That’s where we got the top image. Really. (Not really.)
More Khan trivia? Tell us below! This will be your big chance to get away from it all.
Big thanks to Memory Alpha and Bardfilm for research for this article.
Stubby the Rocket is the Tor.com mascot. Stubby wants to know who has been holding up the damn elevator and if she changed her hair style.BY: Follow @AlyssaEinDC
Overnight, the Islamic State took over the historic city of Palmyra. IS’s rapid growth within the Anbar province has lawmakers reanalyzing President Obama’s strategy on how to combat that radical Islamic group.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) said Wednesday evening on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer that Obama’s arbitrary cap of 3,000 soldiers has no military reason. Cotton said he wishes the cap would be raised so that the boots on the ground could be used for more special operations forces and intelligence.
In an Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday, Gen. Jack Keane, former Vice Chief of Staff for the Army, echoed the same sentiments.
"We are not only failing, we are losing this war," said Keane.
Keane took aim at the plan to combat IS and called it "fundamentally flawed." It has taken over 10 years to train the Iraqi army while there have been some successes there has mostly been disappointments.
Keane also called the resources to support Iraq inadequate, as well as the timing and urgency to supply weapons, equipment, and training is insufficient. Keane was adamant that the current strategy would not help the United States in the war over IS.When the Ottawa Senators lost top-pair defenceman Marc Methot over the summer, they knew they’d have to rely on younger players to replace him. So far, rookie defencemen like Thomas Chabot and Ben Harpur have been given a chance to contribute, and both players have shown some promise.
Chabot, a first-round pick in 2015, has shown flashes of offensive brilliance in his first 10 games with the Senators this season. He has been given pretty limited ice time due to his age and risky style of play, but has so much potential it’s worth the risk. Harpur is a different story both in terms of usage and style of play. The 6-foot-6 defender is not known for his puck skill, but Senators coach Guy Boucher says he likes the stability Harpur brings to the team.
Boucher says Harpur will remain with Karlsson. Said Harpur provided the stability on the left side Karlsson needs from his partner. — TSN 1200 (@TSN1200) December 7, 2017
While Chabot’s ice time seems to fluctuate based on how close the game is, Harpur’s ice time has been trending upwards, with him playing 20 minutes against the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday. Harpur spent most of that game paired with Erik Karlsson and played a solid game despite being deked out by Tyler Toffoli on the first Los Angeles goal.
After alternating the two young defenders in and out of the lineup, both Harpur and Chabot have found spots on the Senators defence for the time being. However, this has forced another effective defenceman out of the lineup.
Bring Back Claesson
Fredrik Claesson started the season in the Senators top four but saw his ice time steadily decrease since Erik Karlsson returned to the lineup. Since the two defencemen were productive together the previous season, it was expected that Karlsson and Claesson would be paired together once again. The two Swedes were eventually reunited on the team’s first pair during Ottawa’s trip to Stockholm, but it didn’t take long for Boucher to start experimenting with his defensive pairings.
When both Harpur and Chabot were called up from Belleville at the end of November, Claesson found himself in the press box for the first time this season in a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Sens lost, allowing five goals and getting significantly out-chanced, so Claesson was back in the lineup the next night. For a while it looked like scratching Claesson was just going to be a one-time thing, but he has sat out the last three games of the Senators’ California road trip.
This decision has upset a lot of fans, since Claesson has developed a pretty faithful following in Ottawa. It’s easy to understand why, since the 25-year-old worked hard in the minors for four seasons before finally becoming a full-time NHLer. Claesson’s colourful personality has made him a fan favourite, but his play is what really stands out. Claesson defends his team’s net better than most Senators and has a booming slap shot that he puts to use when Karlsson passes him the puck.
Of course, the absence of Claesson isn’t the main reason the Senators are struggling, but having him in the lineup should be an easy decision for Guy Boucher. Claesson has definitely played well enough this season to deserve a permanent spot on the roster, but for now, the Senators seem to be prioritizing both Chabot and Harpur ahead of him. However, there’s a strong case to be made for having all three of them in the lineup.
Need Young Energy
When the Senators signed Johnny Oduya this past offseason, not many people thought it was more than just a depth move. Despite this, Oduya has consistently been given a spot in the team’s top-four, and it’s clear Boucher trusts him against the opposition’s best players. Oduya has been Karlsson’s most common defensive partner this year, but the veteran hasn’t been playing like a top-pair defenceman.
The 36-year-old has been a minus player in each of the last four games, getting three minor penalties in his last two. There are times where Oduya’s age is evident, and he is unable to muster up the speed to get back in position.
It isn’t a bad idea to have an experienced defenceman like Oduya on the team, but when considering his recent play and the way the whole team has fallen off a cliff in the past month, it’s worth giving younger players a shot at playing a bigger role. Many coaches have the same concern when trusting inexperienced defencemen, that they’ll nervously make bad plays because they aren’t used to playing against the best players in the world. But with the way the team’s veterans are playing, it’s hard to believe some inexperience would make matters worse.Just one source, but it makes sense. Do you really think Trump and Bannon want to spend another month repeating this nightmare in the Senate, and then maybe another month after that negotiating with a conference committee?
senior WH aide, asked if decisive health care defeat today is best for Team Trump: "100%" — John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) March 24, 2017
An added benefit if the bill goes down would be the leverage it provides the White House to start shoving Paul Ryan towards the exit as Speaker. While at Breitbart, Bannon was allegedly known to refer to Ryan as “the enemy” and hoped to have him deposed by spring 2016. He’s worked with Ryan since the election on health care, and reportedly was a good soldier for Ryan and Trump last night in warning the Freedom Caucus during a meeting that it’s time to suck it up and back the bill. But according to Gabriel Sherman, Bannon is moving behind the scenes to blame Ryan if the bill fails:
Publicly, Bannon has been working to help the bill pass. But privately he’s talked it down in recent days. According to a source close to the White House, Bannon said that he’s unhappy with the Ryan bill because it “doesn’t drive down costs” and was “written by the insurance industry.” While the bill strips away many of Obamacare’s provisions, it does not go as far as Bannon would wish to “deconstruct the administrative state” in the realm of health care. Furthermore, Bannon has been distancing himself from the bill to insulate himself from political fallout of it failing. He’s told people that Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn — a West Wing rival — has run point on it. (Bannon did not respond to a request for comment.)
Bannon’s a populist. The House bill is … not. It makes sense that he wouldn’t like the product. But why, then, would the White House have agreed to support Ryan’s bill in the first place? Why not insist on a more populist bill from the beginning? The policy answer is that they didn’t have the votes for a populist bill: Democrats are unanimous in opposition, meaning that Trump had little choice but to try to placate the conservative Freedom Caucus while hoping that Republican moderates didn’t bail as he did.
There’s a political reason too, though. When push comes to shove, Trump and Bannon just don’t much care what’s in the bill. Their interest lies with infrastructure and tax reform; repealing ObamaCare is something they’re doing because the GOP has been making promises about it for seven years, forcing Trump to address it first thing after his inauguration. The White House’s disinterest in the substance is palpable, though. “The Trump team talks about this country-altering, life-and-death law like it’s a chore they have to rush through so they can go play,” wrote Daniel Dale, a reporter for the Toronto Star. But don’t take his word for it:
Mr. Trump has told four people close to him that he regrets going along with Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s plan to push a health care overhaul before unveiling a tax cut proposal more politically palatable to Republicans. He said ruefully this week that he should have done tax reform first when it became clear that the quick-hit health care victory he had hoped for was not going to materialize on Thursday, the seventh anniversary of the act’s passage, when the legislation was scheduled for a vote… If Mr. Trump has any advantage in the negotiations, it is his ideological flexibility: He is more interested in a win, or avoiding a loss, than any of the arcane policy specifics of the complicated measure, according to a dozen aides and allies interviewed over the past week who described his mood as impatient and jittery.
I wonder how long it’ll be before Trump starts blaming Ryan publicly if the bill fails. In Ryan’s defense, though, remember that choosing to do health care before tax reform wasn’t a purely political decision to appease the Republican base. There was a procedural logic to it too. Because the GOP has only 52 votes in the Senate, not nearly enough to defeat a Democratic filibuster, they need to use reconciliation to pass both bills. But reconciliation comes with a condition: The laws you pass under it must reduce the deficit long-term. Because the GOP’s tax-reform bill will be heavy on tax cuts, odds are it’ll end up increasing the deficit. Solution: Pass a health-care bill first that reduces the deficit greatly, providing a “cushion” of sorts for the tax-reform bill to come if in fact it ends up increasing the deficit. Even that plan has run into problems, though, as the GOP’s health-care fiasco has unfolded. The original version of the health-care bill reduced the deficit by $337 billion over 10 years, but the newly amended version reduces it by just $151 billion. The logic of doing health care first is disintegrating as the bill keeps getting revised. And if the bill today fails, Trump’s plan to move on to tax reform will run smack up against the deficit-reduction requirements of reconciliation.
Anyway. The Freedom Caucus might grant Trump’s wish today:
Freedom Caucus source to me just now: "Think they want it to fail on the floor to make a point." — Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) March 24, 2017
It’ll be interesting to see how moderate Republicans play this vote. I’m sure many would like to vote no on a bill that’s polling at 17/56, but they might refrain if it means bearing the brunt of the blame from Trump and his supporters for killing the bill. How they vote, then, may depend on how the Freedom Caucus votes. Even if there are 23+ moderates who want the bill to fail, they may suck it up and vote yes if the FC lines up behind Trump at the last moment and votes yes as well. If, on the other hand, the Freedom Caucus holds out to the bitter end and provides, say, 20 no votes, placing the bill in dire jeopardy, then you may see moderate Republicans vote no en masse. The Freedom Caucus is going to take the fall for this in the media (and likely from Trump himself) if they oppose the bill in any significant numbers. So long as they’re being blamed, moderates can vote no too with little fear of repercussions.
Here’s Trump making a last-minute check-the-box pitch for the bill on Instagram. He told reporters this morning that he thinks Ryan should stay on as Speaker even if the bill fails. We’ll see how long that lasts.
You were given many lies with #Obamacare! Go with our plan! Call your Representative and let them them know you're behind #AHCA. Check the link in our bio to find your Representative. A post shared by The White House (@whitehouse) on Mar 23, 2017 at 9:08am PDT
Update: Yep. Here we go:
Behind the scenes, the president’s aides are planning to blame Ryan if there is an embarrassing defeat on a bill that has been a Republican goal for more than seven years, a senior administration official said… “I think Paul Ryan did a major disservice to President Trump, I think the president was extremely courageous in taking on health care and trusted others to come through with a program he could sign off on,” Chris Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax and a long-time friend of Trump’s, said in an interview last week. “The President had confidence Paul Ryan would come up with a good plan and to me, it is disappointing.”
Ryan’s pal Reince Priebus may also be in the crosshairs, per Bloomberg. Sounds like the populists in the White House are seizing failure as an opportunity to clear out some rivals.Lane United FC continued its strong start to the 2014 PDL season by beating the Puget Sound Gunners 4-1 in a comprehensive victory. The Gunners, who had finished a 2-0 loss to the Portland Timbers U-23s only 24 hours before the kickoff of the Lane United match, looked very tired from the outset and could barely manage to disrupt the home team’s patient passing rhythm for the first half. After only two minutes, Martin Lukaschik played in Khiry Shelton with an excellent through-ball, and the big forward, who spent most of the match playing a slightly deeper role at the point of attack, glided in and finished at the near post. He was then instrumental in maintaining Lane United’s dominant possession for the rest of the half, simply turning around as soon as he felt opponents closing in, holding off a challenge or two with his 6’3” frame, and recycling the ball to any one of Lane United’s three hard-working midfielders, Lukaschik, Baldo or Pancho Vizcaino.
Shelton was at the heart of Lane United’s second
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a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he discussed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology.[3][4][5] He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy.[6][7][8]
During his career Derrida published more than 40 books, together with hundreds of essays and public presentations. He had a significant influence upon the humanities and social sciences, including philosophy, literature, law,[9][10][11] anthropology,[12] historiography,[13] applied linguistics,[14] sociolinguistics,[15] psychoanalysis and political theory.
His work retains major academic influence throughout continental Europe, South America and all other countries where "continental philosophy" has been predominant, particularly in debates around ontology, epistemology (especially concerning social sciences), ethics, aesthetics, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of language. He also influenced architecture (in the form of deconstructivism), music,[16] art,[17] and art criticism.[18]
Particularly in his later writings, Derrida addressed ethical and political themes in his work. Some critics consider Speech and Phenomena (1967) to be his most important work. Others cite Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference, and Margins of Philosophy. These writings influenced various activists and political movements.[19] He became a well-known and influential public figure, while his approach to philosophy and the notorious abstruseness of his work made him controversial.[19][20]
Life [ edit ]
Derrida was born on July 15, 1930, in a summer home in El Biar (Algiers), Algeria,[2] into a Sephardic Jewish family (originally from Toledo) that became French in 1870 when the Crémieux Decree granted full French citizenship to the indigenous Arabic-speaking Jews of Algeria.[21] His parents, Haïm Aaron Prosper Charles (Aimé) Derrida (1896–1970)[22] and Georgette Sultana Esther Safar (1901–1991),[23][24][25] named him "Jackie", "which they considered to be an American name", though he would later adopt a more "correct" version of his first name when he moved to Paris; some reports indicate that he was named Jackie after the American child actor Jackie Coogan, who had become well-known around the world via his role in the 1921 Charlie Chaplin film The Kid.[26][27][28] He was also given the middle name Élie after his paternal uncle Eugène Eliahou, at his circumcision; this name was not recorded on his birth certificate unlike those of his siblings, and he would later call it his "hidden name".[29]
Derrida was the third of five children. His elder brother Paul Moïse died at less than three months old, the year before Derrida was born, leading him to suspect throughout his life his role as a replacement for his deceased brother.[26] Derrida spent his youth in Algiers and in El-Biar.
On the first day of the school year in 1942, French administrators in Algeria—implementing antisemitism quotas set by the Vichy government—expelled Derrida from his lycée. He secretly skipped school for a year rather than attend the Jewish lycée formed by displaced teachers and students, and also took part in numerous football competitions (he dreamed of becoming a professional player). In this adolescent period, Derrida found in the works of philosophers and writers (such as Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Gide) an instrument of revolt against family and society.[30] His reading also included Camus and Sartre.[30]
In the late 1940s, he attended the Lycée Bugeaud [fr], in Algiers;[31] in 1949 he moved to Paris,[3][20] attending the Lycée Louis-le-Grand,[31] where his professor of philosophy was Étienne Borne.[32] At that time he prepared for his entrance exam to the prestigious École Normale Supérieure (ENS); after failing the exam on his first try, he passed it on the second, and was admitted in 1952.[20] On his first day at ENS, Derrida met Louis Althusser, with whom he became friends. After visiting the Husserl Archive in Leuven, Belgium (1953–1954), he completed his master's degree in philosophy (diplôme d'études supérieures [fr]) on Edmund Husserl (see below). He then passed the highly competitive agrégation exam in 1956. Derrida received a grant for studies at Harvard University, and he spent the 1956–57 academic year reading James Joyce's Ulysses at the Widener Library.[33] In June 1957, he married the psychoanalyst Marguerite Aucouturier in Boston. During the Algerian War of Independence of 1954–1962, Derrida asked to teach soldiers' children in lieu of military service, teaching French and English from 1957 to 1959.
Following the war, from 1960 to 1964, Derrida taught philosophy at the Sorbonne, where he was an assistant of Suzanne Bachelard (daughter of Gaston), Georges Canguilhem, Paul Ricœur (who in these years coined the term school of suspicion) and Jean Wahl.[34] His wife, Marguerite, gave birth to their first child, Pierre, in 1963. In 1964, on the recommendation of Louis Althusser and Jean Hyppolite, Derrida got a permanent teaching position at the ENS, which he kept until 1984.[35][36] In 1965 Derrida began an association with the Tel Quel group of literary and philosophical theorists, which lasted for seven years.[36] Derrida's subsequent distance from the Tel Quel group, after 1971, has been attributed[by whom?] to his reservations about their embrace of Maoism and of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.[37]
With "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences", his contribution to a 1966 colloquium on structuralism at Johns Hopkins University, his work began to gain international prominence. At the same colloquium Derrida would meet Jacques Lacan and Paul de Man, the latter an important interlocutor in the years to come.[38] A second son, Jean, was born in 1967. In the same year, Derrida published his first three books—Writing and Difference, Speech and Phenomena, and Of Grammatology.
In 1980, he received his first honorary doctorate (from Columbia University) and was awarded his State doctorate (doctorat d'État) by submitting to the University of Paris ten of his previously published books in conjunction with a defense of his intellectual project under the title "L'inscription de la philosophie : Recherches sur l'interprétation de l'écriture" ("Inscription in Philosophy: Research on the Interpretation of Writing").[31][39] The text of Derrida's defense was based on an abandoned draft thesis he had prepared in 1957 under the direction of Jean Hyppolite at the ENS titled "The Ideality of the Literary Object"[39] ("L'idéalité de l’objet littéraire");[40] his 1980 dissertation was subsequently published in English translation as "The Time of a Thesis: Punctuations". In 1983 Derrida collaborated with Ken McMullen on the film Ghost Dance. Derrida appears in the film as himself and also contributed to the script.
Derrida traveled widely and held a series of visiting and permanent positions. Derrida became full professor (directeur d'études) at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris from 1984 (he had been elected at the end of 1983).[39] With François Châtelet and others he in 1983 co-founded the Collège international de philosophie (CIPH), an institution intended to provide a location for philosophical research which could not be carried out elsewhere in the academia. He was elected as its first president. In 1985 Sylviane Agacinski gave birth to Derrida's third child, Daniel.[41]
In 1986 Derrida became Professor of the Humanities at the University of California, Irvine, where he taught until shortly before his death in 2004. His papers were filed in the university archives. After Derrida's death, his widow and sons said they wanted copies of UCI's archives shared with the Institute of Contemporary Publishing Archives in France. The university had sued in an attempt to get manuscripts and correspondence from Derrida's widow and children that it believed the philosopher had promised to UC Irvine's collection, although it dropped the suit in 2007.[42]
Derrida was a regular visiting professor at several other major American and European universities, including Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, New York University, Stony Brook University, and The New School for Social Research.
He was awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Cambridge (1992), Columbia University, The New School for Social Research, the University of Essex, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, the University of Silesia, the University of Coimbra, the University of Athens, and many others around the world.
Derrida's honorary degree at Cambridge was protested by leading philosophers in the analytic tradition. Philosophers including Quine, Marcus, and Armstrong wrote a letter to the university objecting that "Derrida's work does not meet accepted standards of clarity and rigour," and "Academic status based on what seems to us to be little more than semi-intelligible attacks upon the values of reason, truth, and scholarship is not, we submit, sufficient grounds for the awarding of an honorary degree in a distinguished university".[43]
Derrida was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Although his membership in Class IV, Section 1 (Philosophy and Religious Studies) was rejected,[citation needed] he was subsequently elected to Class IV, Section 3 (Literary Criticism, including Philology).[citation needed] He received the 2001 Adorno-Preis from the University of Frankfurt.
Late in his life, Derrida participated in making two biographical documentaries, D'ailleurs, Derrida (Derrida's Elsewhere) by Safaa Fathy (1999),[44] and Derrida by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman (2002).[45]
Derrida was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, which reduced his speaking and travelling engagements.[46] He died during surgery in a hospital in Paris in the early hours of October 9, 2004.[47][19]
At the time of his death, Derrida had agreed to go for the summer to Heidelberg as holder of the Gadamer professorship,[48] whose invitation was expressed by the hermeneutic philosopher himself before his death. Peter Hommelhoff, Rector at Heidelberg by that time, would summarize Derrida's place as: "Beyond the boundaries of philosophy as an academic discipline he was a leading intellectual figure not only for the humanities but for the cultural perception of a whole age."[48]
Philosophy [ edit ]
Derrida referred to himself as a historian.[49][50] He questioned assumptions of the Western philosophical tradition and also more broadly Western culture.[51] By questioning the dominant discourses, and trying to modify them, he attempted to democratize the university scene and to politicize it.[52] Derrida called his challenge to the assumptions of Western culture "deconstruction".[51] On some occasions, Derrida referred to deconstruction as a radicalization of a certain spirit of Marxism.[53][54]
With his detailed readings of works from Plato to Rousseau to Heidegger, Derrida frequently argues that Western philosophy has uncritically allowed metaphorical depth models to govern its conception of language and consciousness. He sees these often unacknowledged assumptions as part of a "metaphysics of presence" to which philosophy has bound itself. This "logocentrism," Derrida argues, creates "marked" or hierarchized binary oppositions that have an effect on everything from our conception of speech's relation to writing to our understanding of racial difference. Deconstruction is an attempt to expose and undermine such "metaphysics."
Derrida approaches texts as constructed around binary oppositions which all speech has to articulate if it intends to make any sense whatsoever. This approach to text is, in a broad sense, influenced by the semiology of Ferdinand de Saussure.[55][56] Saussure, considered to be one of the fathers of structuralism, posited that terms get their meaning in reciprocal determination with other terms inside language.[57]
Perhaps Derrida's most quoted and famous assertion,[55] which appears in an essay on Rousseau in his book Of Grammatology (1967),[58] is the statement that "there is no out-of-context" (il n'y a pas de hors-texte).[58] Critics of Derrida have been often accused of having mistranslated the phrase in French to suggest he had written "Il n'y a rien en dehors du texte" ("There is nothing outside the text") and of having widely disseminated this translation to make it appear that Derrida is suggesting that nothing exists but words.[59][60][61][62][63] Derrida once explained that this assertion "which for some has become a sort of slogan, in general so badly understood, of deconstruction (...) means nothing else: there is nothing outside context. In this form, which says exactly the same thing, the formula would doubtless have been less shocking."[59][64]
Early works [ edit ]
Derrida began his career examining the limits of phenomenology. His first lengthy academic manuscript, written as a dissertation for his diplôme d'études supérieures and submitted in 1954, concerned the work of Edmund Husserl.[65] In 1962 he published Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry: An Introduction, which contained his own translation of Husserl's essay. Many elements of Derrida's thought were already present in this work. In the interviews collected in Positions (1972), Derrida said: "In this essay the problematic of writing was already in place as such, bound to the irreducible structure of 'deferral' in its relationships to consciousness, presence, science, history and the history of science, the disappearance or delay of the origin, etc. [...] this essay can be read as the other side (recto or verso, as you wish) of Speech and Phenomena."[66]
Derrida first received major attention outside France with his lecture, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," delivered at Johns Hopkins University in 1966 (and subsequently included in Writing and Difference). The conference at which this paper was delivered was concerned with structuralism, then at the peak of its influence in France, but only beginning to gain attention in the United States. Derrida differed from other participants by his lack of explicit commitment to structuralism, having already been critical of the movement. He praised the accomplishments of structuralism but also maintained reservations about its internal limitations;[67] this has led US academics to label his thought as a form of post-structuralism.[6][7][68]
The effect of Derrida's paper was such that by the time the conference proceedings were published in 1970, the title of the collection had become The Structuralist Controversy. The conference was also where he met Paul de Man, who would be a close friend and source of great controversy, as well as where he first met the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, with whose work Derrida enjoyed a mixed relationship.
Phenomenology vs structuralism debate (1959) [ edit ]
In the early 1960s, Derrida began speaking and writing publicly, addressing the most topical debates at the time. One of these was the new and increasingly fashionable movement of structuralism, which was being widely favoured as the successor to the phenomenology approach, the latter having been started by Husserl sixty years earlier. Derrida's countercurrent takes on the issue, at a prominent international conference, was so influential that it reframed the discussion from a celebration of the triumph of structuralism to a "phenomenology vs structuralism debate."
Phenomenology, as envisioned by Husserl, is a method of philosophical inquiry that rejects the rationalist bias that has dominated Western thought since Plato in favor of a method of reflective attentiveness that discloses the individual's "lived experience;" for those with a more phenomenological bent, the goal was to understand experience by comprehending and describing its genesis, the process of its emergence from an origin or event.[citation needed] For the structuralists, this was a false problem, and the "depth" of experience could in fact only be an effect of structures which are not themselves experiential.[citation needed]
In that context, in 1959, Derrida asked the question: Must not structure have a genesis, and must not the origin, the point of genesis, be already structured, in order to be the genesis of something?[69] In other words, every structural or "synchronic" phenomenon has a history, and the structure cannot be understood without understanding its genesis.[70] At the same time, in order that there be movement or potential, the origin cannot be some pure unity or simplicity, but must already be articulated—complex—such that from it a "diachronic" process can emerge. This original complexity must not be understood as an original positing, but more like a default of origin, which Derrida refers to as iterability, inscription, or textuality.[71] It is this thought of originary complexity that sets Derrida's work in motion, and from which all of its terms are derived, including "deconstruction".[72]
Derrida's method consisted in demonstrating the forms and varieties of this originary complexity, and their multiple consequences in many fields. He achieved this by conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet transformational readings of philosophical and literary texts, to determine what aspects of those texts run counter to their apparent systematicity (structural unity) or intended sense (authorial genesis). By demonstrating the aporias and ellipses of thought, Derrida hoped to show the infinitely subtle ways in which this originary complexity, which by definition cannot ever be completely known, works its structuring and destructuring effects.[73]
Derrida's interests crossed disciplinary boundaries, and his knowledge of a wide array of diverse material was reflected in the three collections of work published in 1967: Speech and Phenomena, Of Grammatology (initially submitted as a Doctorat de spécialité thesis under Maurice de Gandillac),[31] and Writing and Difference.[74]
On several occasions, Derrida has acknowledged his debt to Husserl and Heidegger, and stated that without them he would not have said a single word.[75][76] Among the questions asked in these essays are "What is'meaning', what are its historical relationships to what is purportedly identified under the rubric 'voice' as a value of presence, presence of the object, presence of meaning to consciousness, self-presence in so called living speech and in self-consciousness?"[74] In another essay in Writing and Difference entitled "Violence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas", the roots of another major theme in Derrida's thought emerges: the Other as opposed to the Same[77] "Deconstructive analysis deprives the present of its prestige and exposes it to something tout autre, "wholly other," beyond what is foreseeable from the present, beyond the horizon of the "same"."[78] Other than Rousseau, Husserl, Heidegger and Levinas, these three books discussed, and/or relied upon, the works of many philosophers and authors, including linguist Saussure,[79] Hegel,[80] Foucault,[81] Bataille,[80] Descartes,[81] anthropologist Lévi-Strauss,[82][83] paleontologist Leroi-Gourhan,[84] psychoanalyst Freud,[85] and writers such as Jabès[86] and Artaud.[87]
This collection of three books published in 1967 elaborated Derrida's theoretical framework. Derrida attempts to approach the very heart of the Western intellectual tradition, characterizing this tradition as "a search for a transcendental being that serves as the origin or guarantor of meaning". The attempt to "ground the meaning relations constitutive of the world in an instance that itself lies outside all relationality" was referred to by Heidegger as logocentrism, and Derrida argues that the philosophical enterprise is essentially logocentric,[88] and that this is a paradigm inherited from Judaism and Hellenism.[89] He in turn describes logocentrism as phallocratic, patriarchal and masculinist.[89][90] Derrida contributed to "the understanding of certain deeply hidden philosophical presuppositions and prejudices in Western culture",[89] arguing that the whole philosophical tradition rests on arbitrary dichotomous categories (such as sacred/profane, signifier/signified, mind/body), and that any text contains implicit hierarchies, "by which an order is imposed on reality and by which a subtle repression is exercised, as these hierarchies exclude, subordinate, and hide the various potential meanings."[88] Derrida refers to his procedure for uncovering and unsettling these dichotomies as deconstruction of Western culture.[citation needed]
In 1968, he published his influential essay "Plato's Pharmacy" in the French journal Tel Quel.[91][92] This essay was later collected in Dissemination, one of three books published by Derrida in 1972, along with the essay collection Margins of Philosophy and the collection of interviews entitled Positions.
Starting in 1972, Derrida produced on average more than one book per year. Derrida continued to produce important works, such as Glas (1974) and The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond (1980).
Derrida received increasing attention in the United States after 1972, where he was a regular visiting professor and lecturer at several major American universities. In the 1980s, during the American culture wars, conservatives started a dispute over Derrida's influence and legacy upon American intellectuals,[51] and claimed that he influenced American literary critics and theorists more than academic philosophers.[88][93][need quotation to verify]
Of Spirit (1987) [ edit ]
On March 14, 1987, Derrida presented at the CIPH conference titled "Heidegger: Open Questions" a lecture which was published in October 1987 as Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question. It follows the shifting role of Geist (spirit) through Heidegger's work, noting that, in 1927, "spirit" was one of the philosophical terms that Heidegger set his sights on dismantling.[94] With his Nazi political engagement in 1933, however, Heidegger came out as a champion of the "German Spirit," and only withdrew from an exalting interpretation of the term in 1953. Derrida asks, "What of this meantime?"[95] His book connects in a number of respects with his long engagement of Heidegger (such as "The Ends of Man" in Margins of Philosophy, his Paris seminar on philosophical nationality and nationalism in the mid-1980s, and the essays published in English as Geschlecht and Geschlecht II).[96] He considers "four guiding threads" of Heideggerian philosophy that form "the knot of this Geflecht [braid]": "the question of the question," "the essence of technology," "the discourse of animality," and "epochality" or "the hidden teleology or the narrative order."[97]
Of Spirit contributes to the long debate on Heidegger's Nazism and appeared at the same time as the French publication of a book by a previously unknown Chilean writer, Victor Farías, who charged that Heidegger's philosophy amounted to a wholehearted endorsement of the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) faction. Derrida responded to Farías in an interview, "Heidegger, the Philosopher's Hell" and a subsequent article, "Comment donner raison? How to Concede, with Reasons?" He called Farías a weak reader of Heidegger's thought, adding that much of the evidence Farías and his supporters touted as new had long been known within the philosophical community.[98]
1990s: political and ethical themes [ edit ]
Some have argued that Derrida's work took a "political turn" in the 1990s. Texts cited as evidence of such a turn include Force of Law (1990), as well as Specters of Marx (1994) and Politics of Friendship (1994). Others, however, including Derrida himself, have argued that much of the philosophical work done in his "political turn" can be dated to earlier essays.[99] Derrida develops an ethicist view respecting to hospitality, exploring the idea that two types of hospitalities exist, conditional and unconditional. Though this contributed to the works of many scholars, Derrida was seriously criticized for this.[100][101][102]
Those who argue Derrida engaged in an "ethical turn" refer to works such as The Gift of Death as evidence that he began more directly applying deconstruction to the relationship between ethics and religion. In this work, Derrida interprets passages from the Bible, particularly on Abraham and the Sacrifice of Isaac,[103][104] and from Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. Derrida's contemporary readings of Emmanuel Levinas, Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, Jan Patočka, on themes such as law, justice, responsibility, and friendship, had a significant impact on fields beyond philosophy. Derrida and Deconstruction influenced aesthetics, literary criticism, architecture, film theory, anthropology, sociology, historiography, law, psychoanalysis, theology, feminism, gay and lesbian studies and political theory. Jean-Luc Nancy, Richard Rorty, Geoffrey Hartman, Harold Bloom, Rosalind Krauss, Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva, Duncan Kennedy, Gary Peller, Drucilla Cornell, Alan Hunt, Hayden White, Mario Kopić, and Alun Munslow are some of the authors who have been influenced by deconstruction.
Derrida delivered a eulogy at Levinas' funeral, later published as Adieu à Emmanuel Lévinas, an appreciation and exploration of Levinas's moral philosophy. Derrida used Bracha L. Ettinger's interpretation of Lévinas' notion of femininity and transformed his own earlier reading of this subject respectively.[105]
Derrida continued to produce readings of literature, writing extensively on Maurice Blanchot, Paul Celan, and others.
In 1991 he published The Other Heading, in which he discussed the concept of identity (as in cultural identity, European identity, and national identity), in the name of which in Europe have been unleashed "the worst violences," "the crimes of xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, religious or nationalist fanaticism."[106]
At the 1997 Cerisy Conference, Derrida delivered a ten-hour address on the subject of "the autobiographical animal" entitled The Animal That Therefore I Am (More To Follow). Engaging with questions surrounding the ontology of nonhuman animals, the ethics of animal slaughter and the difference between humans and other animals, the address has been seen as initiating a late "animal turn" in Derrida's philosophy, although Derrida himself has said that his interest in animals is, in fact, present in his earliest writings.[107]
The Work of Mourning (1981–2001) [ edit ]
Beginning with "The Deaths of Roland Barthes" in 1981, Derrida produced a series of texts on mourning and memory occasioned by the loss of his friends and colleagues, many of them new engagements with their work. Memoires for Paul de Man, a book-length lecture series presented first at Yale and then at Irvine as Derrida's Wellek Lecture, followed in 1986, with a revision in 1989 that included "Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man's War". Ultimately, fourteen essays were collected into The Work of Mourning (2001), which was expanded in the 2003 French edition, Chaque fois unique, la fin du monde (literally, "The end of the world, unique each time"), to include essays dedicated to Gérard Granel and Maurice Blanchot.
2002 [ edit ]
In October 2002, at the theatrical opening of the film Derrida, he said that, in many ways, he felt more and more close to Guy Debord's work, and that this closeness appears in Derrida's texts. Derrida mentioned, in particular, "everything I say about the media, technology, the spectacle, and the 'criticism of the show', so to speak, and the markets – the becoming-a-spectacle of everything, and the exploitation of the spectacle."[108] Among the places in which Derrida mentions the Spectacle, is a 1997 interview about the notion of the intellectual.[109]
Politics [ edit ]
Derrida engaged with many political issues, movements, and debates:
Beyond these explicit political interventions, however, Derrida was engaged in rethinking politics and the political itself, within and beyond philosophy. Derrida insisted that a distinct political undertone had pervaded his texts from the very beginning of his career. Nevertheless, the attempt to understand the political implications of notions of responsibility, reason of state, the other, decision, sovereignty, Europe, friendship, difference, faith, and so on, became much more marked from the early 1990s on. By 2000, theorizing "democracy to come," and thinking the limitations of existing democracies, had become important concerns.
Influences on Derrida [ edit ]
Crucial readings in his adolescence were Rousseau's Reveries of a Solitary Walker and Confessions, André Gide's journal, La porte étroite, Les nourritures terrestres and The Immoralist;[30] and the works of Friedrich Nietzsche.[30] The phrase Families, I hate you! in particular, which inspired Derrida as an adolescent, is a famous verse from Gide's Les nourritures terrestres, book IV.[116] In a 1991 interview Derrida commented on a similar verse, also from book IV of the same Gide work: "I hated the homes, the families, all the places where man thinks he'll find rest" (Je haïssais les foyers, les familles, tous lieux où l'homme pense trouver un repos).[117]
Other influences upon Derrida are Martin Heidegger,[75][76] Plato, Søren Kierkegaard, Alexandre Kojève, Maurice Blanchot, Antonin Artaud, Roland Barthes, Georges Bataille, Edmund Husserl, Emmanuel Lévinas, Ferdinand de Saussure, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Claude Lévi-Strauss, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, J. L. Austin[49] and Stéphane Mallarmé.[118]
His book, Adieu à Emmanuel Lévinas, reveals his mentorship by this philosopher and Talmudic scholar who practiced the phenomenological encounter with the Other in the form of the Face, which commanded human response.[119]
Peers and contemporaries [ edit ]
Derrida's philosophical friends, allies, students and the heirs of Derrida's thought include Paul de Man, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Blanchot, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Luc Nancy, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Sarah Kofman, Hélène Cixous, Bernard Stiegler, Alexander García Düttmann, Joseph Cohen, Geoffrey Bennington, Jean-Luc Marion, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Raphael Zagury-Orly, Jacques Ehrmann, Avital Ronell, Judith Butler, Béatrice Galinon-Mélénec, Ernesto Laclau, Samuel Weber and Catherine Malabou.
Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe [ edit ]
Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe were among Derrida's first students in France and went on to become well-known and important philosophers in their own right. Despite their considerable differences of subject, and often also of a method, they continued their close interaction with each other and with Derrida, from the early 1970s.
Derrida wrote on both of them, including a long book on Nancy: Le Toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy (On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy, 2005).
Paul de Man [ edit ]
Derrida's most prominent friendship in intellectual life was with Paul de Man, which began with their meeting at Johns Hopkins University and continued until de Man's death in 1983. De Man provided a somewhat different approach to deconstruction, and his readings of literary and philosophical texts were crucial in the training of a generation of readers.
Shortly after de Man's death, Derrida authored a book Memoires: pour Paul de Man and in 1988 wrote an article in the journal Critical Inquiry called "Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within a Shell: Paul de Man's War". The memoir became cause for controversy, because shortly before Derrida published his piece, it had been discovered by the Belgian literary critic Ortwin de Graef that long before his academic career in the US, de Man had written almost two hundred essays in a pro-Nazi newspaper during the German occupation of Belgium, including several that were explicitly antisemitic.
Derrida complicated the notion that it is possible to simply read de Man's later scholarship through the prism of these earlier political essays. Rather, any claims about de Man's work should be understood in relation to the entire body of his scholarship. Critics of Derrida have argued that he minimizes the antisemitic character of de Man's writing. Some critics have found Derrida's treatment of this issue surprising, given that, for example, Derrida also spoke out against antisemitism and, in the 1960s, broke with the Heidegger disciple Jean Beaufret over Beaufret's instances of antisemitism, about which Derrida (and, after him, Maurice Blanchot) expressed shock.
Michel Foucault [ edit ]
Derrida's criticism of Foucault appears in the essay Cogito and the History of Madness (from Writing and Difference). It was first given as a lecture on March 4, 1963, at a conference at Wahl's Collège philosophique, which Foucault attended, and caused a rift between the two men that was never fully mended.[35]
In an appendix added to the 1972 edition of his History of Madness, Foucault disputed Derrida's interpretation of his work, and accused Derrida of practicing "a historically well-determined little pedagogy [...] which teaches the student that there is nothing outside the text [...]. A pedagogy which inversely gives to the voice of the masters that infinite sovereignty that allows it indefinitely to re-say the text."[120] According to historian Carlo Ginzburg, Foucault may have written The Order of Things (1966) and The Archaeology of Knowledge partly under the stimulus of Derrida's criticism.[121] Carlo Ginzburg briefly labeled Derrida's criticism in Cogito and the History of Madness, as "facile, nihilistic objections," without giving further argumentation.[121]
Derrida's translators [ edit ]
Geoffrey Bennington, Avital Ronell and Samuel Weber belong to a group of Derrida translators. Many of Derrida's translators are esteemed thinkers in their own right. Derrida often worked in a collaborative arrangement, allowing his prolific output to be translated into English in a timely fashion.
Having started as a student of de Man, Gayatri Spivak took on the translation of Of Grammatology early in her career and has since revised it into a second edition. Barbara Johnson's translation of Derrida's Dissemination was published by The Athlone Press in 1981. Alan Bass was responsible for several early translations; Bennington and Peggy Kamuf have continued to produce translations of his work for nearly twenty years. In recent years, a number of translations have appeared by Michael Naas (also a Derrida scholar) and Pascale-Anne Brault.
Bennington, Brault, Kamuf, Naas, Elizabeth Rottenberg, and David Wills are currently engaged in translating Derrida's previously unpublished seminars, which span from 1959 to 2003.[122] Volumes I and II of The Beast and the Sovereign (presenting Derrida's seminars from December 12, 2001 to March 27, 2002 and from December 11, 2002 to March 26, 2003), as well as The Death Penalty, Volume I (covering December 8, 1999 to March 22, 2000), have appeared in English translation. Further volumes currently projected for the series include Heidegger: The Question of Being and History (1964-1965), Death Penalty, Volume II (2000–2001), Perjury and Pardon, Volume I (1997–1998), and Perjury and Pardon, Volume II (1998–1999).[123]
With Bennington, Derrida undertook the challenge published as Jacques Derrida, an arrangement in which Bennington attempted to provide a systematic explication of Derrida's work (called the "Derridabase") using the top two-thirds of every page, while Derrida was given the finished copy of every Bennington chapter and the bottom third of every page in which to show how deconstruction exceeded Bennington's account (this was called the "Circumfession"). Derrida seems to have viewed Bennington in particular as a kind of rabbinical explicator, noting at the end of the "Applied Derrida" conference, held at the University of Luton in 1995 that: "everything has been said and
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baia de aburi si mixati cu un mixer electric aproximativ 5 minute pana obtineti o bezea ferma si lucioasa si bolul se raceste. S-ar putea sa fie nevoie de mai mult de 5 minute, in functie de cat de eficient e mixerul. Adaugati extractul de vanilie. Pentru a decora tortul, luati deoparte cateva linguri de glazura si adaugati cateva picaturi de colorant rosu. De aici incolo, imaginatia e limita. Pentru a crea modelul de pe tort, eu am intins un strat roz de glazura la baza tortului si am finisat cu glazura alba, apoi cu o lingurita am combinat cele doua culori astfel incat sa obtin un efect interesant. Dupa cum se vede la baza tortului unde am facut acele bilute cu un pos, glazura isi pastreaza forma foarte bine, deci puteti folosi si un pos. Se pastreaza la frigider.The Boston Symphony Orchestra announced Thursday morning Andris Nelsons would become the 15th music director in the BSO’s 132-year history.
The long-awaited announcement came more than two years after James Levine last took the podium. The renowned conductor’s tenure with the BSO was marred by injuries and health problems that forced him to step down officially in September 2011.
Nelsons, speaking by phone from Amsterdam, where he’s conducting the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, said he hopes to look for an apartment later this summer and is thrilled to be coming to Boston. “I think it’s very important to be part of the Boston society and the people who live in Boston,” he said. “I always feel that music is food for our souls, and [Bostonians] will be hungry and continue to be part of the Boston Symphony Orchestra family.”
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News of the appointment was announced by chairman of the BSO board of trustees Ted Kelly, BSO board of trustees vice chairs Stephen B. Kay and Robert O’Block, and BSO managing director Mark Volpe. In a statement, the BSO noted that at 34 years old, Andris Nelsons is the youngest music director to lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra in over 100 years; he is also the first Latvian-born conductor to take on the post.
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Nelsons will step in as BSO music director designate for the BSO’s 2013-14 season, making his first appearance in that capacity Oct. 17-19. The program will include Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C, with soloist Paul Lewis, and Brahms’s Symphony No. 3; he returns to the BSO podium on March 6, 2014 to lead a performance of Strauss’s Salome.
This summer, Nelsons will conduct at the Tanglewood Music Center, leading the BSO and Tanglewood Festival Chorus in a performance of Verdi’s monumental Requiem on July 27. His wife, Kristīne Opolais, will sing the solo soprano role.
Nelsons, music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra through 2015, is known for his wide-ranging repertoire. On Thursday’s phone interview, he ticked off a list of classical composers he loves to conduct, including Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, Mahler, Bruckner, Bartok, and Tchaikovsky. When asked about his favorite contemporary composers, Nelsons named British-born Mark-Anthony Turnage, Finland’s Magnus Lindberg, and Australian composer Brett Dean.
“I can’t say I’d like to concentrate on one particular composer,” Nelsons said. “I’m looking forward to doing a variety. It’s important for me that it’s a combination of great historical pieces with sometimes contemporary pieces.”
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Though Nelsons and Levine both speak of their passion for music off the podium, the differences between the two musicians are clear. Levine listened to little other than classical music, rarely was spotted outside Symphony Hall of Tanglewood – save for post-concert dinners – and did not have a family.
Nelsons is not ashamed to profess a love for the music of Michael Jackson and Sting, talks eagerly of attending of a Boston Bruins game, and said he’s prone to watching “Frasier” re-runs in his downtime.
He and Opolais, who recently made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera, have a daughter, Adriana, 16 months old. In an interview, Nelsons did not rule out purchasing a home in the Boston area. (They live now in Riga, the capital of Latvia.)
“The first thing for me the two most important things is one the music in my life and the family,” he said. “It’s somehow connected because music is about human beings, about love, about hate, about everything that happens in life.”
According to the BSO announcement, Nelsons is the third youngest conductor to be appointed BSO music director since the orchestra’s founding in 1881: Georg Henschel was 31 when he became the orchestra’s first music director in 1881, and Arthur Nikisch was 33 when he opened his first season with the orchestra in 1889.
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Nelsons is quoted in the statement:
“I am deeply honored and touched that the Boston Symphony Orchestra has appointed me its next music director, as it is one of the highest achievements a conductor could hope for in his lifetime. Each time I have worked with the BSO I have been inspired by how effectively it gets to the heart of the music, always leaving its audience with a great wealth of emotions. So it is with great joy that I truly look forward to joining this wonderful musical family and getting to know the beautiful city of Boston and the community that so clearly loves its great orchestra. As I consider my future with the Boston Symphony, I imagine us working closely together to bring the deepest passion and love that we all share for music to ever greater numbers of music fans in Boston, at Tanglewood, and throughout the world.”
Geoff Edgers can be reached at [email protected] three-storey building will cost about $35 million, and offer about 110,000 square feet, enough for 700 workers. It has several systems that allow it to be super-efficient:
•It uses the latest materials and designs for energy efficiency: triple-glazed glass, very high levels of insulation and digitally controlled LED lighting that uses sensors to provide only as much light as is needed.
•It taps into a free and renewable energy source, the warmth that is stored in the Earth. On cold days the building's geo-exchange system extracts heat from the ground through a system of pipes and uses it to heat the building; on hot days, it cools the building by sending excess heat into the ground.
•An array of about 1.5 acres of solar panels on the roof and carport will generate clean electricity.
The building will also have direct access to the Ion light rail transit system. "That was really important," Davidson said. Many energy efficient buildings are built in suburbs or industrial parks where there is little access to public transit, so people have to drive to get to them. "Being next to good transit and active transportation means the total impact of the people who work in the building is much lower," she said.
The group is aiming for LEED Platinum certification, which recognizes the greenest, most sustainable buildings in the country. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
While energy-neutral buildings are becoming more common, net positive ones are still unusual in Canada. Net positive office buildings that are privately owned with multiple tenants are even rarer, Conrad said.
The goal is also to build a better building that people enjoy being in, with access to natural light for every occupant, and a three-storey green wall designed to improve air quality, Conrad said
[email protected], Twitter: @ThompsonRecordA short story for today about GTX 1080 Ti.
NVIDIA Pascal GP102-350
First, let’s look at official renders released by NVIDIA. We have two pictures showing the PCB:
We managed to find more pictures confirming the exact GPU codename, which is Pascal GP102-350 GPU. First up, here’s the slide from GAINWARD confirming not only the GP102 variant, but also base and boost clocks. In fact, they were posted by pretty much all AIBs shortly after the announcement, so there’s no secret here.
To my knowledge, this is the first and only picture showing this particular variant of this GPU (GP102-350-K1-A1). Pay attention to the missing memory module.
NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti Specifications
NVIDIA GeForce 10 Series VideoCardz.com TITAN X GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GeForce GTX 1080 GeForce GTX 1070 GPU 16nm GP102-400 16nm GP102-350 16nm GP104-400 16nm GP104-200 CUDA Cores 3584 3584 2560 1920 TMUs 224 224 160 120 ROPs 96 88 64 64 Base Clock 1417 MHz 1480 MHz 1607 MHz 1506 MHz Boost Clock 1531 MHz 1582 MHz 1733 MHz 1683 MHz Memory Clock 10008 MHz 11008 MHz 10008 MHz 8008 MHz Memory 12GB G5X 11GB G5X 8GB G5X 8GB G5 Memory Bus 384-bit 352-bit 256-bit 256-bit TDP 250W 250W 180W 150W Memory Bandwidth 480 GB/s 484 GB/s 320 GB/s 256 GB/s MSRP 1199 USD 699 USD 499 USD 349 USD
NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti PCB vs NVIDIA TITAN X (Pascal) PCB
Now let’s look at the GTX 1080 Ti PCB. Right below we have a comparison between TITAN X and 1080 Ti. The first thing to notice is that both cards use the exact same board (PG611). So the missing DVI port was not dictated by a new design. The removal of that bulky connector simply added more room for the air exhaust, basically to increase the cooling capacity of the new vapor chamber design. Add-in board partners can still use reference PCB and add DVI back if they wish to (and I’m pretty sure most vendors will still add DVI ports).
Compared to TITAN X, the GTX 1080 Ti still features 7-phase power supply, with the exception of dualFET design. To make it simpler, I marked all missing parts with red. So it’s rather straightforward that TITAN X has less advanced power delivery. Meanwhile, GTX 1080 Ti lost DVI connector and one memory module. I guess this was the compromise — to make TITAN X the only 12GB GeForce, but 1080 Ti could easily use the same memory capacity.
NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti will be released on March 10th. The reviews of the Founders Edition will be available at that time. NVIDIA didn’t really give much time to AIBs to develop their custom designs, so don’t be surprised if they are not available that soon.
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Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.The Battle of Gumbinnen, initiated by forces of the German Empire on 20 August 1914, was a German offensive on the Eastern Front during the First World War. Because of the hastiness of the German attack, the Russian Army emerged victorious.
Background [ edit ]
At the outbreak of the war, Maximilian von Prittwitz's orders were very strict and clear: his German Eighth Army was to remain in its positions in East Prussia, without attempting any offensive action, as all German efforts were to be concentrated on the Western Front against France, according to the Schlieffen Plan. In addition, should the Russians increase their pressure, he was authorized to fall back as far as the Vistula River, abandoning eastern Prussia.
The Eighth Army comprised four corps: I Corps (Hermann von François), XVII Corps (August von Mackensen), I Reserve Corps (Otto von Below), and XX Corps (Friedrich von Scholtz), plus 1st Cavalry Division, facing the Russian First Army (Paul von Rennenkampf) and Second Army (Alexander Samsonov). The Russians enjoyed considerable numerical superiority, but were hampered by significant deficiencies in their services of supply and field communications.[3]
François was convinced that German training and equipment made up for their lack of numbers, and was pressing for offensive action. On the 17th he launched, on his own initiative and against orders, an attack against the Russian First Army at the Battle of Stallupönen. By the time he withdrew to Gumbinnen after this battle, his corps had inflicted 5,000 casualties and managed to capture about 3,000 Russian prisoners.
German attack and retreat [ edit ]
Map of the battle and German retreat.
With this success, François persuaded Prittwitz to launch an offensive against the Russian First Army while the Second Army was still far to the south. François argued that his troops, many of whom were native East Prussians, would be demoralized by retreating and leaving their homeland to the Russians, and that the Russians were not as strong as they appeared to be. A radio message that did not use codes supported this assessment.[4]
Prittwitz was convinced, and decided to engage Rennenkampf at the earliest possibility, pitting 150,000 Germans against 200,000 Russians. This decision went against the orders of Helmuth von Moltke, the German Chief of Staff, which specifically ruled out any offensive on the Eastern Front until France was defeated in the West.
On 19 August Russian cavalry came into contact with a German infantry regiment outside Gumbinnen. Instead of withdrawing, the Russians dismounted and brought up their artillery to continue the fight, driving the Germans back. However, they suffered 400 casualties and after expending most of their ammunition were forced to retreat themselves. This was the signal François had been awaiting, and he convinced Prittwitz to launch a counterattack the next day. With Prittwitz's approval, François started moving I Corps forward that night, reinforced by the 1st Cavalry Division.
At 04:00 on 20 August, I Corps attacked the Russian 28th Division, which put up a spirited artillery defense. However, the Russians were always lacking in supplies, and they soon expended their artillery ammunition. This left them at the mercy of the German artillery, and they were forced to retreat 8 km in the early afternoon.[5] The lines were stabilized when the Russian 29th Division arrived, and the battle turned into a stalemate.
To the south, Mackensen's XVII Corps and Below's I Reserve Corps were still moving up and were not ready for combat. Hearing of von François's actions further north, von Mackensen attacked Rennenkampf's III Corps at 08:00, but von Below was not able to join in until noon. The Russians in this area were well aware of German intentions due to von François's attack, and had spent the time preparing for the assault by moving up their heavy artillery. At first the German advance went well, but faltered once they came under Russian artillery fire, and the Russians were able to turn their flanks and force them to retreat in disorder to the Insterburg-Angerburg lines, leaving 6,000 prisoners in Russian hands.[5]
"The uncharacteristic sight of defeated German soldiers streaming mob-like to the rear really unnerved Prittwitz",[6] who feared that his army could be trapped between Rennenkampf and Samsonov, although the former did not seem eager to pursue the retreating German troops. Prittwitz panicked and, with a decision out of proportion to the severity of the situation, ordered a general retreat to the Vistula, leaving East Prussia to the Russians.
Helmuth von Moltke's reaction [ edit ]
Prittwitz's panic affected Moltke, who feared that Berlin itself could now be threatened by the advancing Russians. The Chief of Staff reacted by removing Prittwitz and his deputy, Waldersee, replacing them with Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff.[7][8] He also transferred three corps and a cavalry division from the Western Front, which has been generally considered to have been an incorrect decision, as it weakened (some scholars[who?]say fatally) the German "marching wing" that was intended to rapidly move across Belgium to outflank and destroy the French army.
One seemingly minor outcome of the battle would have lasting effects. After the battle, a note was found on a dead Russian officer that outlined the greater part of the Russian plans for the campaign. As Hindenburg recalled:
"It told us that Rennenkampf's Army was to pass the Masurian Lakes on the north and advance against the Insterburg-Angerburg line. It was to attack the German forces presumed to be behind the Angerapp while the Narew Army [Samsonov's] was to cross the Lotzen-Ortelsburg line to take the Germans in flank."[6]
Armed with this intelligence, Hindenburg and Ludendorff halted the German retreat and decided to take the initiative. This would result in the Battle of Tannenberg, one of Germany's greatest victories.
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]The number of cannabis oil users across the UK has doubled in the space of one year, startling new figures reveal.
Regulatory body data shows there are now 250,000 users across the home nations - up from the 125,000 recorded this time last year.
Cannabis Trades Association UK also states there are now around 1,000 new users each month, despite the oil being shrouded in controversy.
Mike Harlington, chairman of the CTA UK, revealed around 65 per cent of these are women seeking relief for their back pain, anxiety and epilepsy.
The figures come after two middle-aged women recently revealed how cannabis oil helped to eradicate one of her crippling back pain, and the other her cancer.
Regulatory body data shows there are now 250,000 users of cannabis oil across the home nations - up from the 125,000 recorded this time last year
In September, a 48-year-old cancer patient who credited CBD oil for saving her life after chemotherapy failed and she was given six months to live.
Lynn Cameron, from South Lanarkshire, Scotland, turned to alternative medicines and diets in an attempt to stay alive – before coming across the oil.
And a 55-year-old sciatica suffer desperate for relief claimed drops of CBD oil ended her 13 years of crippling back pain just last month.
Brenda Davidson, from Kirkwall, Orkney, was frequently reduced to tears by her condition, as strong painkillers proved ineffective.
CBD, which reportedly has no side effects, influences the release and uptake of ‘feel good’ chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin.
The compound has been credited with helping to relieve pain and stiffness, as well as aiding conditions such as anxiety.
CBD comes in many forms, the most popular being an oil - which users spray under their tongue - or gel tablets which melt slowly in the mouth.
Neither form contain THC - which causes the 'high' in cannabis.
WHAT IS CANNABIS OIL? Cannabidiol oil is a cannabis-derived nutritional supplement which possesses a range of medicinal benefits. It has been reported to help people with epilepsy, rheumatism, migraines, psoriasis, acne, multiple sclerosis and depression. Crucially, cannabidiol oil does not contain any THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis. In other words, CBD does not get you high. Since last year, it has been legal to buy in the UK, after the Government's healthcare watchdog approved its use as a medicine under licence. Those seeking the oil can find it online or in some high street stores. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is one of more than 80 cannabinoids, natural compounds found in the marijuana plant. Extracted from the plant as a mineral-rich oil, it is usually bottled with a dropper - but also comes in the form of chewing gum, soap or as a vape oil for e-cigarettes. It has no side effects, either, and is not addictive, CBD Brothers state.
Government advisors made it legal to buy CBD oil last October after they admitted that it has a ‘restoring, correcting or modifying’ effect on humans.
However, the oils legal status has confused thousands across England and Wales, after the MHRA back-tracked on its position just weeks after.
Suppliers now have to obtain a licence to sell it as a medicine, following the decision last October – but some weave the strict rules.
Manufacturers are able to weave the rules by selling it as a food supplement - ignoring the lengthy process of gaining a medicinal licence.
CBD oil has yet to be approved for use on the NHS in Scotland.
In England and Wales, it has been legal to buy in the UK since last year, after the Government approved its use as a medicine under licence
Billy Caldwell, from Castlederg, Northern Ireland, made headlines in April when he became the first Briton to be prescribed CBD on the NHS.
Cannabis plants contain 140 different compounds, which are naturally occurring in the human body - and referred to as endocannabinoids.
Mr Harlington is now calling for better understanding about CBD, claiming the lack of education about the substance is creating an unnecessary ‘stigma’.
He told MailOnline: 'We’ve known about the endocannabinoid system for 40 years or so but it has been ignored to a greater or lesser degree.
'In a lot of cases, as soon as you mention "cannabis" the stigma is obvious.
Lynn Cameron was given just six to 18 months to live but after taking cannabis oil says she is now cancer-free four years later
Brenda Davidson, 55, claimed drops of CBD oil ended her 13 years of crippling back pain
'Products like CBD, because of where it comes from, are stigmatised despite the fact that every mammal has an endocannabinoid system and is therefore designed to use cannabinoids naturally.
'Cannabinoid deficiencies are starting to become understood by the medical world, and it is slowly becoming obvious that cannabinoids like CBD are actually essential for general health and wellbeing.'
Pharmacist Shamir Patel sells ‘Canabidol’ branded CBD products on his website, Chemist-4-U.com.
Mr Patel told MailOnline: 'Since we started selling CBD cannabis oil a short time ago we have seen its popularity rise dramatically.
'I think people are slowly beginning to understand how it can be used to help common ailments.
'We are hoping that by selling this product through a registered pharmacy we can add to the legitimacy surrounding its use.'
He added: 'Cannabis oil is safe to use and has been proven to be beneficial for a number of uses.'
The news comes just weeks after writer Richard Holt told how taking CBD helped him beat excruciating pain following a 24ft fall from a hotel window 10 years ago.Strange Bargain is a 1949 American crime film noir directed by Will Price and starring Martha Scott, Jeffrey Lynn and Harry Morgan.[2]
It is the story of a bookkeeper in need of money who agrees against his own better judgement to help a wealthy man carry out an elaborate suicide plan.
Plot [ edit ]
Because the firm is bankrupt, bookkeeper Sam Wilson learns from his boss, Malcolm Jarvis, that he is losing his job. Jarvis then makes a strange proposition, saying he intends to commit suicide, but wants Sam to make it look like a murder, in order for wife Edna and son Sydney to inherit Jarvis's life insurance.
Sam declines, but when he goes to see Jarvis and finds his dead body, he reluctantly goes along with the scheme. He finds an envelope with $10,000 that Jarvis has left behind for him, which he hides from Georgia, his wife. He disposes of the weapon as well, so Jarvis's fingerprints from the suicide won't be found.
Lt. Webb of the police is suspicious of Jarvis's business partner, Timothy Hearne. In the meantime, Sam's conscience gets the better of him. When he goes to see Edna Jarvis to confess his role in her husband's death, Edna reveals she's the one who committed the murder, Jarvis having changed his mind about the fake suicide. Edna is about to kill Sam as well when Webb shows up in the nick of time.
Cast [ edit ]
Murder, She Wrote [ edit ]
In 1987, the television series Murder, She Wrote broadcast an episode that served as a sequel to Strange Bargain. This discounted the original ending of the film, instead seeing Jessica Fletcher being recruited to attempt to prove Sam Wilson's innocence following his 30 year prison sentence. The episode, The Days Dwindle Down, saw the stars of the film, Martha Scott, Jeffrey Lynn and Harry Morgan, reprising their original roles.[3]
Reception [ edit ]
Critical response [ edit ]
A.H. Weiler, the film critic for the New York Times penned a fairly positive review. He wrote, "As a modest entry from Hollywood, Strange Bargain, which began a stand yesterday as the associate attraction to the Palace's vaudeville bill, is surprisingly diverting fare. Obviously not intended to set a cinematic landmark, it is, nevertheless, a melodrama that presents an extraordinary situation fairly suspensefully and, for the most part, through intelligent dialogue and direction. And, while it follows a familiar outline as a crime and punishment adventure, it does so neatly and with competent characterizations."[4]
Film critic Dennis Schwartz called the film "[a] well-conceived mystery B-film, but strictly second feature material." He also noted in his review that "Strange Bargain showed up in a 1987 episode of TV's Murder, She Wrote. By removing the original happy ending, the TV installment allowed Angela Lansbury to solve the mystery of the boss' murder--and to exonerate the long-imprisoned bookkeeper, played again by Jeffrey Lynn. Also appearing on this Murder She Wrote were Lynn's Strange Bargain costars Martha Scott and Harry Morgan."[5]Get the biggest Swansea 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
A 48-year-old man from the Swansea area has been arrested after an investigation into offences that are suspected to be linked to extreme right wing ideology.
Officers from the Wales Extremism and Counter Terrorism Unit (WECTU) arrested the man under section 21 of the Public Order Act 1986.
They said the arrest follows an ongoing investigation into offences “that are suspected to be linked to an extreme right wing ideology”.
The man was taken to Queens Road police station in Bridgend and has since been released on police bail pending further investigations.
Police say at no point were any members of the public at risk.
Detective Superintendent Lee Porter said: “Wales Extremism and Counter Terrorism Unit works closely with the public and our partners to investigate all extremist ideology within our strong and vibrant communities.
“We will not tolerate hate crime and will take robust action to fully investigate all reports. While the numbers across Wales are few, we are committed to ensuring that those who show support for proscribed or extreme-thinking organisations and spread hate in our communities are pursued and investigated.
“People who witness or are the victim of hate crime are encouraged to report the incident to the police as soon as possible.”
Anyone with information is asked to call the anti-terrorism hotline on 0800 789 321.
The public can also anonymously refer terrorist internet-based content to the Counter Terrorist Internet Referral Unit at www.direct.gov.uk/reportingonlineterrorism
The extent of hate crime in WalesSignup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
Shannon Purser, who captured fans’ heart while playing Barb on Stranger Things, has come out as bisexual.
The 19-year-old actor talked last week about struggling to reconcile her sexuality with her faith, and has now fully opened up to her fans in an emotional message.
Purser, who now plays Ethel Muggs on another hit Netflix show, young adult drama Riverdale, posted a screenshot on Twitter of her coming out announcement.
She wrote that she has “only just recently come out as bisexual to my family and friends.
“It’s something I am still processing and trying to understand and I don’t like talking about it too much.
“I’m very very new to the LGBT community.”
The decision to come out was sparked by conversations with fans online who accused Riverdale – which features close friends Betty and Veronica – of falsely implying the two characters would get together.
Betty and Veronica have kissed on the show in order to seem risqué, though other characters called them out in the show for perpetuating a tired trope.
Fans who want to ship Betty and Veronica into ‘Beronica’ ended up bringing these allegations to Purser – with a bit too much force.
In response, the star tweeted her annoyance.
She followed this up by stating: “Ships are great, being horrible to people who don’t ship your ship is not.”
And to a fan who told her Riverdale “had the chance to open doors and do something groundbreaking,” she emphasised that “representation is so powerful and important.
“But we didn’t write the show? We have literally no say in what happens.”
A few minutes later, she tweeted: “Lemme clarify, not angry at beronica stans. Not even angry at rightfully upset beronica stans. Disappointed with hateful people. Peace ✌?”
And four hours after that, she posted her coming out message.
Purser explained: “I have never heard the term ‘queerbaiting’ in my life until today.
“That being said, I have never ever wanted to alienate anyone and my tweet was thoughtless.
“I wasn’t referring to all the beronica shippers, just the ones who had been particularly cruel to me personally.
“Either way, it wasn’t a wise or kind thing to say and I’m disappointed in myself, especially as a Christian who has always been taught to speak love to others.
“Thank you to all the people who kindly reached out to me and educated me about the reality your feelings about queerbaiting and I apologise to those who were hurt. Much love- Shannon.”
Last week was the first time Purser opened up about her sexuality, in a series of tweets.
The actor also dispensed advice to fans who might be going through a similar journey.
She wrote that it can be “really scary” but encouraged her followers to “take it slow.
“It can define you as much as you want it to,” she added.
“All that to say, you’re not alone.”
Then, she tweeted, simply: “Growing up is hard.”
She has spoken out about her religion before, telling fans that “being a Christian means knowing Who to thank when things go well for us and Who to ask for help when things get tough.”
Stranger Things, the huge summer hit which has attracted four nominations from the rebranded and gender-neutral MTV Movie & TV Awards, is replete with fans who discuss the sexuality of its characters.
But Noah Schnapp, who plays the target of most of this speculation, 12-year-old Will Byers, said last year that “Will being gay or not is besides the point.”
Charlie Heaton and Joe Keery, who play Jonathan and Steve on the show, did share a kiss inside InStyle Magazine’s after party Photo Booth earlier this year, though.
Getting comfortable with your sexuality is a process. It's going to be ok. I wish I'd known that sooner. — Shannon Purser (@shannonpurser) April 11, 2017
Another thing I wish I'd known about sexuality is to take it slow. It can define you as much as you want it to. — Shannon Purser (@shannonpurser) April 11, 2017
Either way, I know what it's like to have anxiety about it. Especially trying to come to terms with it and my faith. It can be really scary. — Shannon Purser (@shannonpurser) April 11, 2017
But it's gonna be ok. You're going to be ok. No, you're going to be great. — Shannon Purser (@shannonpurser) April 11, 2017Snoop Dogg drew controversy on Wednesday when he posted a photo of his “Make America Crip Again” album cover on Instagram, which portrayed the dead body of President Donald Trump.
The since-deleted picture, which lives on in screenshots, depicted Snoop Dogg wearing a blue hat looking over a lifeless body draped in an American flag with a toe tag reading “TRUMP.”
The rapper’s publicist told Variety his album has already been released with a different cover. The new graphic features a blue baseball cap reading, “Make America Crip Again,” clearly alluding to Trump’s red hats with his “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan. The EP’s original artwork appears to be a reference to Ice Cube’s 1991 album “Death Certificate,” which showed the rapper standing over the corpse of Uncle Sam.
Snoop Dogg takes aim Trump throughout the album’s title track, rapping, “The president said he wants to make America great again. F— that s—, we gon’ make America crip again.”Distrust of the U.S. government has reached an all-time high among Americans, a majority of whom now say Washington represents a threat to their personal freedoms.
According to a new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 53% of respondents said the federal government threatens their own personal rights and freedoms. Those disagreeing numbered 43%.
The percentage of those viewing the government as a threat represents a six-point increase from nearly three years ago, when 47% said they felt that way, and a 23% jump from November 2001, when Americans rallied around their government following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Conservative Republicans are the largest group who distrust Washington, with 76% expressing fear for their personal freedoms. A majority (54%) described the government as a “major” threat.
Three years ago, 62% of conservative Republicans said the government was a threat to their freedom, while 47% said it was a major threat, according to the Pew survey.
Meanwhile, only 38% of Democrats see the government as a threat to personal rights and freedoms, with 16% viewing it as a major threat.
Among gun owners, 62% see the government as a threat, compared with 45% of those without guns.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Majority Says the Federal Government Threatens Their Personal Rights (Pew Research Center for the People & the Press)
Report: Majority Says the Federal Government Threatens Their Personal Rights (Pew Research Center for the People & the Press) (pdf)
Public Trust in Government: 1958-2013 (Pew Research Center for the People & the Press)
New Pew Survey Finds Three-Quarters of Americans Don't Trust the Government (by Judy Woodruff, PBS Newshour)This is to advise you that law enforcement agencies are investigating threats of violence against the PSU community made by Henry Liu, a graduate student at Portland State University.
Mr. Liu has not been charged with a crime, and he and his family have been cooperating with officials regarding the resolution of this matter. Given the circumstances, however, federal law requires that we issue this notification.
Mr. Liu has been excluded from Portland State University and prohibited from coming to campus or any PSU facility. Accordingly, we are providing the following description and photograph of Mr. Liu: He is 6 ft, 250 lbs, with brown eyes and black hair.
If you see Mr. Liu on campus, or if you have any significant concerns about your immediate personal safety, please notify law enforcement officials by calling 911.
University Administration, the Portland Police Bureau and Campus Public Safety are continuing to monitor the situation and do not believe that the normal operations of the University should be interrupted at this time.
If you have any non-emergency questions regarding this notice, please contact PSU's Campus Public Safety at 503.725.4407.
Additional information and updates about Mr. Liu will be available on the PSU Campus Public Safety website. Also, support services are available at Student Health and Counseling Services (503.725.2800) or from the Office of Human Resources (503.725.4926) for anyone concerned by this advisory.
Liu, HenryChris Fox, CP24.com
The head of the Toronto Police Association says a new policy on carding will effectively end the controversial practice, despite the fact that it will still be allowed under limited circumstances.
On Thursday, the Toronto Police Services Board approved the new policy, which is designed to comply with new provincial regulations that go into effect on Jan. 1.
Under the new policy, police will only be allowed to stop and collect information from an individual if they “reasonably suspect” that identifying the individual could assist with a specific investigation or help with the “gathering of information for intelligence purposes.”
Officers will also have to inform individuals that they are attempting to collect information from that they are not under a legal obligation to comply.
“I can’t see our officers following this procedure in the sense of (still) doing street checks,” TPA President Mike McCormack told CP24 on Friday afternoon. “It is too cumbersome. It is going to put officers at risk and it is going to put the relationship with the community at risk so we are not going to do street checks period.”
McCormack said that the 10-page policy approved by the TPS board is too “ambiguous” and is ultimately a “flawed policy” that could put his members at risk if they choose to continue conducting street checks.
For that reason, McCormack said he will be advising members to stop conducting street checks entirely.
“What is reasonable suspicion? Who is going to be judging that?” he said. “Officers are going to go out there trying to interpret this and there will be third-parties reviewing what they do? It is not going to make getting the information easier and it is not going to make the relationships with the community better so why bother doing it?”
Though McCormack said that street checks, or carding, has historically served some investigative purpose he said that concerns raised about the negative impact the practice has had on police
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. F# really starts to shine when you’re doing a bit more processing on your data, but to keep things simple I’m not going to do much more than download it. The data I’m going to use is the London Borough Profiles from the Windows Azure Datamarket. This is dead easy to use in F# 3.0 thanks to the OData type provider: open Microsoft. FSharp. Data. TypeProviders type Boroughs = ODataService < "https://api.datamarket.azure.com/GreaterLondonAuthority/LondonBoroughProfiles/" > let dataContext = Boroughs. GetDataContext ( ) dataContext. Credentials <- System. Net. NetworkCredential ( YourUserName, YourAccountKey ) For my view model, I want to extract just a subset of this data, so I define a couple of F# types to surface it: open System. Collections. Generic type BoroughInfo = { Area : string MaleLifeExpectancy : float FemaleLifeExpectancy : float Employment : float } type ViewModel = { Boroughs : List < BoroughInfo > // not BoroughInfo list -- see below National : BoroughInfo } These are F# immutable record types. We don’t need to modify the data, so immutable types are easier to write and we don’t need to muck around with all that tedious INotifyPropertyChanged stuff. The view model is going to include a list of entries for individual boroughs, plus a ‘dummy’ borough representing national averages so I can display them alongside the per-borough data. One gotcha is that the WPF Elements charting DataSeries expects an IList as its ItemsSource. The F# list type doesn’t implement IList, so we have to be sure to make ViewModel.Boroughs a BCL List instead of a F# list. Now we can build our view model: let ( national, boroughs ) = dataContext. LondonBoroughProfiles |> Seq. filter ( fun r -> r. MaleLifeExpectancy20072009. HasValue && r. FemaleLifeExpectancy20072009. HasValue ) |> Seq. map ( fun r -> { Area = r. Area ; MaleLifeExpectancy = r. MaleLifeExpectancy20072009. Value ; FemaleLifeExpectancy = r. FemaleLifeExpectancy20072009. Value ; Employment = r. EmploymentRate2009. Value } ) |> Seq. toList |> List. partition ( fun b -> b. Area = "National Comparator" ) let viewModel = { Boroughs = List < _ > ( boroughs ) ; National = List. head national } Most of this should be self-explanatory — we are downloading all the borough data from the data context provided by the OData type provider, filtering out a couple of containers that don’t have data, and mapping away the nullable values. (We could have done some of this using F# query expressions, but it’s not worth it for this data set.) The only thing that may be unfamiliar is List.partition, which splits a list into two lists, the first containing things that satisfy the predicate and the second containing things that don’t. The assignment therefore puts the ‘National Comparator’ pseudo-borough into the ‘national’ list, and the real boroughs into the ‘boroughs’ list. The end result of all this is a value called ‘viewModel’ of type ViewModel, and we can now consume this from a C# application: // Code-behind for MainWindow.xaml -- or of course you could automatically // wire it up using Caliburn Micro. public partial class MainWindow : Window { public MainWindow ( ) { InitializeComponent ( ) ; DataContext = Data. viewModel ; } } <e:Chart Margin = "12" > <e:LineSeries ItemsSource = "{Binding Boroughs}" XBinding = "{Binding Area}" YBinding = "{Binding MaleLifeExpectancy}" SeriesBrush = "Navy" /> <e:LineSeries ItemsSource = "{Binding Boroughs}" XBinding = "{Binding Area}" YBinding = "{Binding FemaleLifeExpectancy}" SeriesBrush = "Red" /> <e:LineSeries ItemsSource = "{Binding Boroughs}" XBinding = "{Binding Area}" YBinding = "{Binding Employment}" YAxisTitle = "Employment (%)" SeriesBrush = "Green" /> <e:Chart.XAxis > <e:ChartAxis LabelRotation = "90" LabelStep = "1" MajorTickSpacing = "1" /> </e:Chart.XAxis > <e:Chart.YAxis > <e:ChartAxis Minimum = "65" Maximum = "90" Title = "Life Expectancy (yr)" /> </e:Chart.YAxis > <e:Chart.AlternativeYAxes > <e:ChartAxis Minimum = "50" Maximum = "100" Title = "Employment (%)" /> </e:Chart.AlternativeYAxes > </e:Chart > Solution 2: All F# Solution With F# 3.0, though, it’s now feasible to build WPF applications entirely in F#, without needing to put the user interface into C#. In practice I know most readers of this blog will probably feel more at home in C# than in F# so they’ll want to use F# only for the core data processing anyway — but I think it’s interesting to know how F# 3.0 enables XAML support, plus there are a couple of things that may not be quite so obvious! (This example is based on Steffen Forkmann’s WPF Designer for F# announcement, which is in turn based on Johann Deneux’ XAML type provider.) The first thing we need to do is create a Windows Application F# project. There isn’t a template for this, but we can take our class library project, go into Properties > Application, and change the Output Type to Windows Application (and add a Program.fs file to contain the application code). Or we can create a new F# Application project and change the Output Type from Console Application to Windows Application. Next we need the XAML type provider. This is available as a NuGet package from the FSharpx folks. Right-click the F# project, choose Manage NuGet Packages, search for FSharpx.TypeProviders and click Install. (Learn more about FSharpx here.) We also need to add references to the WPF assemblies (WindowsBase, PresentationCore, PresentationFramework and System.Xaml) and to the WPF Elements DLL. The last piece of plumbing we need is to handle the licensed controls in WPF Elements. Copy the licenses.licx file from the WPF Elements Sample Explorer to the F# project directory, include it in the F# project and set its Build Action to Embedded Resource. Now we’re ready to roll, where by ‘roll’ I mean create an actual WPF window. Right-click the project and choose Add New Item. There’s no XAML template but just choose XML File and change the file extension to.xaml, e.g. MainWindow.xaml. Replace the contents of the.xaml file with the following: <Window xmlns = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:e = "clr-namespace:Mindscape.WpfElements.Charting;assembly=Mindscape.WpfElements" Title = "MainWindow" Height = "500" Width = "900" > <e:Chart > <e:LineSeries ItemsSource = "{Binding Boroughs}" XBinding = "{Binding Area}" YBinding = "{Binding MaleLifeExpectancy}" SeriesBrush = "Navy" /> <e:LineSeries ItemsSource = "{Binding Boroughs}" XBinding = "{Binding Area}" YBinding = "{Binding FemaleLifeExpectancy}" SeriesBrush = "Red" /> <e:LineSeries ItemsSource = "{Binding Boroughs}" XBinding = "{Binding Area}" YBinding = "{Binding Employment}" YAxisTitle = "Employment" SeriesBrush = "Green" /> <e:Chart.XAxis > <e:ChartAxis LabelRotation = "90" LabelStep = "1" MajorTickSpacing = "1" /> </e:Chart.XAxis > <e:Chart.YAxis > <e:ChartAxis Minimum = "65" Maximum = "90" /> </e:Chart.YAxis > <e:Chart.AlternativeYAxes > <e:ChartAxis Minimum = "50" Maximum = "100" Title = "Employment" /> </e:Chart.AlternativeYAxes > </e:Chart > </Window > One little nasty to watch out for: the F# XAML type provider currently handles only ‘clr-namespace’ namespaces. So we have to refer to the Mindscape.WpfElements.Charting namespace by name, instead of using the URI. Other than that this is the same XAML as in the C# application. Finally we need to write some code to launch this window and associate it with our view model. In C#, the project template handled this for us but in F# we need to do it ourselves. Fortunately all the hard work is done by the XAML type provider: open System open System. Windows open FSharpx type MainWindow = XAML < "MainWindow.xaml" > // creates the MainWindow type from the MainWindow.xaml file let loadWindow ( ) = let window = MainWindow ( ) // creates a new instance of MainWindow window. Root. DataContext <- Data. viewModel window. Root [ < STAThread > ] ( new Application ( ) ). Run ( loadWindow ( ) ) |> ignore You can now build and run the application, and you’ll find it works just like the C# one. Of course, it has taken a bit more effort to set up, but that’s a one-off, and you can now enjoy using F# for your interaction logic as well as your business logic. You can download the source for the F# WPF Elements demo project here. You will need Visual Studio 11 Beta, and a copy of Mindscape WPF Elements (download the free edition including a 60-day trial of the charting controls). (To run the program, you’ll also need to sign up for the free London Borough Profiles data set on Azure Datamarket.) If you have any questions or problems, post in the comments or the support forum!
Codemania: How to not write a for loop It was great to see so many Mindscape customers at Codemania. We were proud to sponsor the first Codemania and it looks like everyone is looking forward to another one next year! In the meantime, here are the slides and code samples from the ‘How to Not Write a For Loop’ talk: Download slides (PowerPoint 2010 format)
Download samples (LIMITED EDITION DIRECTOR’S CUT featuring deleted samples and NEVER BEFORE SEEN out-takes) And don’t forget that if you attended Codemania then we’re offering you a free copy of Web Workbench Pro.
5 1/2 F# features every C# programmer should lust after C# is a great programming language, but there’s still a bevy of features in other programming languages that I often wish were in C#. I’m doing quite a bit of work in F# nowadays, and I thought it would be fun to jot down a few F# features that I really miss when I come back to C#. 1. The Option type Tony Hoare, the inventor of the null reference, called it his ‘billion dollar mistake.’ Null is a disaster because it means that every reference type has a magic value that will destroy your program. For value types, we now have ‘normal’ value types and nullable value types to express the difference between, say, ‘this function returns an integer’ and ‘this function might return an integer, or it might not.’ But we don’t have that for reference types. F# provides the Option type to distinguish between ‘there definitely is a value’ and ‘there might or might not be a value.’ F#’s Option is a bit like Nullable but can be used with any type, value or reference, and comes equipped with helper functions and pattern matching support. Here’s an example of Option in use: let names = [ "alice" ; "bob" ; "carol" ] let name = List. tryFind ( fun s -> length s < 4 ) names // returns an Option match name with | Some n -> printfn "%s has a short name" n | None -> printfn "They all have long names" Notice that if we erroneously try to use the option returned from List.tryFind as if it were a real string, the error is caught at compile time: let names = [ "alice" ; "bob" ; "carol" ] let name = List. tryFind ( fun s -> length s < 4 ) names // returns an Option printfn "%s has a short name" name // Error! Expected string but got string option In C#, the ‘not found’ case would be represented by null, and the compiler would not be able to catch the potential error. The FSharpx project provides some helpers to make it easy to use the F# Option type from C#, though it’s of limited use except in interop because the C# compiler still won’t stop you using nulls even in non-optional situations. 2. Immutable record types Immutable types are a great way to improve the correctness of programs. Any type that represents a value, rather than an entity which needs to preserve identity as its attributes change, should be immutable. Even quite complex objects, such as expression trees in LINQ or syntax trees in Roslyn, benefit from immutability. Unfortunately, C# makes it far more effort to write immutable types than mutable ones. Here’s two ways to implement a 2D Point type in C#, one mutable (wrong!) and one immutable (right!): public class MutablePoint { public double X { get ; set ; } public double Y { get ; set ; } } public class ImmutablePoint { private readonly double _x ; private readonly double _x ; public ImmutablePoint ( double x, double y ) { _x = x ; _y = y ; } public double X { get { return _x ; } } public double Y { get { return _y ; } } } The safe, immutable type is more than twice as long! Contrast this with F#: type Point = { X : float ; Y : float } It’s short, it’s immutable and as a special wonder bonus it’s got proper value equality built in for free. And I want it in C#, pronto. 3. Object expressions Object expressions are a great feature for when you want to implement an interface or override a class member without going to the trouble of spinning out an entire class or subclass for it. This can dramatically reduce the amount of code particularly when you need to capture local variables for your implementation or override. (If you’re familiar with Java’s local classes, object expressions are a lot like that.) Here’s an example using the LightSpeed IAuditInfoStrategy interface: // blame takes a string and returns an IAuditInfoStrategy let blame x = { new IAuditInfoStrategy with member this. Mode = AuditInfoMode. Custom member this. GetCurrentUser ( ) = x } In C#, I would have had to write out a ScapegoatingAuditInfoStrategy class with a field to hold the blamee and a constructor to pass the blamee into the class. In F#, I just told the compiler to make me an IAuditInfoStrategy that always blamed x, and it did. I often end up writing lots of little classes to capture small nuggets of code or fragments of state, and it would be great if C# had something like object expressions to make it easier. More about object expressions here. 4. Partial application I actually like C# lambda syntax more than F#. This is just as well, because I have to write a lot more lambdas in C# than I do in F#. The reason is that in F# I can use a trick called partial application to reuse a ‘normal’ function just with particular arguments. Let’s see an example. Suppose I want to double every element in a sequence. I can do that using the LINQ Select operator, or its F# equivalent Seq.map: // C# var doubled = values. Select ( v => v * 2 ) ; // F# let doubled = Seq. map ( fun v -> v * 2 ) values C# code is more concise than F# code, right? Not so fast! In F# we can partially apply the * function and save ourselves writing the lambda! let doubled = Seq. map ( ( * ) 2 ) values Of course you can do this with your own functions too: let isDivisibleBy x y = y % x = 0 let evens = List. filter ( isDivisibleBy 2 ) values // rather than (fun v -> isDivisibleBy 2 v) Partial application reduces the amount of lambda noise in the code, and can also be useful in creating new functions by specialising existing ones. You can read more about partial application in this series and (more concisely) in this article. 5. Pattern matching I’ve written extensively about pattern matching elsewhere, and it’s too big a topic to explain thoroughly here. Pattern matching allows you to combine programming by cases (like a switch statement) with custom logic (like an if statement) and decomposing composites to get the bits you’re interested in (like a series of property accesses or collection operations). It’s also extensible using active patterns, which means you can build classifiers independently of the routines that use the classification. And patterns compose far more conveniently than imperative code. One often-overlooked but very powerful feature of pattern matching is that it can be used in a let statement. This allows you to effectively return multiple values from a function without having to create a XxxResult type or explicitly picking apart a tuple. Combined with the F# compiler being able to silently translate C# out-parameters into tupled return values, this creates some neat, readable idioms: let dict = new Dictionary < string, string > ( ) let ( found, result ) = dict. TryGetValue ( "alice" ) // C# equivalent var dict = new Dictionary < string, string > ( ) ; string result = null ; bool found = dict. TryGetResult ( "alice", out result ) ; There’s much more to pattern matching than this, including recursing over lists, visiting over class hierarchies (discriminated unions), working safely with options, type-checking and casting, and, well, the list goes on. I use pattern matching all the time in F# and I always miss it when I have to come back to C# and write imperative (if-style) code to distinguish between cases. 5 1/2. Async F#’s async workflows make it easy to write asynchronous code in a readable, easy to understand, top-to-bottom way. This is compelling — so compelling, in fact, that a similar feature is going to be adopted into C#. F# still has a bunch of async features that haven’t made it into C#, notably async agents, but for the core scenario C# programmers no longer need to be envious! And there’s more There’s so much in F# that would be a huge boon for C# that I could easily have made this a top 10 list. Some of F#’s features can be used from C# (read Mauricio Scheffer’s great post on ’10 reasons to use the F# runtime in your C# app’) but a lot of the features I miss are part of the language. For example, I’d love to see F#-level type inference in C#. After all, which one of these declarations do you find easier to read? // C# public static IEnumerable < TResult > Map < TSource, TResult > ( this IEnumerable < TSource > source, Func < TSource, TResult > selector ) {... } // F# let map selector source =... // F# infers types and generic type parameters from implementation Or how about recursive iterators? Or an interactive prompt in Visual Studio, so you could try out snippets or run demos without having to build a console or NUnit project? (Roslyn has a C# Interactive window, but Roslyn’s still some way off!) And looking to the future, F# type providers open up a whole new order of expressiveness beyond standard code generation techniques. So what’s in your top 5? What F# features do you miss when you go back to C#?
F# type providers – as if by magic… F# 3 will introduce a new feature called type providers. A type provider is a gadget that creates new types for you. The F# team, reflecting their focus on data access, have shipped type providers for databases, DBML and EDMX files, and WSDL and OData services. If you use one of these type providers in your F# program, it will give you strong-typed access to the database or service. So from this point of view it’s a lot like the code generator that runs when you create a DBML or EDMX file, or do an Add Service Reference to a Web service or OData service. But F# type providers can create any kind of type, and they don’t need to consult an external resource to do it. This means a type provider can be used to automagically replace repetitive boilerplate code with a simple declaration. Consider a vector maths library. Users will want to be able to create vectors with various numbers of dimensions — 2D vectors, 3D vectors, etc. And they might even want to be able to create vectors with the same number of dimensions but different names (for example, Horizontal/Vertical instead of X/Y). In C#, you’d have to write out each vector type by hand. In F# 3, you can ship a Vector type provider, and users can create their desired vector types from that: type Vector2D = Vector < "X", "Y" > type Vector3D = Vector < "X", "Y", "Z" > type VectorHV = Vector < "Horizontal", "Vertical" > let v1 = Vector2D ( ) v1. X <- 100.0 v1. Y <- 200.0 let v2 = VectorHV ( ) v2. Horizontal <- 300.0 v2. Vertical <- 400.0 Each of the created types is a real compile-time type, with type safety enforced by the F# compiler. For example, if the type provider supplies a dot product operation with vectors of the same kind (only), the F# compiler will check that the user doesn’t take dot products between vectors of different kinds: let v1 = Vector2D ( ) let v2 = Vector2D ( ) let vh = VectorHV ( ) let v1v2 = v1. DotProduct ( v2 ) // okay let v1vh = v1. DotProduct ( vh ) // type checks The created vector types work exactly as if you had written them longhand, but without all the effort, and without the limitation of having to guess what types your users will need. Implementing a type provider The F# team have indicated that they’ll be shipping the source for some sample type providers soon, which will include some handy helpers which should rather simplify the process of writing type providers, but for now it’s still not too difficult to implement type providers directly against the interfaces. Here’s an outline, albeit with plenty of rough edges. The first thing you need to do is create a F# 3.0 library project. At the moment, this requires the Visual Studio 11 preview (the full version, not the Metro apps version). And you’ll need to apply TypeProviderAssemblyAttribute to that library: [ < assembly : TypeProviderAssembly > ] do ( ) Next, you’ll need to implement the type provider class itself. This is a normal F# class which implements the ITypeProvider and IProvidedNamespace interfaces, and has the TypeProviderAttribute: [ < TypeProvider > ] type VectorProvider ( ) = interface ITypeProvider with //... interface IProvidedNamespace with //... A type provider can provide multiple kinds of types, but for this example I’m going to assume that the provider only does Vector types. This keeps my implementation simple because I don’t need to keep dispatching on ‘what kind of type is the user creating.’ This makes it pretty easy to implement IProvidedNamespace: // Cheating for simplicity type Vector ( ) = inherit obj ( ) [ < TypeProvider > ] type VectorProvider ( ) = interface IProvidedNamespace with member this. ResolveTypeName ( typeName ) = typeof < Vector > member this. NamespaceName with get ( ) = "Mindscape.Vectorama" member this. GetNestedNamespaces ( ) = [ | | ] member this. GetTypes ( ) = [ | typeof < Vector > | ] What’s that do-nothing Vector type for? Well, when the user of the type provider writes Vector<…>, F# wants to interpret “Vector” as a type name. The real type providers included with F# 3.0 create synthetic types to carry the desired provider names, but I’m too lazy to do that, so I’ve just created a dummy type to carry the name “Vector” for me. For a simple demo, much of the ITypeProvider implementation can also be kept trivial: [ < TypeProvider > ] type VectorProvider ( ) = let invalidation = new Event < EventHandler, EventArgs > ( ) interface ITypeProvider with member this. GetNamespaces ( ) = [ | this | ] member this. Dispose ( ) = ( ) [ < CLIEvent > ] member this. Invalidate = invalidation. Publish The meat of the type provider is in the remaining ITypeProvider methods: GetStaticParameters, ApplyStaticArguments and GetInvokerExpression. What can the user specify about the type? GetStaticParameters specifies what parameters the user can pass to the type provider when they create a type. In our case, we want the user to be able to pass the names of the axes of their vector type — that is, the parameters are an arbitrary number of strings. However, GetStaticParameters doesn’t have a way to indicate “any number of parameters,” so we have to settle for, for example, “you can pass 7 parameters, but they’re all optional.” (In reality you’d make the first one mandatory, but I want to keep things simple.) If we later need to support 8-dimensional vectors, we can simply update the limit in the type provider. The parameters are going to become property names, so they need to be strings. We’ll create a helper method to produce ParameterInfo objects with the right name, data type and optionality. module Helpers = let stringParameter index defaultVal = { new ParameterInfo ( ) with override this. Name with get ( ) = sprintf "axis%d" index override this. ParameterType with get ( ) = typeof < string > override this. Position with get ( ) = 0 override this. RawDefaultValue with get ( ) = defaultVal override this. DefaultValue with get ( ) = defaultVal override this. Attributes with get ( ) = ParameterAttributes. Optional } open Helpers and then use this to specify what parameters the user can provide to the Vector type provider: member this. GetStaticParameters ( typeWithoutArguments ) = [ 1.. 7 ] |> List. map ( fun i -> stringParameter i "" ) |> List. toArray This is enough to enable the user of our library to type Vector with intellisense on the parameters. Now we need to actually create a type to realise the user’s specification. Building the concrete type Building the type from the parameters provided by the user is the job of the ApplyStaticArguments method. For the Vector demo, I’ll just create a class with properties named for each of the user parameters, and a DotProduct method. (A better provider would create an immutable value type, but I want to keep it simple.) At the moment, it seems that F# requires ApplyStaticArguments to create a physical assembly on disk. If you build the type in memory, you get strange path errors. I’m not sure if there’s a way around this, but for now I’ll just live with it and litter my temp directory with temporary assemblies. So the code generator for vector types looks something like this: module Helpers = let makeClass body name = let code = "namespace Mindscape.Vectorama { public class " + name + " {" + Environment. NewLine + body + Environment. NewLine + "} }" let dllFile = System. IO. Path. GetTempFileName ( ) let csc = new Microsoft. CSharp. CSharpCodeProvider ( ) let parameters = new System. CodeDom. Compiler. CompilerParameters ( ) parameters. OutputAssembly <- dllFile parameters. CompilerOptions <- "/t:library" // Ignoring error checking let compilerResults = csc. CompileAssemblyFromSource ( parameters, [ | code | ] ) let asm = compilerResults. CompiledAssembly asm. GetType ( "Mindscape.Vectorama." + name ) let makeVector name argnames = let propNames = argnames |> Seq. filter ( fun arg -> arg <> null && not ( String. IsNullOrWhiteSpace ( arg. ToString ( ) ) ) ) |> Seq. map ( fun arg -> arg. ToString ( ) ) |> Seq. toList let props = propNames |> List. map ( fun arg -> "public double " + arg + " { get; set; }" ) |> String. concat Environment. NewLine let dotProductBody = propNames |> List. map ( fun arg -> sprintf "this.%s * other.%s" arg arg ) |> String. concat " + " let dotProduct = sprintf "public double DotProduct(%s other) { return %s; }" name dotProductBody let body = props + Environment. NewLine + dotProduct makeClass body name This isn’t as intimidating as it looks! The makeClass function wraps a code string in a namespace and class declaration, compiles it and returns the compiled type. The makeVector function removes empty parameters (remember we had to permit lots of parameters but defaulted unused ones to be blank), then spits out a property for each surviving parameter, and a DotProduct method generated by iterating over the parameters. It turns out that makeVector is pretty much all we need to implement ApplyStaticArguments. The F# compiler tells us the name of the type the user wants us to provide, and the list of parameters supplied by the user, and all we need to do is pass them on to makeVector: member this. ApplyStaticArguments ( typeWithoutArguments, typeNameWithArguments, staticArguments ) = makeVector typeNameWithArguments staticArguments Compiling property and method calls to the created type We are nearly there! Our type provider now provides types to the user on demand, but the user will still get errors if they try to instantiate or invoke those types. GetInvokerExpression is the final piece of the jigsaw, the piece which tells the F# compiler how to generate code for method invocations on the generated type. It’s not yet clear to me how comprehensive GetInvokerExpression has to be, but for the simple Vector example, we just need to handle a couple of cases — construction and method invocation: member this. GetInvokerExpression ( syntheticMethodBase, parameters ) = match syntheticMethodBase with | :? ConstructorInfo as ctor -> Expression. New ( ctor ) :> Expression | :? MethodInfo as mi -> let args = parameters |> Seq. skip 1 |> Seq. cast < Expression > Expression. Call ( parameters. [ 0 ], mi, args ) :> Expression | _ -> let pnames = parameters |> Seq. map ( fun p -> p. Name ) |> String. concat ", " failwith ( sprintf "ERROR: Don't know what to do in GetInvokerExpression - %s(%s)" syntheticMethodBase. Name pnames ) The most alarming bit about this code is probably the strange F# type operators. We’re just seeing whether F# wants to compile a constructor or a method call, packaging up the appropriate expression tree, then upcasting to the Expression base type to stop F# whining about type mismatches. And we’re done! Well, okay, there’s a lot of tidying up to do. But hopefully the samples promised by the F# team will help with that. And at any rate we now have a Vector library that users can use to define Vector types of arbitrary complexity (well, up to 7 dimensions anyway) with a single line of code: [ < Generate > ] type Vector3D = Vector < "X", "Y", "Z" > let v3 = Vector3D ( ) v3. X <- 1.0 v3. Y <- 2.0 v3. Z <- 3.0 (If you count two lines of code here, well, fair enough, but the GenerateAttribute will be removed before the final release.) As if by magic… Obviously, the Vector example is pretty trivial, and for most applications it would be easier to write the boring Vector code longhand rather than writing a whole type provider. But the possibilities for this seem endless. Type providers don’t just have to be about data access. In the same way as dynamic programming already enables users to create their own APIs without having to write their own implementations, type providers allow users to create their own APIs without having to write their own implementations, but this time with all the benefits of type checking, intellisense and so on. And of course type providers can be as sophisticated as you like, far more sophisticated than my simple example. Oh, and one more thing. Although only the F# compiler can invoke type providers, the types generated by the provider are real, compiled-in types. That means you can use those types from C# or Visual Basic code just by referencing the F# project that declares them. Yep, this is going to be pretty cool.Say Cheese In Vita’s Photography Dating Sim, Photo Kano Kiss
By Spencer. January 30, 2013. 12:25am
Photo Kano Kiss from Kadokawa Games is part Pokémon Snap and part dating sim. Your dad gives you a digital single lens camera at the end of summer vacation. At first you’re like "meh," but after playing for the camera you become fond of it and join the school’s photo club.
Like love stories? Then select Story L and see you can romance any of the girls in the game. Photo Kano Kiss also has Story H which is more lighthearted and infused with innuendo.
Photo Kano Kiss lets players tilt and turn the Vita to take pictures. You can also change the angle of shots and zoom using the touch screen. Players can also adjust shots using the analog stick in finder mode.
Photo Kano Kiss comes out on April 25. First print copies include a downloadable code that gives the nine potential love interests swimsuits and a "Love Love Morning" drama CD.Contracts for Sept. 25, 2015
CONTRACTS
AIR FORCE
Shaw-Versar LLC, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has been awarded a not-to-exceed $950,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for design and construction services. Contractor will provide architect-engineering 2013 (A-E13) design and construction service including A-E services to support military construction (MILCON), military family housing (MFH), and sustainment, restoration and modernization programs worldwide. The work includes efforts to perform Title I, Title II, and other A-E services to administer, coordinate, and technically support the Air Force Civil Engineer's MILCON and MFH, to include military housing privatization initiatives. Work will be performed at government locations worldwide, and is expected to be complete by Sept. 22, 2022. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition with 83 offers received. Fiscal 2015 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $3,000 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Installation Contracting Agency, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, is the contracting activity (FA8903-15-D-0016).
Exelis Inc., Clifton, New Jersey, has been awarded a $47,000,000 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for engineering services applicable to the AN/ALQ-172 line replaceable unit (LRU)-8 countermeasures phased array antenna. Contractor will provide non-recurring engineering services for the form, fit and function interface; redesign; development of data, manufacturing and delivery of prototypes that will meet legacy LRU specification requirements. Work will be performed at Clifton, New Jersey, and is expected to be complete by Sept. 24, 2018. This award is the result of a sole-source acquisition. Fiscal 2015 consolidated sustainment activity group-engineering funds in the amount of $47,000,000 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Sustainment Center, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, is the contracting activity (FA8522-15-C-0008).
Teradyne Inc., North Reading, Massachusetts, has been awarded a $45,681,315 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for versatile depot automatic test station (VDATS) equipment parts. Contractor will provide VDATS parts required to ensure configuration control of existing testers and compatibility with all software developed for the testers. Work will be performed at Warner Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, and is expected to be complete by Sept. 24, 2020. This award is the result of a sole-source acquisition. Fiscal 2015 consolidated sustainment activity group funds in the amount of $1,116,431 are being obligated at the time of award for delivery order 01. Air Force Sustainment Center, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, is the contracting activity (FA8571-15-D-0002).
Securboration Inc., Melbourne, Florida, has been awarded a $40,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase III contract for Collaborative Event Processing Environment (CEPE) software development and enhancement of decision aiding tools. Contractor will develop and transition foundational research in semantics and related technologies to provide and enhance capabilities in weapons systems to warfighters in today's information intensive battle space using SBIR-developed technology. The CEPE will facilitate the advancement and transition of advanced technologies to the warfighter keeping with the fundamental objective of the SBIR program. It will be developed, applied, and transitioned to command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) infrastructures to enable the passing of vital pieces of information between operational systems in a timely manner. It will also allow for critical linkage of data between the entities that require them as a step in achieving Department of Defense net-centric compliance. Work will be performed at Melbourne, Florida, and is expected to be complete by Sept. 24, 2022. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition with 63 offers received. Fiscal 2015 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $289,500 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome, New York, is the contracting activity (FA8750-15-D-0058).
The Boeing Corp., St. Louis, Missouri, has
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the incident took place.
Local officials in Mohmand said it occurred early Friday and that a few bombs were dropped but no casualties were reported.
Pakistan is crucial for the United States in its efforts to stabilize war-ravaged Afghanistan but relations have been seriously damaged since the killing of al Qaeda leader.
The United States kept Islamabad in the dark about the raid until after it was over, humiliating the Pakistani armed forces.
U.S. forces have also stepped up attacks on militant targets by remotely piloted drone aircraft in Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border — dubbed the global hub of militants. Around 66 militants have been killed in such attacks this month.
Pakistan’s army in return has drastically cut down the number of U.S. troops allowed in the country and set clear limits on intelligence sharing with the United States.
Pakistan army Friday rejected reports that its security forces tipped off insurgents at bomb-making factories after getting intelligence about the sites in its tribal areas from the United States.
“This assertion is totally false and malicious and the facts on ground are contrary to it,” the military said in a statement.
The military said it had received information about four bomb-making factories in Waziristan — the major sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban militants.
While two of them were destroyed, it said, the information about the other two was “incorrect.” “Some persons have been arrested and they are under investigation.”
Separately, Pakistan Friday summoned the Afghan ambassador in Islamabad to the Foreign Ministry and lodged a protest over a cross-border attack by “100-150 terrorists” on three border villages in Bajaur Thursday.
Pakistani officials in Bajaur said six civilians were killed in the attack, the second such cross-border incursion by militants reported by Pakistani officials this month.Story highlights Unified Weapons Master has developed a high-tech suit of armor
Australian company says it's for weapons-based martial arts
52 impact sensors send signals via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi
Company hopes to host a tournament by early next year
If Batman and Iron Man got together in the lab to patch together a new outfit, it might look like this.
Meet the Lorica, a new suit of high-tech armor named after the armor worn by the Roman legions. It's made from a blend of lightweight, flexible materials and comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, a point-of-view camera, a microphone and 52 pressure sensors that send data to an external computer program.
It's built by an Australian company that had real-world warriors, not superheroes, in mind.
The idea? To let martial artists compete at full speed with weapons in much the way bare-fisted fighters currently do in mixed-martial arts competitions such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
"We have been overwhelmed," said David Pysden, CEO of Unified Weapons Master, referring to the response from martial artists who have seen the suits.
"We literally have heard from hundreds and hundreds of people who have been practicing for 20 or 30 years in weapons-based arts who have had no true way to test their skills without seriously injuring someone, or worse."
The suit was developed over the course of four years by a team of martial artists and engineers with a digital-tech background. One of the developers is an armorer who helped build more than 2,500 suits of armor for the "Lord of the Rings" movies.
Aside from its obvious role as protection, the suit's key feature is a set of 52 impact sensors spaced throughout. When struck, those sensors transmit data, via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, telling a computer where, and how hard, the blow landed.
"We know the damage that would have occurred to an unprotected competitor if they weren't wearing the suit, and we can display that in real time," Pysden said.
The system would allow fighters in a competition to score points with each successful blow against their opponents while eliminating the guesswork sometimes involved with human judges.
If this all sounds like something you'd love to watch, Pysden and his team hope you're not alone. He said they're currently in talks with several production companies about broadcasting a tournament of weapons masters using the suits. He said the event most likely will occur late this year or in early 2015.
"You look at the popularity of combat sports in video games -- the public loves seeing people fight with weapons," he said. "We can throw a Samurai master against a Chinese Shaolin staff master and see who comes out on top."
The Lorica suits that the company currently showcases online are elaborate prototypes. Pysden wouldn't put a price on the current suits but said ultimately they'd like to offer a simplified, and less expensive, version for sale to the public.
UWM's patent for the suit also lists law-enforcement and military uses, though Pysden says he doesn't expect to ever see soldiers storming the barricades in his armor.
"It's about them using that technology in a training environment," he said. "It's not something to wear out as riot gear -- there's plenty of stuff out there already. This is about teaching them at full speed how to respond to a weapons-based attack."Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (BOB BROWN/AP)
The comment, made last weekend during Obama’s two-day tour of the state, was “an insult to all Virginians and all Americans — including active duty military personnel, veterans and people who actually live with mental illness,” Michael J. Fitzpatrick, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and Mira Signer, executive director of the group’s Virginia affiliate, said in a joint statement issued Monday. “It is an outrageous, ignorant and prejudiced statement.”
Fitzpatrick and Signer, who noted that their groups are nonpartisan and do not endorse candidates, called on Bolling to apologize.
“Because the Lt. Governor is state chairman of the Romney presidential campaign, we also call on Governor Romney to disavow the statement and speak out forcefully against the stigma that traditionally surrounds mental illness,” their statement said.
Ibbie Hedrick, a spokeswoman for Bolling, said the lieutenant governor was merely speaking colorfully to make a point.
“The Lieutenant Governor’s comment was not intended to offend anyone,” Hedrick said. “He was obviously using hyperbole to illustrate the old saying that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, and he is amazed that anyone would think that President Obama is doing a good job and deserves a second term. Obama’s deficit spending and attempts to raise taxes won’t create jobs. That has been proven by the fact that unemployment has been over 8% for 41 months and there is almost no economic growth in our nation. To re-elect him is to try the same failed policies again and expect a different result, and that would be a disaster for our country.”
Bolling made the comment to the Daily Press of Hampton Roads Saturday, at a “prebuttal” event before Obama’s appearance in Glen Allen. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had used similar language the day before, while attending at the opening of Romney’s Henrico County campaign office with Bolling. Giuliani said that Virginians would have to be “nuts” to vote for Obama
“When he executes what he wants to do with this military, which is to devastate it, the state that will suffer the most is the state of Virginia,” Giuliani said. “You would be nuts to vote for him. It would be like somebody going to Pittsburgh in 1960 and saying, ‘I’m going to destroy the steel industry.’ It’s like somebody coming to New York and saying, ‘I’m going to destroy the financial industry.’ Well, of course, he did do that. And they’re stupid enough to vote for him anyway. But this is Virginia, not New York.”"You shouldn't stand out from anyone else here; you shouldn't think you are better than anyone else," said Lan Tan, a 27, Danish woman of Singaporean and Malaysian descent who is trying to win approval for her daughter's name, Frida Mei Tan-Farndsen. "It's very Scandinavian."
While other Scandinavian countries have similar laws, Denmark's is the strictest. So strict that the Danish Ministry of Justice is proposing to relax the law to reflect today's Denmark, a place where common-law marriage is accepted, immigration is growing, and divorce is routine. The measure, which would add names to the official list, is scheduled for debate in Parliament in November. "The government, from a historical point of view, feels a responsibility towards its weak citizens," said Rasmus Larsen, chief adviser at the Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs, discussing the law. "It doesn't want to see people put in a situation where they can't defend themselves. We do the same in traffic; we have people wear seat belts."
People expecting children can choose a pre-approved name from a government list of 7,000 mostly Western European and English names -- 3,000 for boys, 4,000 for girls. A few ethnic names, like Ali and Hassan, have recently been added. But those wishing to deviate from the official list must seek permission at their local parish church, where all newborns' names are registered. A request for an unapproved name triggers a review at Copenhagen University's Names Investigation Department and at the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs, which has the ultimate authority. The law only applies if one of the parents is Danish.
Many parents do not realize how difficult it can be to get a name approved by the government. About 1,100 names are reviewed every year, and 15 percent to 20 percent are rejected, mostly for odd spellings. Compound surnames, like Tan-Farnsden, also pose a problem.
Parents who try to be creative by naming their child Jakobp or Bebop or Ashleiy (three recent applications) are typically stunned when they are rejected. In some cases, a baby may go without an officially approved name for weeks, even months, making for irate, already sleep-deprived, parents.
Greg Nagan, 39, and Trine Kammer, 32, thought it would be cute to name their daughter Molli Malou. To their surprise, Malou was not a problem, but Molli with an I, which they thought sounded Danish, had to be reviewed by the government. The church told Ms. Kammer she needed to state in a letter the reason for choosing Molli. She did so, and said she told the clerk, "Here's your stupid letter: The reason for naming her Molli is because we like it."
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"Isn't this silly?" Ms. Kammer said. "We love to make everything a rule here. They love to bureaucratize."
The century-old law was initially designed to bring order to surnames. Before the law, surnames changed with every generation: Peter Hansen would name his son Hans Petersen. Then Hans Petersen would name his son Peter Hansen. And on it went, wreaking bureaucratic havoc. The law ended that. It also made it difficult for people to change their last names, a move that was designed to appease the noble class, which feared widespread name-poaching by arrivistes, Mr. Nielsen said.
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Then in the 1960's, a furor erupted over the first name Tessa, which resembled tisse, which means to urinate in Danish. Distressed over the lack of direction in the law, the Danish government expanded the statute to grapple with first names. Now the law is as long as an average-size book.
It falls mostly to Mr. Nielsen, at Copenhagen University, to apply the law and review new names, on a case-by-case basis. In a nutshell, he said, Danish law stipulates that boys and girls must have different names, first names cannot also be last names, and bizarre names are O.K. so long as they are "common."
"Let's say 25 different people" worldwide, he said, a number that was chosen arbitrarily. How does Mr. Nielsen make that determination? He searches the Internet.
Generally, geographic names are rejected because they seldom denote gender. Cairo, if it is approved at all, may be approved for a boy, but then could not be used for a girl. Jordan is a recent exception to the one-gender rule.
In some cases, Mr. Nielsen says, he believes he is performing a vital public service. He advised the Ministry that Anus and Pluto be rejected, for example. He also vetoed Monkey. "That's not a personal name, " Mr. Nielsen explained. "It's an animal. I have to protect the children from ridicule."
Leica, however, has been approved, as has Benji, Jiminico and Fee.
"People's names have become part of their identities now," Mr. Nielsen said. "And people change their names the way you change your clothes or your apartment. It has become more common."
And what about Molli Malou?
Approved, by government decree, just recently.Lorenzo Alexander wasn't around for the Washington Redskins' mess in 2013. He did watch them struggle and he did hear about all the drama. He also knows the defense did not play as well as they, or anyone, wanted.
But while many assumed Jim Haslett would be fired, Alexander, who signed with Arizona last offseason after seven seasons in Washington, understands why he was not. Nor was he surprised that Haslett was retained by new coach Jay Gruden.
“Obviously he got a lot of flack from how the defense performed this past year, but the NFL is a relationship business,” Alexander said. “He and Jay Gruden coached together in the UFL, so when you have that type of relationship it's a no-brainer he would keep him around.
“Even if Haslett left here and Jay was a head coach somewhere else, he might have brought him on.”
Alexander supported the move from afar, too.
“I think he's a good coordinator,” Alexander said. “A sign of a good coordinator is how he used his personnel. When I was there he used me very effectively and he took insight from the guys as well. Guys respect him. I know I did when I was there. Hopefully they have some success.”
Switching topics, Alexander said he was surprised by the drama that supposedly existed with quarterback Robert Griffin III, mainly because his rookie season didn't foreshadow a bumpy second year. In fairness, while some players say Griffin needs to still mature, they also say they like him. Most of the drama surrounding Griffin focused on his relationship with Mike and Kyle Shanahan.
"I don't know all the ins and outs," Alexander said. "When I was there I never saw that. For all that to come out and come to a head, that's what losing does to you. When you win, you sweep stuff under the rug but when you're losing everything bursts....It was sad to see from afar."Actor Martin Sheen was approached by Ohio Democratic officials in 2006 about running for office in his home state. He declined. (Abdelhak Senna/AFP/Getty Images)
In 2006, when actor-activist Martin Sheen was approached by Democratic officials and encouraged to run for office in his home state of Ohio, he politely demurred. “I’m just not qualified,” he said. “You’re mistaking celebrity for credibility.”
Ten years later, whenever ugly events summon headlines about “our divided nation,” our celebrity class thrusts itself headfirst and wholeheartedly into the debate. They conflate celebrity for credibility. They conflate activism with typing (or is it with self promotion?) And trapped in a rudderless, flopping shipwreck of a summer — seeking guidance from the beautiful people if we can’t have it from the ones we elected — we conflate it, too.
Nation, let us turn to LeBron James, who tweeted, “We are all hurting tonight. More violence is not the answer,” after the killings of five police officers in Dallas. The well-intentioned, if self-evident, comment was liked or retweeted more than 100,000 times.
Let us turn to Mischa Barton, or on second thought, let us not. Barton, an actress best known for her starring role on “The O.C.” posted on Instagram a “heartbroken” call for “unity” after the shooting death of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La. — but paired it with a photo of herself in a bikini, standing on a yacht, holding a glass of wine.
As could be expected, Beyoncé was both the most provocative and the most action-driven in her response. “It is up to us to take a stand and demand that they ‘stop killing us,’ ” she wrote on her website, after Sterling’s death but before the Dallas shootings. “We must use our voices to contact the politicians and legislators in our districts and demand social and judicial change.” She provided links to help readers find their representatives’ phone numbers.
Emily Strayer and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks perform onstage during the DCX World Tour MMXVI Opener on June 1, 2016 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for PMK)
[Beyoncé urges action in response to the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling]
Some angry commenters argued that she had overstepped the bounds of an entertainer, but by doing what? Expressing an opinion? Reminding Americans that there are politicians huddling in D.C. on the taxpayer dime, who have working telephones? She is a performer with tremendous social power and absolutely zero political power, unless she starts funding political campaigns or runs for office herself. (Washington, do not make Beyoncé come down here).
And yet her missives are gobbled up and reposted, because she is Beyoncé, and because, in an era where federal government approval ratings are abysmally low — in June, 80 percent of polled Americans told Gallup they thought Congress was doing a bad job — is it any wonder that celebrities are our new first responders, the ones we turn to for wisdom in times of crisis? We recently nominated one of them to a 50/50 shot to becoming the next leader of the free world.
Our elected officials bicker unproductively over the right way to address women’s pay and health — so let us turn instead to Emma Watson, who’s Hermione Granger-ish speech on women’s equality to the United Nations was viewed nearly 8 million times after she made it in the fall of 2014.
[Emma Watson: Feminism too often is seen as ‘man-hating’]
Our Twitter feeds are clogged with the action-free “thoughts” and “prayers” of politicians who never seem to know what else to do after another senseless act of American violence. But there’s Amy Schumer writing pointed pro-gun control commentary for her television show, and vocally partnering with her senator cousin (Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.) to pass reform. One might not have agreed with her position, but at least she had a position. At least it wasn’t another mealy “we mourn for the victims” uttered by one of the representives we have sent to the Capitol specifically to do something.
Help us, Amy Schumer. You’re our only hope.
Even if her actions don’t do anything. Even if none of the celebrities’ actions do anything.
Fame comes with an intrinsic confirmation bias. Actors and singers have, after all, made careers of convincingly making us believe them. Retweeting one of their statements provides a sense of community that writing one’s own statement does not. Maybe the only way this fractured nation knows how to unite is by joining in a retweet of LeBron James. Maybe in these troubled times, we don’t know exactly what to do but we know that Mischa Barton did it wrong.
Celebrities have a long-standing relationship with activism, of course: John and Yoko’s famous bed-ins, or, Harry Belafonte, whose singing career was accompanied by a legacy of civil rights activism and who was a friend and confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. He made appearances at rallies and marches, he bankrolled protest movements, he traveled around the world supporting left-wing causes. Today, most celebrities make their speeches from behind keyboards rather than podiums — one notable exception being Jesse Williams, the “Grey’s Anatomy” actor who made Black Lives Matter a cornerstone of a recent BET Awards speech, who has been cited as his generation’s Harry Belafonte.
[Jesse Williams was fighting for racial justice long before his stirring BET speech]
Maybe “consciousness raiser” is part of a performer’s job description now, if one is so inclined to pick up the mantle.
In 2003, the Dixie Chicks made headlines after a member criticized President George W. Bush onstage. They received death threats, one telling them they had better “shut up and sing.”
They broke up for a while. But now they’re back and touring again.
Don’t shut up, Dixie Chicks. Don’t shut up, Stacey Dash, Alyssa Milano, Patricia Arquette or any of the other celebrities currently fumbling their way awkwardly to some kind of dialogue. You didn’t know what to say, but heaven knows practically nobody else does either.It looks like First Gokin may be skipping the Krang Walker and going straight to the meat and potatoes. Everyone ready for a third party Shredder?
Lunar Toys, an online toy store for imports and third party products, posted this image on their Facebook page today. We saw the silhouette for Shredder a few months ago but if this image is genuine, the actual figure will look even more awesome than expected. I know this is a digital render but it gives us a pretty good idea.
Shredder will come with a rack to hold his helmet and a set of stylized Turtle weapons. Does this mean that we may see Turtles from First Gokin in the future, or are these just for other figures we already have? It does say “current turtles.” And if that side by side shot with Krang is actual size then Shredder may be around 8.5 to 9 inches since Krang is 10.5 inches.
Can’t wait to see more.
Like this: Like Loading...Let's throw our all at each other and grab hold of the future!
The sky and this ocean are both on our side
Shining and saying, "Go do your best!"
To let our voices reach far, far away
Shall we shout our dreams even louder?
(Full of hope)
Today pulls tomorrow toward itself
It's really fun to grasp the magnet in my heart and run right now
(Let's always go together!)
What shall we do about the future!?
As they look for the shape of their dreams, everyone laughs and cries
Because I'm sure the future us will have the answer
Let's run with everything we have
While singing and getting wet by the rain
I believe the sky will definitely clear
Let's try calling out with a cheerful, cheerful voice
And we'll surely meet our big dreams
I want to grow, and so one by one
I'll overcome my inabilities
In the midst of waves of clouds, a new blue sky is waiting, waiting for us
Let's fly off with high expectations!!
I want to go, With this kind of vigor, whether I cry or laugh
Our expectations are giving us lots of signals
So don't run away, catch hold of this chance!
I live, I live Love Live! days!!
If we throw our all in, won't it come true, this... dream?
What shall we do about the future? The shape of their dreams
Ah Everyone is looking for it, everyone!
Let's fly off with high expectations!!
I want to go, with this kind of vigor, whether I cry or laugh
Because I'm sure the future us will have the answer
Let's run with everything we have, and catch hold of this chance!
Let's become the shining wind
We got dream!The global connected devices market is set to reach USD$6,217-million by 2020, growing at a tremendous CAGR of over 10%, according to a recent report from UK-based Technavio Research.
Based on product platforms, the market is divided into the different segments, including computing devices, media players, wireless printers, smart meters, wearables, smart cameras, smart thermostats, smart locks, smart home appliances, and connected bulbs.
Americas: Largest connected devices market
In 2015, the Americas was the largest market for connected devices, accounting for almost 46% of the overall market share. Technavio’s report states that rapid advances in technology and changing consumer preferences regarding the use of electronic devices are the main factors contributing to market growth in this region.
The US accounts for the majority of the connected devices market in the Americas. This growth is attributed to the implementation of the Green Buildings Act. This act covers the public, private, and non-profit sectors and aims to increase the energy efficiency and sustainability of buildings. The use of connected devices has reduced annual energy consumption in many countries.
Some of the top manufacturing companies for connected devices such as Nest Labs, Honeywell, and Apple are headquartered in the Americas.
APAC region to expand their market share over 76% by 2020
The connected devices market in the APAC region is still in a nascent stage, but is expected to grow substantially over the next four years. Countries such as Japan, China, and South Korea have the market potential to support the sale of IoT devices in the future. Connected devices will find many uses in the upcoming smart homes planned or under construction in these countries. Smart thermostats and smart home appliances will likely find a ready market in these areas. In fact, several Chinese manufacturers are expected to establish a market presence during the forecast period, providing devices like smartwatches at a lower cost.
“APAC will post the highest growth rate in the global market during the forecast period, as the region will host the majority of smartphone, tablet, and PC owners. However, the contribution of the Americas and EMEA will decline due to the maturity of the computing device market in these regions,” according to Sunil Kumar Singh, Technavio’s lead analyst from the computing devices research team.
Demand for smart ACs and smart thermostats fueling EMEA’s growth
In 2015, EMEA accounted for over 26% market share of the global connected devices market. Change in climatic condition and unseasonal temperature variations are the two main factors generating demand for smart ACs and smart thermostats in the region.
Meanwhile, the rising trend of smart homes is another major factor driving the demand for connected devices across Europe. Nearly 90% of the world’s smart homes are in Western Europe and the US. In Europe, countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, and Germany will grow to be market leaders in the future, but high initial device prices may restrain the adoption of connected devices in some segments of the market. Western Europe is also emerging as a major revenue contributor to the connected devices market in EMEA.The Colorado legislature Wednesday approved a pair of bills that will establish a regulated marijuana market for adults. The legislature was charged with doing so when voters approved the marijuana legalization Amendment 64 last November.
On the down side, the legislature earlier approved another bill, House Bill 1325, which would set a level of THC in the blood above which drivers would be presumed to be impaired. Drivers with 5 milligrams or more of THC per milliliter of blood would be considered to be impaired, but could challenge that presumption in court.
The marijuana regulation bills are House Bill 1317 and House Bill 1318. The former creates the framework for regulations governing marijuana retail sales, cultivation, and product manufacturing, while the latter enacts a 10% special sales tax (above and beyond standard sales taxes) and a 15% excise tax on wholesale sales.
Under Colorado law, the tax bill will have to be approved by voters in November. But three-quarters of Colorado voters support such pot taxation, according a Public Policy Polling survey.
"The adoption of these bills is a truly historic milestone and brings Colorado one step closer to establishing the world's first legal, regulated, and taxed marijuana market for adults," said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, who served as an official proponent and campaign co-director for the ballot measure approved by Colorado voters in November. "Facilitating the shift from the failed policy of prohibition to a more sensible system of regulation has been a huge undertaking, and we applaud the many task force members, legislators, and others who have helped effect this change," Tvert said. "We are confident that this legislation will allow state and local officials to implement a comprehensive, robust, and sufficiently funded regulatory system that will effectively control marijuana in Colorado."
Look for an in-depth analysis of the new regulations coming soon.CLOSE The body of Lewes firefighter who died during a training session Monday night was brought to Wilmington Tuesday morning. 7/12/16 John J. Jankowski Jr. & Damian Giletto
Buy Photo Firefighters, EMS and paramedic personnel from around the state salute the body of volunteer firefighter Tim McClanahan as it arrives at the Medical Examiner's office. (Photo: John Jankowski Jr./Special to the News Journal)Buy Photo
A Delaware firefighter has died after falling from a helicopter during a training exercise with the Delaware Air Rescue Team.
Police identified the firefighter Tuesday morning as Tim McClanahan, 46, of Lewes.
CLOSE The motorcade of the fallen firefighter travel on Route 113 near Milford as fire trucks from Carlisle and Harrington honor Tim McClanahan with a flag. Produced by Ryan Marshall
The incident occurred while a Delaware State Police aviation unit was conducting monthly "hoist training" with DART at the Delaware Coastal Airport in Georgetown Monday night.
"Two volunteer firemen, along with a pilot and a trooper medic, were on board the helicopter," said DSP spokesman Sgt. Richard Bratz. "As McClanahan stepped out onto the skid, at an undetermined height, he fell to the grassy area below the helicopter. At that point, the helicopter immediately landed, and the trooper medic and volunteer firefighter on board immediately responded and began medical assistance.”
Other firefighters rushed to the scene and assisted, Bratz said. McClanahan was transported to Beebe Healthcare, where he was pronounced dead. No one else on the scene got medical attention.
The investigation is in the early stages, Bratz said, and the Federal Aviation Administration will receive assistance from state police.
"It is with deep, deep regret that the Officers and Members of the Lewes Fire Department announce the passing of one of our own earlier today. Further details on remembrance services are to follow," a post on the Lewes Fire Department's Facebook page read on Monday night.
STORY: Group warns Sussex council to stop religious grants
STORY: Hundreds attend peaceful rally in Wilmington
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/29x31kaIf you've been scouring Apple's support pages lately, you might have come across this rather curious representation of Microsoft's Windows OS. Sitting alongside Apple's official logos for iOS 8, OS X Yosemite, and iCloud, we find a very literal and very square representation of a window, decorated with a complementary window sill. We'll give Apple the benefit of the doubt and assume it knows that's not the actual Windows logo, but why that image is there at all is still a mystery. Microsoft surely won't have objected to seeing its actual logo alongside those for Apple's products and services, but if Apple truly felt the need to use a placeholder pic, is that really the best it could do?
Then again, I suppose it's better than this icon, used to identify a "generic PC" on the same network as a Mac:
Yes, it's still there, even on the latest OS X El Capitan.The left panel shows the distribution of trip durations. For annual members, the most common ride length is around 5 minutes, while short term users' rides are two to three times longer. Annual members appear to be very savvy about the 30-minute free ride limit, with only a small number of their trips surpassing this and being subject to additional fees. Short-term users, on the other hand, either don't mind the extra cost of longer rides, or don't understand the intended use of the system, and frequently go longer than the 30 minute free limit. My hunch is that these short-term users aren't fully aware of this pricing structure ("I paid for the day, right?") and likely walk away unhappy with the experience. If I were advising Pronto, I'd recommend they do more to make sure day-pass users understand the pricing structure!
The right panel shows the distribution of lower-bound speed estimates. There is a spike at speed zero for both sets of users, indicating rides that start and stop at or near the same location. This is much more prevalent for short-term users, and probably indicates visitors using bikes to explore a neighborhood rather than to get from point A to point B. Beyond this, the distributions for annual and short-term users are quite different, with annual riders showing on average a higher estimated speed. You might be tempted to conclude here that annual members ride faster than day-pass users, but the data alone aren't sufficient to support this conclusion. This trend could also be explained if annual users tend to go from point A to point B by the most direct route, while day pass users tend to meander around and get to their destination indirectly. I suspect that the reality is some mix of these two effects.
We can see another interesting view of these data by plotting the speed and distance against each other:Our moon is not alone: Scores of unseen mini-moons are now in orbit around Earth, new computer models predict.
What's more, these tiny moons occasionally plummet through our planet's atmosphere, creating brilliant fireballs, the researchers say.
The findings are based on supercomputer simulations of ten million asteroids known to fly through the Earth-moon system. The models show that objects that circle the sun in orbits similar to Earth's are likely to be captured as mini-moons.
"We accurately tracked their motion—including the gravitational tugs from the sun and all the other planets and big asteroids in the solar system—and found that 18,000 of [these asteroids] were captured and briefly went into orbit around the Earth," said study co-author Robert Jedicke, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii.
"We estimate that there are one or two washing machine-size mini-moons and about a thousand larger than a softball [orbiting Earth] at any time," he said.
The captured moons would orbit Earth in twisted, convoluted paths. In fact, the simulations show that most mini-moons hang around for less than a year before they're either spit back out to orbit the sun or end up on a collision course with Earth, Jedicke said.
"The moon perturbs the orbit of about one in a thousand, so they hit the Earth—some of the meteors that you see at night are actually mini-moons falling to Earth."
Prehistoric Double Moons?
In addition to small space rocks, the models predict that once in awhile Earth captures something even larger.
The team's estimates show that every half century an object the size of a large dump truck—about 33 feet (10 meters) across—joins our roughly 2,100-mile-wide (3,400-kilometer-wide) moon.
And even larger objects—each the size of a football field, or about 328 feet (100 meters) across—can be captured by Earth's gravity every hundred thousand years.
At that size, Jedicke speculates, the extra moons might even be visible to the naked eye.
"A hundred thousand years is about the time frame that human beings have been doing things like leaving their handprints on cave walls, so maybe in that time frame somebody once actually looked into the sky and saw a mini-moon moving across the sky," he added.
Jedicke and his team are the first to make predictions about mini-moon sizes and distribution, and it appears their predictions are fairly accurate.
The only known mini-moon was a 9.8-foot-wide (3-meter-wide) asteroid dubbed 2006 RH120, which orbited Earth less than a year before resuming its previous life orbiting the sun.
"The size and orbital properties of 2006 RH120 are perfectly consistent with our models," Jedicke said. "Had we done our study ten years ago, we could have predicted that an object like 2006 RH120 would be detected soon."
Mini-Moons Still Hard to Spot
Even with the new simulations, the researchers caution that actually seeing more mini-moons will be challenging, because the objects are relatively small and thus faint.
In addition, the gravitational effects that draw in Earth's extra moons tend to set them whipping around the planet at high speeds, making them even harder to pinpoint.
(Find out about an asteroid that recently crossed between Earth and the moon.)
"We are currently trying to figure out how to use astronomical surveys to spot them regularly," Jedicke said.
For instance, "the largest ones could be detectable by the advanced amateur astronomer with a 50-centimeter-diameter [20-inch-diameter] telescope," he said.
"But discovering new mini-moons will require an asteroid survey that covers much of the sky in a single night and detects objects that are very faint."In a previous article, we’ve discussed how you can easily create scenarios and chain them together on campaigns. Yesterday, we did a live stream on Twitch, showcasing how you can make interesting and dynamic scenarios in Wargroove using “triggers”. Some of the things you can make with this are:
Custom story-driven missions, with sub-quests, plot twists, ambushes, and hidden secrets
Unique game modes, with their own mechanics and win/lose conditions
Change some of the rules of the game without needing to resort to modding
Have players make decisions that affect the outcome of this AND of future missions (if you’re making a campaign)
…and many other things! Remember that this is the tool that we ourselves are using to make the campaigns of Wargroove, so expect to be able to do anything you’d expect to see in the campaign of a game of this genre!
In this article, we’re going to look at what scripting a map in Wargroove looks like!
It might be enlightening to consider an example, so let’s come up with something. We want to make a scenario where Mercia has to travel across a road and reach the end of the map. However, along the path lies an ambush. How can we achieve this?
First, we make our test map.
Now we can use the location tool to draw a few relevant areas: the destination, the area where Mercia triggers the ambush,
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airport (the official Request for Proposals was released in January). The airport has long been considered a steady gig for cabbies and consequently a lucrative contract for dispatch companies, who make their money by taking a cut of the fares. Most airport drivers are members of the union Teamsters Local 117, and have been netting at least $20 an hour—after paying about $5.70 per trip to the Port of Seattle, $160 per week in dispatch fees to Yellow Cab, and a slew of other expenses—despite some misleading assertions to the contrary [“Airport for Hire,” Aug. 3]. But that $20 depends on getting enough outbound trips—and over the past few months, it’s felt less and less certain that they will.
Yellow Cab has held the contract since 2010, but on Friday, September 16, the Port signed a new contract with insurgent bidder Eastside for Hire. New operations, with the fleet now dubbed E-Cab, are set to begin on October 1 and will last for five years (with the possibility of cancellation after years three and four). No significant changes are expected for riders; the taxis will be painted a different color, and there will be flat-rate options. Drivers, on the other hand, could face monumental change.
The main reason for this is that Uber and other TNC fares are often far less than taxis’. A Geekwire headline from early April says it best: “Testing Uber pickups at the Seattle Airport: How I got home for under $22.”
This is because taxis and their fares are regulated; TNC fares are not. It’s a great deal for passengers, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that these fares—in addition to the fact that, unlike with taxis, there is no limit on how many Ubers are on the street—make it even harder to earn a living while driving for Uber than for a taxi company, airport or no. Internal documents obtained by Buzzfeed, for instance, show that after expenses, Uber drivers in Denver, Houston, and Detroit made about $13, $11, and $9 per hour in 2015, respectively. In Seattle, one analysis found, Uber drivers can expect to make about $10.50 per hour.
Driving a taxi in Seattle has historically been a family-wage job. But what feels very real to some drivers is the possibility that their livelihood is swiftly being eroded; that the route once worth fighting for—the airport—is no longer even valuable; and that the five-year contract just signed by Eastside for Hire will have little to do with the taxi world that exists five years from now. It’s a shiny new car with a V8 that the upstart cab company is buying, but there might be corrosion in the engine.
The past year has been an exceedingly tense one for airport taxis—largely because last fall, when Port staff began discussing the parameters of the next taxi contract, they were simultaneously negotiating the one-year pilot contract with TNCs. The TNC contract went into effect on April 1; taxi companies submitted their five-year bids in March.
Enter the sturm und drang. “We have no problem if someone wins the contract—absolutely, we have no problem,” said an irate Salah Mohamed, a Yellow Cab airport driver and active Teamsters member, during the public-comment period at a Port of Seattle Commissioners’ meeting in early August, where some hundred or so angry taxi drivers were present. “What we have a problem [with] is … You gave the RFP before Uber came in! And then Uber came and you have no idea what the effect will be!”
It wasn’t the Port that ignored the possibility of major TNC disruption, though, says Cooper. It was the bidders. In early meetings with taxi stakeholders, he says, Port Commissioners proposed that Sea-Tac let the TNC contract run for a year first, then launch the taxi bidding process once taxi companies had a better handle on what kind of world they were inheriting. But “the overwhelming response” from bidders, Cooper says, was “We know our business. We’re fine. Put the RFP out.”
In simple terms, the taxi RFP is an opportunity for the Port of Seattle to auction off this lucrative slice of its airport business. Taxi companies pitch their plans to Sea-Tac, which are scored by Port staff on a variety of parameters, including customer service, environmental impact (a “green fleet”), and, crucially, an annual minimum amount of guaranteed revenue to the Port. Eastside for Hire, this year’s winning bidder, promised the Port a minimum of $22.5 million over the course of the contract, with a projected estimate of at least $36 million. (That put it in second place, in terms of revenue to the Port; Yellow Cab’s guaranteed minimum was significantly less, $17.5 million.) Eastside’s bid translates to a per-trip Port fee of $7, growing to $9 in year five, a fee that taxi drivers pay out-of-pocket. To many current airport taxi drivers, who already balk at the $5.70 per-trip fee under Yellow—and balk even more at the obvious loss of business to TNCs—$7 to $9 feels criminal.
This spring, prior to making a decision, and as TNC numbers ballooned and taxi numbers began to drop, Port Commissioners raised their initial concerns again. On June 14, Commissioner Tom Albro wondered if a taxi company might even default on its financial promises to the Port, given the competition with TNCs. “I worry that should the market continue to erode at the rate that it’s actually going, that a respondent, no matter how well-intentioned … might find themselves at a place where the most beneficial place for them is default,” he said. “I worry about where that leaves us.”
And that’s exactly why, Cooper adds, the Port then issued a request for a special addition to the RFP bids. Known as Addendum 5, it asked taxi bidders to offer a specific breakdown of what they anticipated their drivers could make per hour; it was the Port’s way of saying, “Are you sure?” In several cases, bidders rejiggered the numbers and reduced their bid slightly to make sure drivers would be making a living wage. Eastside for Hire did not change its bid, calling the request “superfluous and redundant.” Yet, strangely, the Port explicitly did not use any of that information in its evaluation of the bids. Addendum 5 was created “to ensure Port priorities related to driver equity and small-business opportunities were addressed,” wrote Cooper via e-mail, but it “was informational only. It was not used for any scoring of the bidders. The Port was comfortable with the range of responses and continued with the RFP process.”
Which, to many drivers like Mohamed, “was just a slap in the face.” To ask for information about driver income, and then decline to use it in the evaluation? “It was a horseshit. It was a horseshit! That was nothing.”
Battles over taxi regulation are nothing new; Seattle’s taxi history is long, embittered, complex, and consistently dogged by rumors of corruption and wrongdoing too speculative to publish. The addition of ride-share companies like Uber, though, is a new front in this ongoing battle. For drivers, TNCs’ impact on business at the airport—and, in turn, on driver livelihoods—is always front-of-mind.
How, they ask, can Eastside for Hire—a young, small flat-rate for-hire company that expressly partnered with a multinational curb-management company, Standard Parking, in order to leverage enough experience and financial stability to even make a bid at all—make promises to the Port of $7 to $9 dollars a taxi trip, in an environment that seems, to them, fragile enough to collapse?
“I used to make on average six trips” in a 10-hour shift, one Yellow Cab airport driver tells me (he didn’t want his name used lest it impact his job prospects), averaging some $200 in take-home pay. “It’s gone to five trips now. But that’s summer,” when far more travelers are inclined to visit Seattle. “In the winter, I don’t know how it’s gonna be. In the winter, without Uber, we made five trips … Everybody is scared about what’s gonna happen. We’re all thinking about that every day, every minute of the day.”
Salah Mohamed, too, is “making less trips than I used to … we used to make eight to 10 trips a day. Now it’s about seven trips.”
“On a good day, now, I probably pick up about four trips,” says Yellow driver Aamar Khan. “If I’m lucky, maybe five, if I work a full day.” But again, that’s during the warm months. He emphasizes that the $7 the Port of Seattle requires comes directly out of fares, and thus out of driver income; as a metered taxi, “Let’s say my passenger decides to go across the street. My taxi meter says I’m supposed to charge them only $4. But my operational cost at the airport would be $7 per pickup. I went into minus three dollars!”
Doing the math, Eastside for Hire manager Samatar Guled finds the bid not nearly as short-sighted as nervous cabbies and their union representatives make it seem. The minimum guarantee to the Port of $4 million in the first year, divided by $7, is about 571,000 trips—roughly 35 percent less than the number of trips taxis took in 2015. In other words, Eastside has no intention of defaulting; they are acutely aware of the Uber effect. “We were very responsible in the amount of money guaranteed,” he says. Compared to “what the others bid, we bid reasonably.”
And despite all the rumors, “ultimately the cost [in the new fleet] is going to be less” than what drivers have been paying under Yellow Cab, he says. “We are a driver-owned company; we care about the driver.”
Yet the TNCs’ presence still feels like a threat to many airport taxi drivers. The number of airport taxis is currently capped at 300, with an additional 50 wheelchair-accessible vehicles. The total number of taxis is capped by the City of Seattle and King County. But the number of TNCs is not. To taxi drivers, the TNC airport contract recalls an all-too-familiar refrain: When Uber came to Seattle, TNCs were capped at 250 per company. Then in June 2014, Mayor Ed Murray removed that cap completely. Today there are at least 9,200 Uber and Lyft drivers in the Seattle area, and there is no cap on the number of TNC drivers authorized to work at the airport, either.
“It’s unfair—egregiously unfair,” says Cindi Laws, director of the Wheelchair Accessible Taxi Association of Washington, long a consultant in the industry and co-author of the Unified Transport Management Group’s (UTMG) bid. While taxi drivers are about to pay the Port a $7 fee per trip, TNCs pay only $5, a cost that’s passed onto customers—easy to do, perhaps, since TNC fares are lower than taxis’. Taxi drivers are allowed to pass only $1 of the Port fee onto customers; that’s a stipulation of both past and future airport contracts.
Perry Cooper says the $5 TNC fee was assessed at a time when the per-trip fee was closer to $5 for taxis, not $7 (“That was to make sure we kept a level playing field”). As a result, after the one-year TNC contract is up on March 31, 2017, the Port expects TNCs to be paying $7 a trip as well. But since, with Uber et al, the “money for the [$7] airport fee comes from the customer,” says Mohamed, “and we as taxi drivers, the money comes from our pocket—it’s not a level playing field.”
Sea-Tac is not the first airport to have welcomed Uber, Lyft, and Wingz. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, TNCs have been operating at the region’s three airports since late 2014 and 2015, and now have control of approximately 50 percent of the entire ground-transportation market at each; taxi trips, meanwhile, are down 23 percent. And according to a report commissioned by the Port of Seattle (the same report that found Sea-Tac’s $7 taxi fee to be among the highest in the U.S.), some airports that had welcomed TNCs, like those in Washington, D.C., have seen their taxi trips plummet, too; or, as in Portland, rise at a dramatically slower rate than in the year previous.
As a result of all this, the newly minted contract signed on September 16 has a novel stipulation: that the Port conduct a survey of drivers in the taxi fleet every six months to make sure they’re making a living wage—in order to “keep an eye on it from the driver’s perspective,” says Cooper. “Are you guys getting what we’ve been told by the bidder? … If not, let’s talk about it again.”
The spread of Uber at the airport goes beyond that crowded, hectic hub on level three of the parking garage, edging right up to the taxi stand.
In December 2015, the City of Seattle passed a landmark ordinance giving Uber and other TNC drivers the right to unionize—the first, and to date the only, such municipal law in the country. In March, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued Seattle over the law, arguing that it will “burden innovation, increase prices, and reduce quality and services for consumers.” A federal judge dismissed the suit, largely because its complaints were premature; the specifics of Seattle’s new law have yet to be inked. Named on the suit were two parties: Uber Technologies, Inc., and Eastside for Hire.
It’s no secret that Eastside has been working closely with Uber for several years. In 2014, the company negotiated a spot for its vehicles on the Seattle-area Uber app. (“UberTAXI” is last in the line of vehicle options that Seattle Uber users can choose from; rates are slightly higher than for an UberX.) In its bid for the airport contract, Eastside articulated that relationship. “ESFH is a versatile business that has successfully adapted to the technological changes in the industry,” the document reads. “As such, ESFH has built strong partnerships across the transportation industry in Seattle, including partnering with Uber’s affiliate in Seattle.” The bid also specified that Eastside will “coordinate inbound service requests with the assistance of the Uber app” and, notably, that Uber offered to extend them extra financial backing “of up to $500,000.”
That backing is important; Eastside for Hire, a small flat-rate company with no metered taxis in its fleet, needed to create some serious alliances to enable it to bid on a contract as big as Sea-Tac (which now requires both flat-rate and metered taxis). That’s why Eastside created a new “taxi alliance,” according to Guled, called E-Cab. That alliance, an LLC created this year, was co-launched with Uber.
“E-Cab: A Bridge to Your Better Future,” an early-January recruiting flier reads. “We are building bridges between the old traditional Taxi and For Hire industry and the new TNC companies.” The flier adds that Eastside for Hire is “anticipating bidding the Airport contract with the support of Uber Technologies.” Yellow Cab drivers recount the tale of E-Cab’s late-January launch, during which Uber Seattle manager Brooke Steger and Eastside for Hire owners Samatar Guled and Abdul Yusuf and consultant Chris van Dyk all presented to the drivers in attendance what the new fleet would be called and how it would work. According to city documents, Guled and Yusuf are listed as managers of E-Cab, not owners. “E-Cab is backed by Uber,” claims Yellow driver Aamar Kahn. “Uber had a big role in it. When E-Cab started back in February, Uber was there.”
“Eastside for Hire works very closely … to me they are 90 percent Uber,” says Mohamed, angrily, drawing the battle lines, echoing a slew of other drivers in public comments and in private interviews: “I’m a taxi. My first enemy, business-wise, is Uber.” Although one of the stipulations in the new airport contract is that 75 percent of the metered taxi spots in the new fleet are to be reserved for current Yellow drivers, to Mohamed joining the new fleet feels like a betrayal. “You’re handing me over to a company called Eastside for Hire … [but] you’re handing me, you’re selling me to Uber!”
Yellow Cab driver mistrust has been so rampant, in fact, that the latest data available from the city of Seattle shows E-cab with a total of three cars in its fleet.
Wih October 1 fast approaching, that is changing; Guled says he’s received 360 applications for the 350 available spots. To him, Eastside’s relationship with Uber is, quite frankly, necessary. “We realized, before the [other] taxis, I guess, that TNCs are here to stay,” he says. “Instead of just fighting a never-ending fight, we negotiated.” And that negotiation had everything to do with supporting driver livelihoods. “We partner with Uber so our drivers can make more money,” he says. “We are a driver-owned company … whatever helps out drivers.”
Uber spokesperson Caleb Weaver confirms via e-mail that Uber has been working with Eastside for Hire since 2014. “Uber’s partnership with Eastside for Hire has provided their drivers earning opportunities and made additional services available to riders using the Uber app in Seattle,” he writes. He adds that, going forward, Uber will help the E-Cab fleet reduce “deadheading,” the term for when a taxi goes back to the airport without a passenger.
This will allow those with the Uber app to use it to take a taxi to the airport, Guled says, maybe with a discount. That would be “much better than coming back empty.” With the number of taxi trips dropping and dropping, “Where do you make up the difference? How do you diversify?” One way, he says, is to “work with companies like Uber.”
Conflict following a taxi-contract changeover is, so far, pretty routine; relinquishing control over one of the most lucrative contracts that taxis can get does not go down quietly. In 2010, when Yellow Cab won the Sea-Tac taxi contract, for instance, the previous contract holder, STITA, sued. As a result, some of the sound and fury accompanying the upcoming switch, says ESFH consultant van Dyk (long a lobbyist in the industry, including previous roles with Yellow Cab), could easily be “sour grapes from a losing bidder.” Each player sometimes skews existing data in favor of a pre-existing narrative, he says, and lengthy histories of internal politics and personal vendettas can undergird much of the debate.
Still, some suspect foul play—with Uber as accomplice. “Our feeling, as operators, was [that the Port’s] mind was made up before anything else,” says Kahn. Why, for example, when Yellow Cab has been in business for a century, and managing the airport fleet for the past five years, and Eastside for Hire has only existed since 2007 and never managed an airport fleet, did Yellow lose so many RFP points on “experience”? Eastside for Hire knew that it didn’t have the experience necessary on its own; its bid is largely predicated on its partnership with Standard Parking and, to a smaller extent, with Uber. “That is one of the things we do realize—we lack some experience,” Guled says. “So we reached out to the people that have the experience.”
Cindi Laws finds this piece of information not only suspect, but grounds for dismissal. “The Port Commission is facing the possibility of an absolute shitshow,” she says. “Port staff gave this contract to a company using the experience of Standard Parking,” although the “RFP states very clearly that only the qualifications of the proposer are to be used.” Also, on its own, Eastside hasn’t demonstrated stellar financials; “they were break-even for the last three years,” Laws says. “That’s questionable.”
She points to the line of credit with Uber; to E-Cab’s relationship with Uber; to the promise that these taxi drivers can now turn to Uber for extra income. “Port staff gave the contract for taxi operations to a non-taxi company that partnered with two giant multinational companies” to make its bid, she says. “Port staff doesn’t seem to grasp that they gave the taxi contract to Uber.”
This is not a new narrative: TNCs are wreaking havoc on the taxi industry, and Uber in particular—now worth some $62.5 billion—appears set to destroy it. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is known for confirming this kind of thinking in public. (To wit: “We’re in a political campaign,” he said in 2014. “The candidate is Uber and the opponent is an asshole named Taxi.”)
If, in the end, it’s a numbers game, it’s becoming clear which candidate is winning. Just head to the third-floor garage at Sea-Tac.
“Most people think this is probably the end,” one Yellow Cab airport driver tells me. “If we join them, we’re doomed. If we don’t join them, we’re still doomed. There’s a lot of people getting out of the industry right now.”
“This is the truth, my friend,” adds Mohamed. “We cannot survive at the airport.” Yet Uber, he says, most certainly can. “Uber can get away with anything they want. Just a simple app, and they can build the law any way they want.”
Nevertheless, “there still is real business out there if you just wanna drive a taxi,” argues Joe Blondo, a longtime Seattle cab driver, former president of the Alliance of Taxi Associations, and author of the blog Real Seattle Taxi. He drives all over the region, and is mystified as to why anyone would want to drive at the airport when, with experience and the ability to hustle, “There is definitely money out there for those who are looking for it.”
Guled concurs; he sees all the gloom and doom as unnecessarily fatalistic. “The taxi industry had a monopoly” for the past century, he reasons. “It’s very hard for a lot of people to change … They complain about trips going down. Yeah, because the airport opened up competition. What is the solution? Try to get more business outside of the airport, and try to diversify.
“Uber is testing a driverless car,” he adds. “The future looks really very scary.” But in the meantime, he’s resigned. “Change is a part of life. We’re trying to make the best of a difficult situation … It’s very clear that if we don’t change as an industry, we’re not going to survive.”
[email protected][It’s 2016 and CCS still isn’t working, and can never work because the size of the storage area is too large: “The prospects for carbon capture (e.g., clean coal) are widely discussed. Unfortunately, what is not usually discussed is that capture and condensation of CO2 requires about 25% of the gross starting energy. In addition, the scale of the problem is usually not appreciated. Chu (2009) reported that the world burns 6 billion tons of coal C each year. The volume triples after conversion to CO2 so the storage volume required would be 39,000 km3 per year, which is equal to 600 Niagara Falls.
Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Podcasts: Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity, XX2 report ]
2016. Richard Heinberg and David Fridley on Carbon Capture and Storage in “Our renewable future”. Island Press.
Why would implementing CCS be so expensive? Capturing carbon from coal combustion consumes 25 to 45% of the power produced. Add in the energy costs to transport, inject, and manage storage would lead to higher prices for coal-generated electricity and more power plants to provide it. There are no commercial technologies at this point to capture carbon, so the costs are unknown. To capture and bury just 38% of carbon from United States coal combustion would require making and installing pipelines, compressors, and pumps on a scale equivalent to the size of the nation’s oil industry. Bolting CCS technology onto existing power plants is extremely inefficient, ideally CCS would be added to new coal power plants, but that would require replacing 600 current plants.
Austenmarch, I. March 29, 2016. Technology to Make Clean Energy From Coal Is Stumbling in Practice. New York Times.
Although this technology worked in a small demonstration project, it didn’t scale up: “An electrical plant on the Saskatchewan prairie was the great hope for industries that burn coal. In the first large-scale project of its kind, the plant was equipped with a technology that promised to pluck carbon out of the utility’s exhaust and bury it underground, transforming coal into a cleaner power source. But the $1.1 billion project is now looking like a green dream…plagued by multiple shutdowns, has fallen way short of its emissions targets, and faces an unresolved problem with its core technology. Costs soared, requiring tens of millions of dollars in new equipment and repairs….the system is working at only 45% of capacity, has 8 major problem areas…and not apparent how to resolve some of the problems. A chart covering the first year of operation showed that the system often didn’t work at all. When it was turned back on after shutdowns for adjustments and repairs, the amount of carbon captured sometimes even dropped. ]
House 112-179. September 20, 2012. The American initiative part 29: a focus on H.R. 6172. House of Representatives.
[ Excerpts from the 205 page transcript of the hearing follow ]
Key points about Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) clean coal technology:
Large-scale commercialization remains years, if not decades, away
It is too expensive: EPA and DOE’s National Energy Technology Lab estimates that applying CCS to new coal-based units would increase the cost of electric power by 80%
CCS technology is in an early stage of development, so not a single CCS developer in the world can guarantee its technology will work at commercial scale, and without such a guarantee, power plant operators will not invest in CCS technology.
CCS reduces the EROEI substantially: Many of the current pilot projects estimate the parasitic load and cycle efficiency penalties to be at least 25 or 30% of a generating station output. So if CCS technology were retrofitted to an existing 2,000 MW coal-fired station the output from the plant would be reduced by 500 to 600 MW at a minimum.
Finding enough storage will be difficult
Very serious questions remain regarding the implications injection processes will have on mineral and property rights, monitoring C02 plumes across property lines or state boundaries, and the verification systems necessary to ensure long term monitoring to be sure no CO2 is escaping
ED WHITFIELD, KENTUCKY. Today we will be focusing on H.R. 6172, which would prohibit EPA’s proposed New Source Performance Standard for greenhouse gases from being finalized until it is technologically and economically feasible.
I don’t think that anyone is not aware of the fact that this administration has a strong bias against coal. We all are familiar with the President’s comments in San Francisco when he was running for President that people would be able to build coal plants if he is elected President but they would be bankrupt. Yesterday, many of you read about Alpha Resources closing down eight coalmines, 1,200 jobs. Patriot Coal recently announced they were going into bankruptcy. Murray Coal up in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Illinois has announced they are going to be closing down three mines. And I understand the argument on the other side because they say it has nothing to with us, it has nothing to do with our regulations, this is because natural-gas prices are low, which is true. But even if that were not the case, once this regulation becomes final, no one will be able to build a new coal power plant in America.
BOBBY L. RUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS. Today’s hearing will focus on H.R. 6172, a bill that prohibits the EPA from finalizing standards of performance under section 111 of the Clean Air Act for carbon dioxide emissions from existing or new fossil fuel-fired power plants unless or until carbon capture and storage is found to be technologically and economically feasible.
Ironically this bill comes on the heels of the last markup the subcommittee held where the majority defeated an amendment I offered that would have exempted future clean-coal projects from the arbitrary December 2011 deadline, and my Republican colleagues’ misguided attempts to disrupt the Department of Energy loan program by prohibiting any funding for future proposals regardless of the merits or technological advances of those projects. So as the first attempt to abandon any new Department of Energy funding for future clean-coal projects, the majority party is now bringing forth a bill that would block and delay EPA rules from finalizing the proposed carbon pollution standards for new power plants or any future carbon pollution standards for existing power plants until carbon capture and sequestration is technologically and economically feasible. This bill to most people would seem simply another attempt to try and shield the dirtiest polluters from commonsense air quality standards that would make their facilities cleaner and more efficient while protecting Americans’ health.
FRED UPTON, MICHIGAN. We are extremely concerned about the impacts that this proposed rule would have on the future of affordable coal-fired power generation in America if indeed it is finalized. As currently written, the rule requires any new coal-fired plants to install costly carbon capture and sequestration technology. However, even President Obama’s Department of Energy has acknowledged that CCS technology is not yet commercially available and that large-scale commercialization remains years, if not decades, away.
Leaders in CCS technology and industry stakeholders agree that significant technical, legal and regulatory hurdles still need to be overcome in order to successfully bring CCS to commercial scale. And because CCS technology remains in its early stages of development, not a single CCS developer in the world can currently guarantee that its technology will work at commercial scale, and without such a guarantee, power plant operators will not, and cannot, make investment in CCS technology.
HENRY A. WAXMAN, CALIFORNIA. This committee has heard a lot of arguments from victims and people are being convinced that they are victims by the government when that is not the case. Let me cite an example. This committee had a hearing on EPA’s proposed regulation of farm dust. Can anybody think of anything more ridiculous than regulating farm dust that is ubiquitous to farms? So this committee rushed legislation to protect the farmers from EPA regulation of farm dust even though EPA said they had no plans to regulate farm dust, and we passed a bill. Do you know what the bill did? It provided for repeal of regulations from open-pit mining that put out particulate matter and toxic substances in the air. So the farmers were told they were victims and they were being used for a different purpose.
We don’t have the technology to remove the carbon from coal and store it. It is a technology we all should want to have. But the industry has no incentive to develop that technology because they are doing fine selling coal and using coal without that technology. That would just be an extra expense.
The Republicans in this House passed H.R. 910, the Upton- Inhofe bill. That would have barred EPA from reducing dangerous carbon pollution and codified science denial by overturning EPA’s scientific finding that carbon pollution endangers health and welfare. It is a premise that climate change is a hoax, and since that time early last year, this Republican House has proved to be the most anti-environmental in the history of the Congress. Republicans have voted more than 300 times on the House Floor to weaken longstanding public-health and environmental laws, block environmental standards, defund protections of our air, water and public lands, and oppose clean energy. They voted 47 times to block action on climate change. When they passed that Upton-Inhofe bill a year and a half ago, House Republicans argued the science was uncertain, EPA was exceeding its authority. By now, everybody should understand that they were wrong on both counts. The science has been clear and clearer, and just look at all the signs of climate change occurring around us: recent wildfires, droughts, heat waves, exactly the type of extreme weather events that scientists have been predicting for years and that this committee has been ignoring.
The EPA is not overreaching. The courts have affirmed their power to regulate in this area. It is about time we try to help the people in the coal area be viable in a new economy that is coming. Otherwise you can scare them with talk of war against them but it is a dishonest approach. It doesn’t help them. It stirs up the feelings of victimology by the people in these areas, and I suppose it is supposed to help Republicans in the election. But sometimes let us stop playing politics and deal with national urgent matters, and this committee has refused to do it for a year and a half.
Eugene Trisko. I am an attorney in private practice, here today to testify on behalf of the United Mine Workers of America to support the enactment of H.R. 6172. I have had the honor of representing the UMWA in Clean Air Act and domestic international climate change issues for the past 25 years. H.R. 6172 is sound policy and a commonsense solution to the threat to new advanced coal generation posed by EPA’s proposed carbon pollution standard rule. That rule sets a uniform CO2 emissions rate of 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour applicable to both coal and natural-gas combined cycle units. New coal units would need to employ CCS technology to comply while new natural-gas combined cycle units could comply without CCS.
EPA and DOE’s National Energy Technology Lab estimates that applying CCS to new coal-based units would increase the cost of electric power by 80 percent.
CCS has not been commercially demonstrated in this country as indicated by the findings of the 2010 Interagency Task Force Report on Carbon Capture and Storage. EPA’s proposed rule is simply a means of forcing winners and losers in the future market for electric generation.
Coal is an indispensable part of America’s energy supply and must be a core element of any all-of-the-above energy policy. More than one-third of our Nation’s electricity is generated by coal, mainly in baseload plants. The principal alternatives to coal for future baseload generation are nuclear and natural gas. While natural-gas prices have declined recently, substantial uncertainty surrounds future natural-gas prices, particularly in view of the 40- to 60-year lifetimes of electric generation assets.
John N. Voyles,.fr. On behalf of LG&E and KU Energy LLC. We are aware of no full scale application of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in continuous operation on a fossil-fueled electric generating unit.
The energy penalty to add CCS technology to a coal-fired electric generating unit is prohibitively high. Many of the current pilot projects estimate the parasitic load and cycle efficiency penalties to be at least 25 or 30% of a generating station output. For a company like mine, those penalties would mean if CCS technology were retrofitted to an existing 2,000 MW coal-fired station producing power for our customers today, the output from the plant would be reduced by 500 to 600 MW at a minimum.
An even bigger challenge is the application of C02 storage technology. While some carbon dioxide is successfully being utilized in enhanced oil or methane recovery operations and other pilots have successfully injected small quantities of CO2 into deep saline aquifers, the volume of storage necessary to facilitate such operations on a continuous basis for the life of an electric generating station has yet to be established. Very serious questions remain regarding the implications such injection processes have on mineral and property rights, the monitoring of the C02 plume across property lines or state boundaries and the verification systems necessary to ensure long term monitoring is taken into account. We believe these questions loom much larger than the simple view that CO2 can be captured and injected underground and might be done more cost effectively, with less energy penalties at some undetermined point in the future. Until such time as CCS technology is commercially available to be deployed at full scale in a technical and economical manner, we are concerned that any standard of performance proposed
Robert Hilton, Vice President of Power Technologies for Government Affairs for Alstom. Alstom has completed work on four pilot and validation-scale plants and has 10 pilots, validation, and commercial-scale plants in operation, design, or construction worldwide. These CCS projects include both coal and gas generation.
We are here today to specifically address the status of CCS as a commercial technology. CCS is, within the realm of innovation, no different than any other technology under development. It is required to move through various stages of development at consistently larger scale. Alstom has taken each of its CCS-related technologies from the bench level to validation scale with the aim of finally reaching commercial. However, to date, no CCS technologies have been deployed at commercial scale. Validation scale is the proof of technology in real field conditions. This is important. It is at this point we can say confidently that the basic technology works. CCS technology is technologically feasible now.
The final stage to reach commercial status is to perform a demonstration at full scale. It is critical to define the risk of technology to make offers. This cannot be defined until the technology can be shown to work at full scale. This is the first opportunity we have to work with the exact equipment in the exact operating conditions that will become the subject of contractual conditions including performance and other contractual guarantees. This also becomes the first opportunity to optimize the process and equipment to effect best performance and seek cost reduction. Based on these criteria, Alstom does not currently deem its technologies for CCS commercial and, to my knowledge, there are no other technology suppliers globally that can do so.
In its recent rulemaking, EPA has required CCS for all new coal plants and, conceivably gas plants. While Alstom, in conjunction with AEP, has run the largest plant, we are not ready to do this on 500- or 1,000-megawatt plants. It
The current DOE program for first generation technologies on CCS has encountered serious difficulties in bringing projects of commercial scale to operation. It appears that most of the projects, if they continue, are not likely to become operational until 2017 with the exception of Radcliffe/Kemper. Globally the picture is similar. The EU, and notably the UK, are targeting 2016 for commercial scale demos to start up. The Chinese have a road map aimed at two commercial scale demos to begin operation in 2016. But note:
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near the beach that had vacant rooms.
Slowly, Rem slipped her hand into Subaru's as they walked through a small crowd of people. Subaru noticed this of course and smiled as the sun began to fall to the horizon.
Rem and Subaru were able to find a motel that had a beautiful view of the sandy beach and the crashing waves only an hour later. Behind a closed door, the two began to do what needed to be done.
"Ah ah ah ah, S-Subaru-kun. It hurts."
"Just don't move, Rem. I'll do all the work."
"Ow, Subaru-kun is too rough. Please be gentle."
"Sorry, I'll slow down."
Subaru stopped applying so much pressure to Rem's back as he rubbed the aloe vera onto her back. Rem's sunburn was worse than they had ever thought before since even the slightest touch hurt.Editor’s Note: Christine Magee is an analyst for CrunchBase.
Investments in real estate tech are on the upswing in the wake of some billion dollar exits this year.
Following Zillow’s acquisition of Trulia for $3.5 billion in July and News Corp’s $950 million purchase of Realtor.com-parent Move Inc. in September, venture investors are more eager than ever to get in on the market, putting up nearly $300 million in over 30 venture deals for real estate tech startups in the past quarter.
This is more than double the investment total previously captured in a single quarter, capping off a year of uncharacteristically heavy investment in the space.
Large rounds for China’s Fangdd, India’s CommonFloor, and Urban Compass out of New York – all consumer-facing real estate listing platforms – make up a significant portion of the total, but the high number of rounds suggests that investors are now seeing merit in other aspects of the space.
Real estate investment crowdfunding platform Fundrise, popup retail space rental service Storefront, and private workspace startup Breather all secured venture funding in the past few months to tackle a variety of less obvious pain points.
“Real estate is a super attractive industry to be building tech in,” says RRE Ventures‘ Steve Schlafman, “it drives a huge part of the economy, and it’s generally antiquated.”
Whereas in the past few years startups were focused around providing home buyers and renters better access to property listings, “now you’re seeing entrepreneurs that actually have domain expertise in real estate starting to build businesses to solve problems that they had when they were working in the industry,” Schlafman says.
RRE has backed startups like Floored, a 3D visualization platform that allows potential home buyers, among others, to explore virtual spaces online.
Real estate listing and search sites like Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin may have gotten the most funding and attention in the space, but these solutions just scratch the surface of tech’s potential to impact real estate.
“If you peel back to see what powers these third party sites like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, it’s old school, antiquated systems – spreadsheets, shared drives, faxing listings over to the broker,” says Caren Maio, founder of New York-based Nestio.
Nestio provides a data management platform for real estate professionals, so that when a landlord marks a unit as rented, the broker knows about it in real time and can feed accurate information to third party sites. Consumers can be confident that listings they’re seeing on Zillow or Realtor.com are correct, while landlords reduce vacancy rates and close deals faster.
The higher investment numbers reflect a new demand for tech-driven solutions in the market, as real estate owners and brokers are incorporating tech on a more widespread level.
“Real estate three years ago was like the red-headed stepsister for tech startups — it has that undertone of an old-school, stodgy-type market,” says Maio.
But this is changing quickly. “There has been a shift within the real estate community that will continue, as an older generation of owners is supplemented by a younger generation that is more tech friendly,” says BoxGroup’s David Tisch, who has backed Nestio along with real estate startups Hightower, Storefront, and 42Floors.
And the reliance on technology will only increase if the fears about the bubble escalate and the economy weathers additional stress. “Efficiencies are much more necessary when the bubble pops than when things are flying high,” Quotidian Ventures founder Pedro Torres-Picón points out.
“One thing that’s interesting about real estate owners and brokers,” says angel investor Joanne Wilson, “is that they’re always up for something new if it’s going to help them make more money — it’s a sales business. It’s like after using an ATM machine, you’re never going to stand in line at the bank again — you want more tools because it’s amazing for business.”
Photo via Flickr user Phillip Taylor.Getty Images
The Eagles had some good news on their injury report Thursday as cornerback Patrick Robinson was a full participant for the second day in a row to remain on track to play this weekend despite suffering a concussion against the 49ers last Sunday.
That development was joined by a less positive one. Tight end Zach Ertz was listed as a limited participant due to a hamstring injury.
Ertz was not on the injury report at all on Wednesday, so he may have picked up the injury during Thursday’s session. Friday will bring an opportunity to hear from coach Doug Pederson about Ertz’ condition before the team makes injury designations for their game against the Broncos.
Cornerback Ronald Darby was also limited in practice as he continues working his way back from the dislocated ankle he suffered in the season opener.[ Home | Staff & Contacts | HiFi Playground | Listening tests | DIY & Tweakings | Music & Books ]
Arms design
How many ways can you skin a cat...?
[Italian version]
Introduction
Recently I was in conversation with a manufacturer of turntables and arms. He said that in his opinion, given a basic level of competence in the turntable, the arm was responsible for 80% of the sound quality produced.
During my series of turntable and arm reviews I've started to come to see his point, though I'd put the split nearer 60/40 in favour of the arm. Whether you agree or not, it's not in dispute that the tonearm has a fundamental effect on the sound produced by a vinyl front end.
Over the last four years I've had nine arms here on a long term basis (1 month+), six of them in the last six months with more to come. They came in all shapes and sizes and each sounded different so I thought it was time for me to find out what makes arms tick and pass on that knowledge to the readers of TNT-Audio.
Before I start a few words of warning - what follows is a basic overview of tonearms, what they do and why they are designed the way they are. Each design has it's proponents and camps are deeply entrenched over what is best, if in my ignorance I offend such groups then I apologise, all I can say in my defence is having played with a lot of designs I know what I like...
The problem
On a record the music is encoded as wiggles in a piece of vinyl. In fact to get the idea imagine a piece of corrugated iron, fold it down the middle across the corrugations to make an angle of 90 degrees. OK - with me? One side of the resulting 'V' is the left-hand channel, the other side the right. The stylus (imagine a traffic cone) moves along the 'V' and is wiggled back and forth, these vibrations go up the cantilever and are turned into an electrical signal by (generally) two sets of magnets and coils also set at 90 degrees to each other - each perpendicular to the groove wall it is tracking - this gives a stereo signal for the preamp. It's delightfully simple...
So going back down to the microscopic dimensions that actually exist, it is the arm that has the job of holding the cartridge whilst the 'V' shaped groove hurtles past.
So what is the arm up against? Well the basic problem is this - If the record surface was perfectly flat and ran under the stylus in a straight line like tape over a tape-head, the arm could be a block of rigid concrete holding the cartridge absolutely immovable. This way when the stylus moves these movements become the music signal - no energy is lost moving the cartridge back and forth in sympathy with the music. But records, NO record, is absolutely flat, and rather than travelling in a straight line the groove is a spiral so the arm must allow movements both up and down and sideways across the disc.
So the perfect arm must allow the stylus to move up and down for warps and sideways to take account of the spiral BUT at all music frequencies must hold the cartridge absolutely solid as if mounted in that block of concrete.
Tough call...
The only answer is of course to use bearings of one sort or another to allow the arm to pivot in both vertical and horizontal plane, they must do this with as near zero friction as possible but not allow any movement at music frequencies including twisting. It must also press the stylus into the groove at a constant downforce so as to resist a modulated groove'spitting' the stylus upwards and out of intimate contact with the groove walls where the information is stored, and in order to keep the cartridge generator aligned.
To answer this impossible brief three main schools of arm design have evolved. The gimballed arm, the unipivot and the parallel tracker. Each has its advantages as we'll see, but they all share one design problem. If you take a rod of any kind and hold it rigidly at one end it will 'ring' at certain frequencies rather like a plucked string. The stiffer the arm the higher up the frequency of the ringing (like a tighter string). Real'stiffies' like the big SME's and Roksan's Artemiz have main ringing modes at 1 kHz or more where it is less noticeable than lower down.
Clever shaping or damping can spread or reduce these resonances, but tuning them to be as unobtrusive as possible is one of the 'black arts' of arm design. To add to this every part and particularly joint of an arm will produce its own sonic signature, which is why we have so many one-piece arms since SME, Mission and Rega led the way.
The gimballed arm
This is the most common design and probably the most obvious. Just put two sets of bearings at 90 degrees to each other at the balance point of the arm. Assuming decent bearings these will hold the arm rigidly, stopping any twist whilst allowing the arm to move freely up and across. If the centre of gravity is placed level with the stylus the downforce will remain constant as warps force the arm up and down - this is good. Likewise if the horizontal bearing is at the level of the stylus then as the stylus rises due to a warp it will not tend to move back and forth as with a bearing above the stylus.
The snag... These bearings are ball bearing races (or variations). In order to have low friction they must have some free play. So as the stylus tries to twist the arm the bearings will allow slight movement and perhaps more importantly tend to rattle against each other - this is called 'bearing chatter'. As you tighten the bearings to take up this slack the friction will increase thus compromising the arms performance. So a gimballed arm is a compromise.
Have the bearings tight enough to reduce (you cannot eliminate) chatter but loose enough to allow minimal friction. This is why top arms are so expensive, they require the bearings to be perfectly aligned and for the compromise to be exactly where it will be most beneficial - this takes time. Talk of expensive bearings is generally misleading, ABEC3 bearings cost pence but the time and precision needed to make them work costs...
There are two other snags with such a design. One - the bearings each act as a boundary where resonances can be reflected or produced, so though an SME has a one-piece armtube, it has a bunch of other boundaries in its bearings. Two - over time these bearings will wear and go out of adjustment, either needing replacement or adjustment.
Unipivots
In the past unipivots have been very popular, then with the advent of the 'battleship', ultra-stiff, gimballed brigade exemplified by the ITTOK and then the SME V they fell from favour. Now they are back to the point where they are 'flavour of the month'. The thing is that there are unipivots and unipivots as we shall see.
At first a unipivot seems a daft idea. Instead of two sets of ball races at 90 degrees to each other we have a simple point bearing, pointing either upwards or downwards, resting in a cup (a few like Hadcock use ball bearings) and placed at the pivot point of the arm. Bonkers - No torsional rigidity whatsoever, twist the headshell and the arm just twists?
But... What if we could balance the masses around the arm in such a way that when the cartridge tries to twist the arm AT MUSIC FREQUENCIES the inertia of the arm alone holds it steady. WOW! There's an idea worth considering...
So how can we do it? The simplest way is to hang weights off the bottom of the arm, either as low slung counterweights or bearing housings with a lot of weight under the pivot. This gives the arm some inherent stability, the cartridge will tend to hang downwards though cueing will still be a wobbly affair.
Spotted the snag? If the centre of gravity of the arm is well below the pivot, as the arm rides over a warp the centre of gravity will have to be lifted, this increases the downforce at a the worse possible moment, driving the stylus up towards the cartridge body as the arm resists upward movement. This is a BAD THING...
But lots of unipivots are made his way, in fact probably the majority, the Hadcock and Kuzma being two I have here at the moment. The Kuzma adds a thick bath of silicon gloop that the skirt of the bearing housing sits in.
This increases stability still further but the gloop increases the arms reluctance to ride warps to the point where the cantilever and suspension of the cartridge do much of the work. This is an extreme case of damping in a unipivot, but it is a commonly used aid to resisting the twisting forces imposed and also to damp resonances in an arm.
The other way of building a unipivot is to have the centre of gravity only just below the pivot so that when riding warps the downforce doesn't alter. In this case the same force is needed to deflect the arm up/down or sideways producing a 'perfect mass'. Such designs are much more wobbly to cue but at music frequencies it is the moment of inertia of the arm itself which resists the twisting - a tough piece of tuning all round.
Some designs like this use a 'false' unipivot where there is some physical restraint to stop wobbling. This takes the form of a bearing housing that acts like the bearing housing of the turntable by holding the bearing vertical in the twisting plane, but unlike the turntable bearing offering no resistance to 'nodding' up and down movement. As this restraint takes no load, friction is practically zero and it gives the arm the same user friendliness as a gimballed arm.
Of course there is the problem of the restraint rattling against the bearing but as it has to carry no load it can be made of some low resonance material such as Delrin and as it is a very loose fit friction doesn't enter into the equation. Audiomeca's Romeo arm is a 'false' unipivot in this mould but the delrin sleeve can be easily removed to produce a 'true' unipivot when you feel brave enough.
Just looking at a unipivot can show you which path the designer took. Low slung - Hadcock, Kuzma, VPI, Moerch, ARO - or those with a high centre of gravity, often with weights either side of the bearing housing to increase inertia against twisting like the Audiomeca and Graham.
But what unipivots all share is a bearing with close to zero friction, which (if good quality) will be self adjusting and devoid of any bearing chatter. Apart from this the problems of arm resonance and the like are much like a gimballed arm.
Parallel trackers
When an analogue master is cut it is done on a lathe where the head travels in a straight line across the disc on a sort of sled. Pivoted arms track across the record in an arc which inevitably means that for most of the time the stylus will be at a slight angle to the way the groove was originally cut. This introduces some distortion.
Also because the cartridge is mounted at an angle at the end of the arm it tends to pull the arm towards the centre of the disc, and this force has to be resisted by some kind of 'anti-skate' mechanism, otherwise the stylus will be forced against one wall of the groove harder than the other with a reduction in sound quality and inevitable uneven wear of stylus and disc. This force is applied in many ways, threads and weights, magnets or springs, but all are compromised and potential sources of colouration.
The parallel tracker tries to mimic the cutting lathe and has an arm which tracks across the record whilst the pivot is on some kind of moving sled. If the cartridge is perfectly aligned then there should be no tracking error and no need for anti-skate. Also the arm can be made shorter and so will be stiffer and have a lower moment of inertia.
The downside is of course the sled. It has to move in unison with the stylus. Eccentric records (all of them...) mean it will have to move back and forth as well as across the record.
Either the arm has a complex series of sensors and motors which spot deviation and shuffle the sled back and forth, or a very low friction slide, such as an air bearing, allows movement with little friction. Both these solutions are hideously complicated and the fact that anyone can make them work at all is a source of constant amazement to me. Needless to say they are expensive, fussy, need dust free environments and perfect set-up. But when they're right some people say nothing else comes close.
An interesting and to my mind more practical variation is the Audiomeca where what looks like a true parallel tracker is in fact a pivoted arm which has only a very small arc of operation. A small sensor detects when the arm moves beyond the arc and a motor shuffles the sled along a bit to compensate - neat as the pivot does the small variations 'passively'
Lastly - Cartridge compliance and "effective mass"
You might think that in theory it'd be nice to have an arm that only applied downforce and offered no other resistance to change in direction. Unfortunately having a mass that needs to be accelerated the arm has inertia and will resist the movement. The more massy the arm the greater the inertia or 'effective mass'.
There was a time when the lowest possible effective mass was seen as perfection but this resulted in flimsy resonant arms which needed very high compliance cartridges in order to work, with the result they tended to bounce all over the disc when presented with a warp or even cued...
This was because a cartridges compliance and an arms effective mass must be matched. The compliance of a cartridge is the'springyness' of its suspension. Imagine it as a springboard at a swimming pool. If the springboard has a very light person on it it will bounce up and down quite quickly. If it has a real 'fatty' on it this springing will be slow. To get the fat guy to spring at the same speed you need a stiffer (low compliance) springboard.
What has this got to do with cartridges and arms? Well you want the combination of arm and cartridge to resonate, or 'bounce', at a certain frequency i.e. below that of any music signal (<20Hz) and above the frequency of record warps (>7Hz). So a very compliant cartridge such as a Shure V15 likes a low mass arm, a low compliance cartridge such as a Koetsu likes a high mass arm like a Bruer. Nowadays most cartridges are medium compliance and most arms medium mass but it still pays to make sure a given cartridge works well with your arm.
Conclusion
So now you're thoroughly confused? Some people will tell you unipivots sound sweeter, gimballed arms more dynamic. All I have to say is that I've heard great gimballed arms and great unipivots, all I need now is for someone to lend me a parallel tracker...
© Copyright 2002 Geoff Husband - http://www.tnt-audio.com
[ Home | Staff & Contacts | HiFi Playground | Listening tests | DIY & Tweakings | Music & Books ]On July 9, 2013, Greg Hindy set out on a unique and ambitious “art-project” of walking from Nashua, NH to Los Angeles, CA. Here’s the kicker: during this time, he not only took a vow of silence, but also abstained from “all noisemaking of any kind, including talking, and from reading, writing, listening to music, watching television, or any other kind of entertainment,” as Hindy outlines on his Kickstarter page, which raised $8,000 for the trek. He continues, “the golden rule is that unless it is walking, photographing, or completely necessary to my survival, I am not allowed to do it.”
One year later, he achieved his goal, having walked south to Florida, across Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi, through Texas, north through Arizona, Utah, and Idaho, across the Washington / Oregon border, and then down through California into Los Angeles, covering more than 9,000 miles in the process.
Having completed a trek of less than a quarter this distance, not to mention relying on the aid of fellow thru-hiker’s companionship, my iPhone, and semi-regular civilized excursions (a trip to the movie theater, an Orioles game, many, many bars) I’d like to say I know what Hindy’s went through, but I can’t. I too was subject to periods isolation, but at most a few consecutive days. I experienced extended stints of introspection, but often ended the day trading fart jokes with other hikers around the campfire. When approaching a psychological threshold on the AT, there are ways in which a thru-hiker can refuel their reserve that the 22-year-old Yale grad refrained from.
It’s easy to understand why a journey of this magnitude would render a strong, volatile emotional response. And that’s exactly what happened. Watch for yourself as the 12-minute video below captures Greg Hindy’s last and first words from before and after his cross-country trek.
One-Year Performance: Walking, Silence from Greg Hindy on Vimeo.“Socialist emulation” was the communists’ knee-jerk response to “capitalist competition”. According to their definition, socialist emulation is not competition, it is just harder work than others’. For the benefit of the collective.
Socialist emulation was not a sophisticated way to compete – rather just a competition in raw man power. The complexities of management and business organisation completely evaded the Party. Workplace commissars wanted to produce mile-stone numbers following five-year plans: 10 thousand tons of iron ore, 10 million hectares of sugar cane, 100 thousand livestock born. (The phenomenon is not unlike today’s quantitative fetish, and just like that, it also entailed plenty of fabrications and loose definitions.) Workers were made to compete in tons of dirt moved by manpower, meters of tunnels dug out per day, and other such well-quantifiable measures. Not surprisingly, it didn’t boost output.
Socialist emulation was meant to be voluntary.[1] In reality, “socialist self-obligation” was fiercely enforced by peer pressure, state security, and the workplace representatives of the Communist Party. Instead of management consultants, the Soviet Union exported experts, who taught how to organise work competitions. Propaganda films showed good socialist workers competing in work emulation, and (after much noble struggle) overcoming imperialist sabotage.
Which leads us to the basis on which communist ideologues denounced competition: their view and definition of competition.
Why did socialists denounce competition?
In short, they equated it with sabotage.
Their socialist emulations as well as their representation of capitalist sabotage tell volumes about their definition of competition. Their propaganda never failed to picture capitalist spies and imperialist agents as saboteurs. It was as if sabotage itself would be at the core of capitalism.
And competition – as defined by socialist ideologues – would indeed only produce sabotage.
Two Interpretations of Competition
Opponents of competition have a damning definition of competition that does not entail merit, value creation, innovation, or improvement of anyone’s life. It merely means the obstruction of others. When they talk about competition, the term “cut throat” keeps popping up. Far from a tool of (or motivation for) innovation, they regard competition as a way to destroy competitors. To destroy value.
Opponents of competition chose to interpret it as any means to get above others. Pushing others down is as good as any. If you only want to be better, not good, thwarting others is a perfectly valid method of achieving it.
From this angle, equating competition with sabotage is logical and inevitable.
Proponents, on the other hand, regard it as a means to become really good at something. In the Hayekian discovery procedure competition means ever getting better, discovering novel ways of doing things, innovation, and improvement of lives.
Confusing competition with the lack of inner standards
At the core of the divergent definitions is the locus of one’s standards. People who don’t know good, only better, are a poor advertisement to competition and its ability to improve lives. This interpretation means cronyism, a cartel or monopoly in business – and clinging on to power and control in politics. Regardless of the costs to the economy.
But good is better than just better. You don’t stop running when you overtake everyone – you want to find out how much faster you can get, and if you are really the master of your own standards, you also know where you are trying to get to. The reward is not to be better in comparison, but to be good – and being well paid for it.
Why Authoritarianism Abhors Competition
The authoritarian mind abhors the notion of competition. It would me a mistake to only see it as a socialist thing though. Right wing authoritarian regimes are not exactly paragons of honest competition either. It may be exhibited in different ways, but authoritarianism of any kind abhors real, innovative competition in the sense of Hayekian discovery procedure.
It happens for a number of reasons:
1. Competition means that hierarchy can be challenged
And that is unnerving. An authoritarian needs hierarchy to provide the illusion of control and thus safety. He uses hierarchy as a proxy for certainty. A stable hierarchy means safety to authoritarian ears and they are known to reject freedom in favour of safety.
An authoritarian will seek out hierarchy even where none exists and he will place you in his own hierarchy even if you refuse to place yourself. It lends him the illusion of knowledge about you. From this perspective, hierarchy is meant to serve the function of reputation in facilitating trust. The absence of hierarchy is anarchy – which is synonymous with chaos and violence for authoritarian minds.
The more stable a hierarchy is, the better. If a hierarchy can be challenged by effort, his own place might change as well. The bottom of certainty falls out and the opportunity to rise is no consolation. Authoritarianism is about survival, after all, not aspiration and prosperity. Hence populists’ efforts to stoke the sense of emergency and remind us of existential threats all the time.
At the end of the day, competition means the freedom to change the status quo – as opposed to the certainty of a set hierarchy.
2. Competition vs Identitarianism
The best hierarchies are birth-based. They are identities, telling us how to behave, what to do, what to expect and how much to aspire for. For an identity-based world view, competition is never limited to the speed of your car, the profit of your company or the number of laps you can swim. In an identity-based world competition is always a competition of identities. But for the authoritarian logic, identity must be set.
If you identify with your place in the hierarchy and don’t take it as a result of effort or merit – you will resist the idea of competition. In this world view you either get rewarded based on what you are (your status) – or don’t get rewarded at all.
Naturally, all authoritarian systems make some exceptions where an individual is allowed to rise. But the criteria is adjustment to the demands of the system – ideologically and politically. (In free market competition, the criteria is adjustment to the demands of clients.)
3. Learned helplessness vs. the premise of individual effort
Authoritarian thinking rests upon the idea that the individual is powerless (hence the need for a strong leader). Disempowerment (learned helplessness) of the authoritarian follower is at the core of authoritarianism and it dictates that no individual is in control of his outcomes. This notion clashes with the idea of merit-based reward.
Learned helplessness is not just internalised by authoritarian minds – it is also projected at others. Concern for others – and in particular, deeming them incapable for caring for themselves – is a less obvious symptom of the same thinking. Either way, the notion that someone wants to / expects us to rely on individual efforts is outrageous for both kinds of authoritarians.
4. Zero-sum world
Competition in a market of voluntary trade may inherently also be cooperation, but authoritarian minds will always see the cut-throat element only. Job creation is an alien concept when your metrics are tons of dirt to move mindlessly. (Your way forward is to move it slowly or, indeed, with a spoon, if you are to create more jobs.)
5. Need for homogeneity vs. Specialization
The idea of fluid rankings based on all sorts of comparative advantages is alien to authoritarianism on a number of levels. One of them is that it clashes with their need for homogeneity. Anti-pluralism is an oft-discussed trait of the authoritarian (populist) mind, but homogenising others is only really desirable for those who are made to fear otherness. Specialisation is a challenge to homogeneity. It means both vertical (skills) and horizontal differences (in income levels).
In terms of achievements, the only way to achieve homogeneity is to pull back the achievers. That is the worst of both worlds.
6. The inherent collectivism of authoritarianism
If we mean collective success, competition should be performed by the collective. Incentives are misplaced and the tasks have no owner. Only a culture that rewards individual success can make competition work.
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[1] The Hungarians seem to have missed these nuances though. They translated “socialist emulation” (or социалистическое соревнование) simply to “work competition”.
AdvertisementsSocial choice — transforming individual preferences into a collective decision — is probably the oldest and best-known problem in the social sciences. It’s also one of the thorniest, and no one should be surprised that there should be disagreement on how to attack the problem, let alone solve it. It’s not really enough to say that we want an electoral system that is “democratic.” As my former colleague and co-author Michel Truchon once put in the title of a paper: “Democracy? Yes, but which one?” We have to agree on what kind of question electoral change is asking before we can get to the answer.
It’s useful to think of the social choice problem in two ways. This first is what I’ll call the “technocratic” approach, and it dates back to the 18th-century French philosopher Nicolas de Condorcet. Condorcet’s way of framing the problem is to assume that there is an objectively true ranking of the choices, and that the only reason why there is any disagreement about the best choice is that sometimes people make mistakes. He showed that if there are two options, and if everyone has a better-than-even chance of making the correct choice, then majority vote is the optimal decision-making mechanism. This may not seem like a particularly deep insight from the perspective of a 21st century industrial democracy, but it was a remarkable result for the 18
th
century, and not only because it was one of the first applications of probability theory. Of course, Condorcet didn’t solve everything: his majority principle breaks down if there are more than two options.
I call this the technocratic approach, because it sets up social choice as a problem that has an objective solution for the best electoral system. Once you’ve set up the problem, you can check to see how often a voting system produces the wrong result, and you can also see how robust a given voting rule is to manipulation. The best voting rule is one that produces the correct choice most often, and is most difficult to game. These are technical questions with objective answers, and technocrats are best-placed to answer them.
Very often, the technocratic approach makes sense, and judged sports are a good example. The criteria for scoring performances in (say) figure skating and gymnastics are reasonably well-defined, but even the most experienced judge will miss things in real time. In this context, it’s at least possible in principle to evaluate the rules that transform judges’ scores into an overall ranking based on their ability to consistently identify the correct ranking.
This technocratic approach informs much of the debate on electoral change in Canada. For example, the issue is invariably presented as one of electoral “reform,” which suggests that the technocrats have identified an objectively better alternative to the system we use now. And much of the argument against using a referendum to choose an electoral system uses technocratic language. The topic is complex, ordinary voters won’t understand the issues, and the possibility that voters will make the objectively incorrect choice is too great a risk to run: it’s better to leave the design of our electoral system to the experts who know what they’re doing.
The other approach is what I’ll call “political,” and the key insight is from the Nobel Prize winning economist Kenneth Arrow’s famous Impossibility Theorem. In his framework, there is no objectively true social ranking that would obtain universal support if everyone were fully-informed: disagreements among voters reflect fundamental differences of opinion, not simply measurement error. In contrast to Condorcet — who found a solution for his problem — Arrow showed that there is no way of transforming different individual preferences into a coherent social ranking. I call this the “political” approach, because it’s not possible to appeal to some objective criteria for choosing how individual votes should be used to determine a winner; the electoral system has to be negotiated.
This is a far more realistic context for elections: different people vote for different candidates because they have different values and priorities. Some disagreements among voters may be based on misunderstandings, but too few to justify proceeding with the technocratic approach to social choice. Electoral change must be negotiated — but by whom?
As things stand now, the political parties represented in the House of Commons are expected to negotiate, and their relative negotiating power is determined by the number of seats they hold on the House’s Special Committee on Electoral Reform.
This arrangement does not bode well. One of the less-charming conceits of politicians is their habit of assuming that what is best for their party’s prospects for power is necessarily what is best for the electorate: party positions on electoral change exactly match the proposals that offer the easiest path between them and government.
Whatever emerges from the House electoral change committee will be the result of the sort of high drama and low cunning you’d expect from a typical episode of “Survivor.” But even if the committee produces a unanimous report, there’s little reason to think that it’d reflect a consensus of Canadian opinion. The only reliable way of finding out what Canadians think about electoral change is to ask them.
National Post
Stephen Gordon is a professor of economics at Université Laval.The air in some school classrooms may contain higher levels of extremely small particles of pollutants -- easily inhaled deep into the lungs -- than polluted outdoor air, scientists in Australia and Germany are reporting in an article in Environmental Science & Technology.
Lidia Morawska and colleagues note increasing concern in recent years over the health effects of airborne ultrafine particles. Evidence suggests that they can be toxic when inhaled into the lungs. Much of the scientific research, however, has focused on outdoor sources of these invisible particles, particularly vehicle emissions. Little research has been done, however, on indoor sources, and even less on ultrafine particles in school classrooms.
In an effort to fill those gaps in knowledge, the scientists studied levels of ultrafine particles in 3 elementary school classrooms in Brisbane, Australia. They found that on numerous occasions ultrafine particle levels in the classrooms were significantly higher than outdoors. The highest levels occurred during art activities such as gluing, painting and drawing when indoor levels were several times higher than outdoor levels. There also were significant increases in ultrafine particle levels when detergents were used for cleaning.JOPLIN, Mo. - A 54-year-old Missouri woman has died after suffering a heart attack when told of her father's death in the Joplin tornado.
Newton County Coroner Mark Bridges says the woman who died Tuesday didn't immediately learn of her father's death in the historic storm that has killed more than 120 people. He did not know her father's age or the circumstances of the man's death.
Bridges identified the woman as a schoolteacher and resident of nearby Webb City who attended church in Joplin.
The coroner said the death is considered a storm-related casualty even though the woman was not directly killed by the tornado.
Pictures: Tornado Destruction in Joplin
Tragedy, danger -- and a dash of dumb luck in Mo.
As death toll mounts, search goes on in Joplin
Meanwhile, the search for missing victims of Joplin's lethal twister inched forward methodically on Wednesday, with city leaders refusing to abandon hope that they would find more survivors even as rescuers prepared to go over ground searched as many as three times already.
The death toll ticked upward to at least 122, with 750 people hurt, from a mighty twister that the National Weather Service said was an EF5, the strongest rating assigned to tornadoes, with winds of more than 200 mph.
"We are still in a search-and-rescue mode," said Mark Rohr, Joplin's city manager. "I want to emphasize that."
Missy Epperson heads a team of 13 volunteers and rescue dogs from Illinois. She also searched for victims at World Trade Center after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005.
"This is Katrina without the water," Epperson told CBS News correspondent Don Teague.
Even as Joplin lim
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inspired local communities to take action and open their homes to animals in need. Various celebrities and news personalities, including Ellen DeGeneres; Steve Harvey; extra's Mario Lopez; NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt; Bravo's Andy Cohen; actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, singer and songwriter Rob Thomas; and Telemundo network stars Carmen Villalobos and Sonya Smith among others, joined in Clear the Shelters' social media effort by posting selfies with their favorite pets.
For more information about the national pet adoption drive, visit www.ClearTheShelters.com. You can also follow the effort on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram by using the hashtag #ClearTheShelters.
Additionally, Clear the Shelters themed Snapchat filters will be activated on July 23 for pet adopters and supporters to enjoy as they document their day. Spanish-language viewers can use the hashtag #DesocuparLosAlbergues.CLOSE Mark Chernoff, WFAN's program director and vice president of CBS Radio New York, said he "would certainly at least want to consider" Governor Christie as a replacement for Mike Francesa. Wochit
Governor Christie taking to the airwaves. (Photo: AP file photo)
Making the quantum leap from the sports world to the political arena is rare, but not unheard of.
Surely the name Bill Bradley rings a bell. Ditto for bodybuilder-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But what about the other way around?
Reports that Governor Christie is “on the radar” as a possible replacement for retiring afternoon drive-time host Mike Francesa on the popular sports radio station WFAN have excited, intrigued, tickled and outraged more than a few residents of the Garden State.
Blogger Joel Keller of Somerset, who has written about broadcasting for Parade, Playboy, Salon and AOL, has listened to Christie’s guest spots on WFAN’s "Boomer and Carton" show and describes the governor as “actually, pretty good. He has a very radio-ready style, and he mixes in well with everyone else on the show. He has that one-of-the-guys type of presence and doesn’t put on airs. If he wasn’t introduced as ‘Governor Christie,’ you’d assume he belonged in that group.”
Another plus, according to Keller: “Christie actually seems to be enjoying himself. He seems very comfortable and appears to be much more in his element than he is as governor -- at least for now. And, let’s face it, he’s probably better off starting a new career at this point. I’ve heard rumors that he has a shot at some position in the White House. But, to be honest, I think WFAN is a better long-term prospect.”
Bret Leuthner, of Vernon, agrees. Leuthner, who does the play-by-play for the Sussex County Miners and the William Paterson University Pioneers hockey team, says “Christie has been dipping his toe in the radio pool for over a year now, and he has a combative style that works for him. If someone disagrees with him, he fires back. And I think WFAN likes that. A lot of people aren’t going to like him, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t listen to him.”
Leuthner compared Christie to Stephen A. Smith, the often-controversial ESPN host. “Many people can’t stand Smith and can’t stand his views,” he said. “He’s a lightning rod. But they tune in to him every day, anyway.”
Richard Deitsch, a writer and editor for Sports Illustrated who covers sports media, has been hearing those arguments for a while, but isn’t convinced.
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“Stylistically, yes,” Deitsch said, “Christie could fit on WFAN, he comes off as someone from the tri-state area, which, of course, he is, and he’s facile enough with the local teams. If he did the right preparation, he’d be better, but he would have to commit to it. To do this job you have to able to be conversant on so many teams and subjects, you can’t just come in on a parachute. And I think listeners would be able to see, early on, just how serious he is.”
Governor Christie at the WOR-AM radio studios in Manhattan in 2009. (Photo: File photo)
But beyond that, Deitsch said, “I think the issue that he could never overcome is that he has too many negatives as governor. Yes, he fits in if you tune in and don’t know who he is. But we do know who he is. And yes, there is a lot of hate-listening in the media, but I think that the level of dislike for him, especially in New Jersey, would translate into not-listening as opposed to hate-listening.
“I think that after the initial curiosity, listeners would leave quickly,” Deitsch continued. “I think it would be a disastrous hire for WFAN, long term. As a guest? I don’t care. But as a host, I personally wouldn’t listen to him because of how he treated my relatives in New Jersey.”
On the air, Christie has hinted at his interest in the job. Last month, when the governor called in to Francesa’s show, he was asked what he was going to do after he leaves office in December.
“Could you see yourself talking sports daily,” Francesa asked, “or talking whatever you want to talk about, sports or whatever you want to talk about, could you see yourself doing this kind of show every day?”
Christie replied, “Well, you can tell that I love to talk, and I love sports.”
In other words: He didn’t say no.
But so far, WFAN isn’t saying yes.
In a recent interview with The Record, WFAN’s program director, Mark Chernoff, said of the governor, “I would certainly at least want to consider him. If he’s interested and we’re interested, it’s worth pursuing.”
Andrew Bucholtz, reporting on the story for the sports website Awful Announcing, wrote that Chernoff’s statement wasn’t “particularly strong, but that’s to be expected here. WFAN has plenty of candidates to consider for Francesa’s role. Even if they did really want Christie, they wouldn’t want to tell the media that until they signed him (otherwise, it gives him more leverage in contract negotiations). It’s notable to have Chernoff on the record here saying that they’d at least consider Christie, though.”
The big question at this point is whether Christie, who waged an unsuccessful run for president last year and who briefly led Donald Trump’s transition team in the weeks after last year’s election, can overcome his poor approval ratings with residents of the Garden State.
The news that Christie might reinvent himself as a radio host didn’t go over too well with local sports fans. Westwood resident Kenneth Svec said he wouldn’t tune in “unless he has a co-host [who] is a professional sports announcer.”
Chuck Levy of Paramus was more adamant: “I will no longer listen to WFAN if that happens.” And C. Boyd Cote of Fair Lawn agreed: “I don’t listen now, just in case he is on. Listening to Christie would be like smelling a skunk.”
But Mike Landmesser of Wallington was just a bit more supportive: “I don’t care if he gets a job as a mattress tester as long as he isn’t governor.”
Read or Share this story: http://northjersy.news/2lBaYMWSeveral news portals had earlier today reported CAGM’s post about the SD which it claimed was signed by a former AmBank staff who was fired from his job for raising questions over the alleged transfer of millions to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s accounts. — Reuters pic
KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — The group responsible for releasing the purported statutory declaration (SD) by an AmBank staff claiming he was sacked for questioning the transfer of millions into Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s bank account is now claiming that the sworn document is fictitious and part of a social media experiment.
The little-known group that calls itself the Citizens for Accountable Governance Malaysia (CAGM) issued an update to its blog this evening to explain the experiment, which it said proved how the media, both local and international, thrives on reporting sensational news.
“Today is a great day for us because it shows how far we can go in Malaysia if we know how to sell a ‘great’ story.
“Today, we know all it takes is diligence, hard work and a computer with internet connection (plus a mobile phone line) to make a difference,” it wrote.
The group noted that since it issued its first press statement on May 28, it has become “famous overnight”.
CAGM has issued a number of press statements that were picked up and published by the media, including one that saw it offering a RM1 million reward to anyone who could provide information leading to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s alleged “hidden wealth and assets”.
Malay Mail Online had previously spoken to Md Zainal Abidin, the man claiming to be the chairman of the group and whose contact details are provided in each media statement, and was told that CAGM counts 2,000 professionals as its members.
But on its blog today, CAGM said that Md Zainal Abidin does not exist and is not a lawyer as claimed.
“Unfortunately, we hate to break this news to you. It is time to reveal the truth.
“To our respected editors from Malaysian Insider, Malaysiakini and all other online news portals, it breaks our heart to say this to you: There is no such lawyer by the name of Md. Zainal Abidin,” the group said.
“CAGM was just an experiment in social media in Malaysia.
“CAGM grew only because we were supported by editors who refused to check the facts but thrived on reporting sensational news.
“We became famous because editors wanted us to tell stories that could sell. Guess we did a great job,” it added.
Several news portals had earlier today reported CAGM’s post about the SD which it claimed was signed by a former AmBank staff who was fired from his job for raising questions over the alleged transfer of millions to Najib’s accounts.
The claim follows the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) July 2 expose claiming that documents from investigators have shown a money trail from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) into Najib’s accounts.
Last weekend, CAGM issued a press statement claiming to have court documents that allegedly show that millions from Najib’s AmBank accounts were used to “back up” Barisan Nasional (BN) parties in the run-up to the last federal polls.Cummings: Trump Offered Support For Family Of Aide Hurt In House Fire
If player does not show correctly, click here to listen
Rep. Elijah Cummings says that during a call from President Donald Trump, Trump asked about the congressman's special assistant, Katie Malone, who was injured in a fire at her home this month that killed six of her nine children.
"The president, one of the things he said when he first called was 'How's Katie?'" Cummings said.
Cummings said he expressed that one of Malone's chief concerns was making funeral arrangements.
"He said that he really wanted to make some type of contribution to help her out and her family and he expressed his sincere sympathy," Cummings said.
Vice President Mike Pence has also called, Cummings said. He also thanked congressional colleagues for their continued support.
Trump also wants to meet with him to discuss the price of prescription drugs, Cummings said Thursday at his Baltimore office.
Cummings says Trump told him they would not agree on everything, but they could find some common ground on trying to address the rising costs of prescription drugs.
Cummings says he's looking forward to the meeting, which hasn't been scheduled yet. He also raised some criticisms of Trump's early actions, including a reported gag order on federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and a probe into voter fraud allegations that remain unsubstantiated.
"Everybody in the world knows there's hardly any voter fraud, but at the same time...in 2014, 600,000 citizens in Texas who wanted to vote weren't able to vote," Cummings said. "This is not about the next election. This is about generations left unborn."
He said he'll bring that up when he does get an audience with Trump.
"I think it is important that we pass on a democracy that is sound, a democracy that upholds freedom of the press, a democracy that does not lead us into a question of the legitimacy of our institutions, a democracy that does not take away people's right to vote but expands their right to vote, so people have to fight back," Cummings said.
The Associated Press and Phil Yacuboski contributed to this report.Mariappan and Chandriga with their daughters Tanuja (left) and Tharahni at their home in Selayang. — Picture by Mukhriz Hazim
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 13 — Two-time Paralympic Games bronze medallist P. Mariappan recalled his glory days in a run-down flat he has called home for the past 20 years.
The walkways are wet, dimly lit and reek of urine. Although he struggles to make ends meet, there was no hiding the joy when he talked about the gold medals won by Mohamad Ridzuan Mohamad Puzi, Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli and Abdul Latif Romly.
The trio won the country’s first gold medals in Paralympics. Over the weekend, Mohamad Ridzuan won the T36 100m event, Ziyad the T20 shot put and Latif the F20 long jump.
Mohamad Ridzuan won in a Games record while Ziyad and Latif set world records en route to their victory. Ziyad broke the world record twice while Latif did it three times.
Mariappan is delighted the trio are now instant millionaires — a gold medal is worth RM1 million under the newly-revised reward scheme — but he hopes more is done for former athletes.
“I feel used. I was discarded after having served the country for so long,” said the 58-year, who competed in seven Paralympic Games (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012).
“I miss the days when the national anthem played with the flag flying high behind me on the podium,” said powerlifter, who used to sell ice cream in Ampang to eke out a living.
The Malacca-born, who came to Kuala Lumpur as a child, said life was never a bed of roses.
In 1980, before he started powerlifting, Mariappan worked as a tailor near his home in Kepong Baru.
“When I started powerlifting, it was a struggle to train and work at the same time,” said Mariappan, who was the first Malaysian to win a medal in the Paralympic Games 28 years ago.
“I eventually left my job. But even after I started winning titles, I had to work as an ice cream seller in Ampang.
“While I don’t regret my decision, I wish there were people who taught me the importance of managing money,” said Mariappan, who is grateful to have a roof over his head.
“We cannot complain, I know there are others who have it worse than us,” said Mariappan’s 46-year-old wife, Chandriga Batumalai.
“My children are still in school, my son is graduating and wants to do powerlifting as well. That will be another hurdle for us,” she said.
It was clear Mariappan’s patriotism was not lost as portraits of him with the Malaysian flag decorate the walls of the modest living room.
“I’ve accomplished a lot for Malaysia. An athlete’s time is limited. As soon as you retire, you are forgotten. I hope that won’t be the case for me and our three new heroes,” said Mariappan.
* This article first appeared in the Malay Mail Afternoon E-Paper yesterday.To: Existing Certified RESNET HERS Raters
The RESNET Board of Directors Executive Committee unanimously voted to remove the online practical simulation testing requirement for existing certified RESNET HERS Raters.
In July 2017, I communicated to you reports of technical issues with the Practical Simulation Test and an extension granted to existing raters on passing the test until staff and contractors were able to adequately address the issues.
Since then, RESNET staff and contractors have worked hard to resolve all of these technical issues. While most of the identified issues have been taken care of, unfortunately there still remain a few we have not been able to resolve. Although the practical simulation is an effective training tool, RESNET has concluded that there is no need to burden existing raters with the added stress of having to take and pass the test.
Nevertheless, the Practical Simulation Test remains appropriate for new rater candidates and we have been able to work with them on resolving difficulties on a one-on-one basis. In the case of existing raters, however, due to the sheer volume of numbers, we will be unable to do the same if we are to meet the February 1, 2018 deadline.
With this in mind and as a result of your input, the RESNET Board of Directors Executive Committee believes it is best to discontinue the practical simulation testing requirement permanently for existing raters, and has directed staff to proceed accordingly.
Therefore, beginning today, existing certified HERS Raters (those certified prior to July 1, 2016) are no longer required to pass the Practical Simulation Test. HERS Raters who have already passed the Practical Simulation Test will be credited 18 hours of professional development credits which is required every three years for recertification.
What does this mean for you?
If you are a previously certified HERS Rater and have already passed the Practical Simulation Test, you will receive a full 18 hours of Professional Development credit. This will meet your professional development requirements for three years and represents a very inexpensive way for you to achieve them. RESNET staff has received considerable feedback on the value of the simulation as an educational tool for all raters.
If you are a HERS Rater and have paid for the Practical Simulation Test but have not yet been tested, you have three options to choose from: Take and pass the test and receive the 18 hours of Professional Development credits; or Receive a full refund for the cost of the registration you paid for the Practical Simulation Test; or Apply the $200 for the test as a credit toward your registration fee for the 2018 RESNET Building Performance Conference taking place on February 26-28 in Orlando, FL.
As I said before, it is truly unfortunate that problems have been experienced with the Practical Simulation Test and we apologize for any inconvenience that these problems may have caused existing HERS Raters. RESNET staff and our contractors felt that we could resolve all of the technical issues but unfortunately this did not turn out to be the case.
Let me assure you that the RESNET Board of Directors and RESNET staff are committed to using products of the highest quality, and when you report problems, we listen and strive to make adjustments and improvements when needed. We highly value the contribution of HERS Raters and it is only through working together that we can maintain RESNET as the industry gold standard we can all be proud of.
Roy Honican
RESNET Board PresidentThe answer is simple: old math is greater than new math, according to the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
The study, titled Math Instruction that Makes Sense, "demonstrates conclusively that traditional math education methods are superior to the highly ineffective, discovery-based instructional techniques that are in vogue now in educational curricula," said a news release from the public policy think tank.
On CBC Radio Saskatchewan's The Morning Edition talks about new math and old math.
The centre suggests that to improve math instruction "schools must place a much stronger emphasis on mastering basic math skills and standard algorithms. Math curriculum guides must require the learning of standard algorithms, and textbooks must contain clear, systematic instructions as to their use."
Frontier's education research fellow Michael Zwaagstra said discovery-based instructional techniques are not of much use when students move on to college or university programs.
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy says kids should get back to the basics in math. (CBC)
The study focused on the four Western provinces.
Zwaagstra is quoted as saying that these ineffective, yet commonly used techniques are leaving a whole generation of high school students unprepared for many of their academic or vocational programs.
"In order for students to receive a strong grounding in math, they need to spend more time practising math skills such as basic addition and subtraction along with the standard multiplication tables," Zwaagstra said.
The methods these days, reported CBC's Geoff Leo, include moving to experimental approaches and moving to using blocks, charts, graphs "and even experimentation where they come up with their own math."
Leo said he spoke with a math professor who said students don't know how to do long division. He said some parents are resorting to hiring tutors to help their kids with the current program.
Zwaagstra said in the report that first-year post-secondary students "are increasingly unprepared for university-level mathematics, and this has led to a proliferation of remedial math courses at universities across Canada."
Not every child learns the same: Saskatchewan
The Saskatchewan Ministry of Education, which has been introducing new math curriculum and textbooks since 2006, said it's good to use a variety of approaches in teaching math because not every child learns in the same way.
"Within our curriculum, direct instruction has its place and so does discovery and problem solving," said Simone Gareau, the ministry's executive director of student achievement and supports.
She cautioned against thinking that the old-fashioned way of multiplying numbers is always the best approach.
"If you do the old-fashioned algorithm, 32 x 48, where students have to carry over and put in a zero to hold the spot... students can learn to do that by rote, but it doesn't necessarily mean they understand," she said.
"What we're aiming for is that deep understanding. Once they have that in place, they can move to the traditional algorithm if that's a strategy that works for them."See also Anne Fishbein's slideshow and our Google map.
What is an essential Los Angeles restaurant? I was thinking about that over lunch at Providence a couple of months ago, contemplating a dish of Santa Barbara sea urchin cosseted with gently scrambled egg, wondering whether the uni might go better with an Alsatian pinot blanc or a Central Coast viognier.
As the L.A.-based sportswear industry tends to have more global sway than the louder kings of high fashion, and even the artiest of European directors looks over his shoulders at Hollywood, Los Angeles cooking has traditionally exalted the idea of food as popular entertainment, the big fast-food chains, as well as the aestheticization of sushi, pizza and tamales. But a meal like the one before me at Providence is a different thing altogether, the result of precision, real technique and a well-trained kitchen team. Somebody had to raise the uni, someone needed to recognize it as special, somebody had to prepare it, and a fourth person needed to know how to cook it.BALTIMORE -- Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed offered a pointed critique of the NFL on Sunday night, specifically about the way the league has been policing its defensive players.
Speaking after the Ravens' 23-20 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Reed said the NFL is turning into "powder puff" football and compared commissioner Roger Goodell to a president who doesn't have to answer to Congress and simply can pass whatever laws he pleases.
Reed had his recent one-game suspension for a series of illegal hits overturned on appeal, but the eight-time All-Pro player feels like the changes in the game are affecting the way he plays.
"It sucks, man," Reed said. "It sucks really bad. It affects me, man. I thought about it coming into this game, cause obviously it happened the last time we played."
Three weeks ago, when the Ravens and Steelers met at Heinz Field, Reed was flagged for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Pittsburgh wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders. The NFL, saying it was taking into account Reed's history as a repeat offender under the league's "defenseless player" policy, said it was suspending him for Baltimore's game against the San Diego Chargers the following week, a decision that would have cost Reed $423,529 in salary.
Reed and the NFL Players Association appealed the league's decision, and arbiter Ted Cotrell overturned the suspension and reduced the fine to $50,000.
Reed, however, remains angry about the experience. In fact, he went so far as to say he feels like he was being punished for declining when the NFL asked him for a favor, although he wasn't specific about what he was asked to do.
"I feel like (the NFL) was trying to make an example out of a couple of things that happened a week before," Reed said. "I didn't want to do something for the NFL. A little bug told me there was something in the air about that, that they kind of had it out for me. That's bad. I was like, 'If you're not going to support me as a player in your league, in our league, why would you think I was going to come back and wear something on my shoulder pads to support you when you're just fining us?' "
Reed's not the only player to criticize the NFL and Goodell this season. Several Steelers have expressed frustration over what they perceive as Goodell abusing his power under the new collective bargaining agreement. Reed said Sunday he believes the league is trying to promote "powder puff" football.
"It's definitely changing the game," Reed said. "It's become an offensive league. They want more points. They want the physical play out of it, kind of. They want like powder puff to where you can just run around and score points 'cause that's going to attract the fans. I understand you want to make money, but bending the rules and making the game different, you know, it's only going to make the game worse."Sikh police officers in Britain are pushing for the development of bulletproof turbans, which they say would allow them to work as firearms officers or riot police.
To work in those units, officers are required to wear bulletproof helmets. Due to religious rules, many Sikhs do not remove their turbans, and therefore cannot comply with the regulations, says the British Sikh Police Association.
"We are looking at the issue because it stops Sikh officers serving in all roles," Sgt. Kashmira Singh Mann, the chairman of the association, told the BBC on Friday.
"It is a frustration for them — we see our colleagues putting their lives on the line and we want to serve alongside them."
Research into developing ballistic turban material has already begun, he said.
He told the BBC that it is up to Britain's Home Office to allow British officers to wear the turbans once they are developed.
"The government wants a police service that reflects the diverse communities it serves," the Daily Telegraph quoted a Home Office spokesman as saying.
"It is down to individual forces to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate the religion or beliefs of individual officers, as far as operational requirements permit."
There are currently around 2,000 Sikh officers serving in Britain.Barack Obama smile moments after he signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Bill next to U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science February 17, 2009. REUTERS/ Larry Downing Since the beginning of the Great Recession, the longstanding canard from the political and economic left has been that the "stimulus" — the Obama administration's attempt to mitigate 2009's economic trauma — was too small.
A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research takes a look at the administration's $796 billion fiscal stimulus (known as ARRA), and more specifically at the $318 billion dedicated to state and local governments.
Economists Gerald Carlino and Robert Inman reach an interesting conclusion (via Dylan Matthews):
Simulations using the SVAR specification suggest ARRA assistance would have been 30 percent more effective in stimulating GDP growth had the share spent on government purchases and project aid been fully allocated to private sector tax relief and to matching aid to states for lower-income support.
"Aggregate federal transfers to state and local governments are less stimulative than are transfers to households and firms. It is important to evaluate the two policies separately," They write. Also: "Within intergovernmental transfers, matching (price) transfers for welfare spending are more effective for stimulating GDP growth than are unconstrained (income) transfers for project spending."
The research suggests that the refrain that the stimulus was "too small" is misguided, or perhaps incomplete. If anything, the stimulus was poorly allocated.People who write code for a living have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft. Over the years the press has played up the hate (and the hype), but today I thought I would turn to one Microsoft software project which is generating genuine interest and kudos from some developers.
The product is Microsoft's free Web Platform Installer, now on version 2.0, which lets developers quickly install Microsoft's Internet Information Services and a boatload of free Web applications on top of IIS, including WordPress, Moodle, SugarCRM, and Acquia for Drupal. The fact that this Microsoft product is playing nice with open source software is remarkable in itself, but what has gotten developers particularly interested is the cloud potential. Blogger and developer Jorge Escobar yesterday said:
"I was blown away with the concept behind this application. Basically Windows has introduced point-and-click cloud computing for the masses and it's doing it in a way that resembles the iPhone application directory but for web applications.
I hate to say it but it's brilliant."
Not everyone who has seen the Web Platform Installer is so impressed, however. Last week, developer, author and podcaster Kevin Yank acknowledged that Web PI makes it "easy to set up IIS as a development environment for PHP which has been really painful in the past," but said he believed it is not getting much traction in the marketplace, where WAMP or LAMP installations are often preferred. He also said open-source developers are suspicious of anything Microsoft does, which would slow adoption.
But it's the cloud connection and the potential hooks to Azure -- Microsoft's soon-to-be-launched cloud computing platform -- that also come into play. More than a few developers commenting on a Hacker News thread that they were looking forward to Web PI applications being tied into Azure instances, even though someone identifying himself as working on the Azure platform made pains to note that the two products are "really quite distinct".
Nevertheless, the idea that Microsoft is simplifying and opening up its cloud-related offerings, and removing development obstacles and other potential barriers to entry (such as billing-related headaches) is enough to draw a lot of interest and maybe even turn the page on some of the bad feelings resulting from its bruising battles with the open-source community. In the months to come, the big question on many people's minds will be how Azure measures up in production environments, and how it works with both Microsoft and non-Microsoft applications.
Sources and research: news.ycombinator.com, SitePoint podcast #36, Microsoft.com, jungleg.com, sriramkrishnan.com, hanselman.com, kevinyank.com
Ian's bio and disclosures are located here. Follow Ian on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ilamont. Industry Standard updates and asides are available at twitter.com/the_standard and in our newsletters. You can also join our Industry Standard Facebook page and LinkedIn group.If I were in charge of a country, I would change 3 significant things:
I would legalise and monopolise all illegal drugs I would implement a universal basic income I would rigorously secularise society
Part 1. The War on Drugs has Failed
This is no secret. It is well documented now, in all sorts of ways. It costs many billions each year, it causes more harm than good, costs lives, creates crime, and completely fails to deliver on its one objective. Drugs are more accessible, cheaper, and more numerous than at any other point in history.
We need a new approach.
Portugal has been the only country to really give decriminalisation a serious go. And it has worked remarkably well for them. But decriminilisation is a weird halfway sort of solution. Sure, it isn’t ‘criminal’ any more, but it still isn’t legal. It becomes more like speeding.
If I were in charge, pending rigorous expert consultation and comprehensive review, I would immediately take steps to create a centralised government drug production and wholesale distribution system.
Initial Education
While the infrastructure was being set up, I would ensure adequate educational material was made available and regularly presented to kids of all ages, at least once a year throughout all of high school warning of the side effects and risks of drugs (in all forms), ensuring that everyone in society grows up with a valid understanding of drugs, not a fear based one. TV commercials, paper, radio, and mail-drops of informational pamphlets would also be done at this early stage to inform the public of the changes, and provide them with access to a website where more information and drug facts could be accessed.
With the warnings and education in place, the drugs would start being produced, and retail outlets would be licensed. Either directly through pharmacists, or similar to how liquor outlets are currently handled in Australia. Either way, the government would handle the production and wholesale distribution to private, highly regulated, thoroughly trained and licensed retail outlets. Every shipment of every type of drug would have information sheets which go with each batch, providing crucial information relevant to the dosage, side effects, risks, interactions etc that should be known before taking that drug.
Retail Scenario
The retail outlets would be responsible for ensuring the customer meets age restrictions (most likely 21+ for most drugs, but definitely based on scientific rigour rather than ideology), limiting the quantity purchased per customer, providing cursory verbal information, warnings and queries to ensure the customer understands the risks (as pharmacists currently do for prescription drugs), and of course, giving information pamphlets/booklets with the purchased drugs.
User Consequences
Now, all drug users have a clean reliable source of known quantities of drugs. This will significantly reduce risk of poisoning and overdose. Plus all users have readily accessible information about risks, rather than trusting ‘friends’ and random strangers to advise them. This too will have a significant impact on overdoses, overuse, addictions, bad interactions and many other risks typically assumed to be the fault of the drugs, rather than the fault of ignorance.
Crime Results
With a reliable government source, drug dealers will all be rapidly put out of business.
All of the drugs will be sold with a high tax rate and commercial mark up, so drug dealers might be able to keep lower prices. However, people will tend to prefer the certainty of knowing they are getting pure quality of known concentrations from reliable outlets over slightly lower prices. The profitability of large drug running organisations and organised crime groups will simply disappear, and with it, those groups will die a quick death. Most organised crime will simply disappear because most of them depend on their drug sales to maintain cash flow.
With the death of most organised crime groups, violence will decline. Turf wars, inter-gang rivalry, and violence to intimidate and maintain control will disappear with them. This fact is already being demonstrated with marijuana legalisation in Colorado, with violent crime declining by 5.2% in the first 6 months. Legalise all drugs, and it will be much more significant.
Revenue and Expenses
The biggest positive will be the significant new income source taken from crime syndicates and given to the government for the benefit of the public.
The costs of policing drug crime are significant, and these will nearly completely be eradicated over the course of a couple of years. The savings there alone will be immense, but they will be nothing compared to the revenue generated by the sale of the drugs, and the tax revenue generated from the retail outlets. If there is one thing we have learned over the last 50+ years of drug prohibition, it is that druglords make more money than just about anyone else in society
Some of that revenue would be lost to the initial costs – creation of the farms, laboratories and distribution networks. Ongoing staff costs, maintenance etc will be easily covered by the revenue of sale. The significant profits and the taxation from retail sales would then need to be all used for specialised drug-related concerns in society.
Investment into Education
First, there would be the education side. Some of the money would need to be put into ensuring schools can adequately teach children about the drugs, so that no one is left ignorant of their risks and dangers. So a certain amount would be invested into schools every year and specific teachers, teacher trainings, materials, and other overheads associated with this.
Medical Expenses and Drug Abuse Support
Secondly, most of the money would need to go into ‘medical’ support. This would consist of counselling, addiction treatment, rehab and outright medical expenses generated as a consequence of drug abuse. As part of the constant exposure to drug information provided under this system, constant reminders about counselling, psychological support, and medical assistance would be forever pushed on all drug users, so that no one is ever left feeling isolated, vulnerable and trapped by their drug use. This fact alone will save more lives than any other measure in my opinion (and cut medical costs by helping people avoid the devastating outcomes of untreated abuse).
One of the biggest problems created by the war on drugs is the labelling of drug abuse victims as criminals, forcing them to feel trapped by their situation, pushing them deeper into desperation, crime, isolation, mental illness etc. By breaking that stigma alone, lives will be saved, people will be helped back to functional productive members of society, and everyone will benefit.
Scientific Investment
If money remains, or after a few years of keeping enough money in buffer to compensate for fluctuating incomes and expenses, a fund should be generated for scientific research. By having easy access to all known drugs on the planet, scientific research should be delved into with rigour. Medical applications, long term consequences on individuals, society as a whole, psychology, physiology, etc. The ability to finally get some real research done on these most remarkable of chemicals will yield amazing commercial prospects for the country as new medical applications and treatments will be pioneered there exclusively.
Related to this is the fact that by controlling virtually all drug production, wholesale sales, and regulation of retail sales of drugs, it would finally be possible to get actually reliable statistics on the usage rate of drugs. Governments would be able to monitor just how much of each drug is consumed, and the
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"But it's not addressing the root problem, which is all of the unnecessary regulations that are closing clinics and placing obstacles in the path of women seeking abortion."
The heavy regulations on Texas clinics that provide abortions, coupled with the cost of an abortion — medical or surgical — is driving some women in South Texas to cross the Rio Grande to visit one of an estimated 200 pharmacies in the city of Nuevo Progreso, Mexico.
Enlarge this image toggle caption John Burnett/NPR John Burnett/NPR
In the crowded, chaotic sidewalks, it's all here for the asking: dental work, eyeglasses, pirated DVDs, tequila shots, prostitutes and cheap, plentiful medicine. Drugs that are highly restricted in the U.S. — like Xanax, Ritalin, and Valium — are sold like aspirin in Nuevo Progreso pharmacies. Misoprostol is a big seller.
A fleshy man with gold caps on his teeth named Roberto Gonzales says he worked as a clerk in a Nuevo Progreso pharmacy until recently. He remembers the constant stream of customers asking for misoprostol — sold here under the brand-name Cytotec.
"We sold it like hot bread," he says, chuckling. "The girls in Texas came over to buy this treatment — eight to 10 tablets for a pregnancy of nine weeks. It works the fastest."
Gonzales now makes a living washing cars and hustling on the streets of Matamoros. But for the eight years he worked in Nuevo Progreso, he says, he learned a few things about the drugs he sold.
"They'd ask me how to use it, and I tell them what I'd heard," he continues. "Many times the instructions inside the box tell them how to do it, how to induce an abortion. I would warn them it's dangerous. Lots of times there's heavy bleeding."
Gonzales' advice to customers highlights the risks of improvised, do-it-yourself abortions.
Instructions inside boxes of the drug sold in Mexico actually only explain how to use it for treating gastric ulcers, and don't say anything about how to take Cytotec to abort an embryo.
Because abortion is illegal in every state in Mexico, Cytotec is only sold as an ulcer medicine. That leaves customers to pick up instructions from friends, off the Internet, or from untrained pharmacy employees like Gonzales.
"Now I'm looking for work in another pharmacy," he says, before walking back to his parking lot.
"That's just a terrifying state of affairs — that women would turn to someone like that to give them that advice," says Crepps, upon hearing Gonzales' story.
"It's the 2016 version of the back-alley abortion," she says. "And it's a very sad state of affairs."
Misoprostol-only abortions — the kind offered in Mexico — are "significantly less effective" than the two-drug, combination regimen prescribed in the U.S., according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Priscilla found this out the hard way. She's a law student in Matamoros, Mexico, who says she was 18 years old when she bought some misoprostol to "bring my period back." NPR has agreed to use only her first name, to protect her privacy.
"I was at home and I took the pills, then I started to hemorrhage," she says. "I felt awful. I thought the medicine was working, but it didn't."
In Mexico, women have been prosecuted for going to a public hospital showing symptoms of an attempted abortion. So, Priscilla says, she found a doctor in her town who performs surgical abortions confidentially.
"He took me into a room," she says, "put me to sleep, and terminated the embryo. I was so scared, so confused."
Medical and surgical abortions are, of course, legal in the United States. So if there's a clinic performing abortions in the border city of McAllen, Texas, why are U.S. women going to pharmacies in Nuevo Progreso?
First, it's a matter of cost. The Rio Grande Valley of Texas is one of the poorest regions in the country. A medical or surgical abortion in McAllen costs $500 compared to a pack of pills in Mexico for under $50. Second, some women may not want to put up with all the abortion regulations in Texas. They have to get an ultrasound and have the doctor describe what he sees, and they have to see the same doctor for three appointments.
Finally, women in South Texas may not be aware that the McAllen clinic is still open. After the Texas Legislature passed the abortion law, the clinic was forced to close. Eleven months later, a federal judge told the center's staff they could reopen.
"The point is you're pregnant and you don't want to be," says Andrea Ferrigno, corporate vice president of Whole Woman's Health. "And what are the options available to you next? The last thing you heard is that the clinic is closed and there's some sort of case before the Supreme Court about it. It's confusing."
The Texas Legislature passed the anti-abortion law with the stated goal of protecting the health and safety of Texas women. Critics say it's having the opposite effect in South Texas.
I asked Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life and a big supporter of the state's anti-abortion law, if he was concerned that the harder it is to get an abortion in Texas, the more women will cross the border to get do-it-yourself abortions without a physician's care.
"I just don't see a time when abortion is not readily available in Texas," Pojman says. "That is just not our goal. We have a goal of protecting innocent human life from conception until natural death, using peaceful, legal means and by promoting compassionate alternatives to abortion."
Both sides in the abortion battle are watching the U.S. Supreme Court closely, awaiting a landmark ruling on the constitutionality of the Texas Omnibus Abortion Bill — a decision is expected this month. Abortion rights supporters say if the justices uphold the law, regardless of the FDA label changes, more clinics will close, and the Mexican pharmacies will get even more business.Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called allegations that Judge Roy Moore initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl while in his 30s are "serious and troubling" and that he should withdraw from the race immediately if they are true.
"These are serious and troubling allegations," Cruz said in a statement. "If they are true, Judge Moore should immediately withdraw. However, we need to know the truth, and Judge Moore has the right to respond to these accusations."
Cruz is one of five Republican senators to endorse Moore's campaign for the Senate seat after he defeated Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., in September. The others are Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas; Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Mike Lee, R-Utah; and Steve Daines, R-Mont.
Moore denied the allegations that were reported by the Washington Post earlier Thursday and ignited a firestorm. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also said Moore should withdraw if the accusations are accurate.
Moore is set to face off against Democrat Doug Jones on Dec. 12, with the winner filling the remainder of Attorney General Jeff Sessions' term.With the popularity of WordPress as a publishing platform, security testing is an important part of ensuring the installation is secure. Nmap has a couple of NSE scripts specifically for the testing of WordPress installations. Using those scripts as a base I have developed a couple more that expand the capabilities of using Nmap to audit WordPress installations.
Looking for the code? Jump over to my github repo for my latest updates.
Nmap comes with two Lua NSE scripts for high level testing of WordPress installations. The scripts allow for brute forcing of the plugins on the system and for enumerating WordPress user accounts that are on the system.
http-wordpress-plugins.nse
In addition to identifying the plugins in use I have added a feature to the http-wordpress-plugins.nse script that will identify the version of the installed plugin and compare that to the latest version that is checked in real time against the WordPress Plugin API.
-- Interesting ports on my.woot.blog (123.123.123.123): -- PORT STATE SERVICE REASON -- 80/tcp open http syn-ack -- | http-wordpress-plugins: -- | search amongst the 500 most popular plugins -- | akismet 3.0.4 (latest version: 3.0.4) -- | wordpress-seo 1.7 (latest version: 1.7.1) -- | disqus-comment-system 2.83 (latest version: 2.84) -- |_ wp-to-twitter 1.2 (latest version: 1.45)
http-wordpress-themes.nse
Based on the NSE script http-wordpress-plugins.nse I cranked out a variation that tests for WordPress themes. One of the often overlooked parts of keeping a secure WordPress installation is ensuring all themes (even inactive ones) are kept up to date or removed if not in use. Security vulnerabilities can be found in WordPress themes and these are often exploitable even if the theme is inactive.
The wp-theme.lst was created after I crawled the Alexa top 1 million sites and found around 200000 WordPress sites. By basing the theme list on the in use themes and sorting by popularity this list is a good representation of the most popular themes in being used across the web.
-- Interesting ports on my.woot.blog (123.123.123.123): -- PORT STATE SERVICE REASON -- 80/tcp open http syn-ack -- | http-wordpress-themes: -- | search amongst the 500 most popular themes -- | twentyfourteen 1.3 -- | canvas 5.8.7 -- |_ twentytwelve 1.5
http-wordpress-info.nse
Rather than brute forcing paths this script is much more polite and will only download the main page of the WordPress site and examine the theme and plugin paths in the html. The WordPress version will also be identified using the default readme.html file if the meta generator is not present.
http-wordpress-enum.nse
The http-wordpress-enum.nse script comes with default Nmap installation and allows you to attempt to identify users of the WordPress installation. Once you have user names it is possible to brute force the passwords using methods I detailed in the attacking wordpress article.Nearly 400 migrants are living at the makeshift camp in La Chapelle in northern Paris
Police have said they are planning the imminent dismantling of a migrant camp in the La Chapelle area of Paris over fears of a disease epidemic. FRANCE 24 visited the camp where close to 400 people live in cramped and squalid conditions.
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It is 9.30 on Saturday morning when Saudia emerges from her tent. She manages a smile despite looking still half asleep. The 26-year-old Ethiopian arrived in Paris around a month ago. Like hundreds of others, she decided to make her home at the La Chapelle camp, in the north of the French capital.
A haphazard collection of tents and mattresses beneath the overground Metro tracks, the camp first sprung up in the summer of 2014. Its numbers have grown rapidly, doubling since the beginning of the year.
Rubbish accumulates between mattresses lining the floor while every five minutes or so the ground shakes from the deafening noise of a train passing overhead.
Some of the tents are soaked in urine leaking from portable toilets and urinals nearby. At times, the smell is overwhelming.
‘This place has become a slum!’
Asked to describe conditions in the camp, Saudia simply holds her nose. “But where else can I go in my state?” she says as she places her hand on her belly.
“Pregnant,” she says in French, proud to show her mastery of a word in a language that was completely unknown to her just a few months ago.
Like many of her neighbours, Saudia hopes to stay in France, rather than attempt the journey to the UK – often the preferred destination of migrants travelling to Europe.
“I came by sea from Libya. Once in Italy, I came to France by car,” she says. “Now, I’m tired, but it’s okay. There are doctors nearby [a hospital, Hôpital Lariboisière, is located just a few metres from the camp], there are charities which give us food.”
Some local residents have also taken pity on the migrants.
“Tell them to share the apples and give the clementines to the youngest, they’re full of vitamins,” says an elderly lady after forging a route through the tents and mattresses to handout an armful of fruit.
Mattresses are spread out on the floor of the La Chapelle migrant camp. © AFP / Eric Feferberg
Samira, another Ethiopian who lives in the tent next to Saudia’s, so close that they are touching, grabs an apple before joining the conversation.
“You want to stay here?” she asks her neighbour. "You will be the only one. This place has become a slum!”
The camp’s sanitary conditions are also her biggest complaint.
“People brush their teeth next to people who are urinating,” says the 25-year-old. “To get changed, I have to lock myself in the toilets, but it’s very dirty.”
Neither Samira nor Saudia have been able to take a shower this week.
Whether the migrants stay or go, however, will probably not be down to them. Paris police have made plans to dismantle the camp in the near future, mostly for health reasons.
The Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) humanitarian organisation, whose members make weekly rounds at the camp, also fear the potential risks of the unsanitary conditions.
“For the moment, there are no signs of an epidemic but that does not mean the risk doesn’t exist,” a Médecins du Monde spokesperson told FRANCE 24. “We could see soon see the appearance of scabies, for example.”
Emmaüs Solidarité, an association charged by city officials with coordinating humanitarian aid for the camp’s residents, is also concerned.
“There are 300 to 400 people here today. The situation is untenable,” says Bruno Morel, the association’s president.
“We try to improve their lives; we distribute toothbrushes, blankets and food. But the situation is very precarious. And it is not just the dangers posed by the sanitary conditions, there could also be a fire risk. When you let 400 people live without minimum safety measures, there will always be risks.”
‘No choice’
There is little mingling between the camp’s different nationalities. The Somalis stay on one side, the Sudanese and Eritreans on the other.
All, however, share more or less the same story: the flight through Libya, the crossing of the Mediterranean – a deadly endeavour that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people in April alone – the arrival in Italy then the finally the journey to France.
Khaled, Majig, Abdulaziz and Ishag, originally from Sudan, arrived in Paris together.
“We had no choice,” says Khaled as he sits on a square of tarmac in the sun. “You know what is going on in Sudan. Why are people surprised to see us here?”
None of them want to be photographed. Indeed, the mere presence of a camera is enough to cause tension in the camp.
“Do you think you are at the zoo?” one migrant says in English from the other side of the camp, leaning on a metal railing.
Where the migrants will go after the camp is dismantled is the question on the minds of both its residents and authorities.
Paris City Hall has insisted on the need to offer accommodation to all the camp’s inhabitants, whether or not they are seeking asylum in France. But with emergency shelters in the capital already at saturation point, where to find such accommodation remains a big problem.
Some of the migrants have already found a solution of their own: making the journey across town to the Austerlitz train station, where another camp has already sprung up.
Whatever happens, no one is thinking about going home.
“I would have preferred to have stayed in Sudan,” says Khaled. “I love my country, but it has become hell there. I will not return as long as there is war. At least here, even sleeping in a tent, I do not risk dying.”
This article has been translated from the original in French.The German has emerged as one of Renault’s key targets to lead its outfit in 2017 as it continues to ramp up the Enstone-based operation following its takeover last winter.
Other targets that Renault had been interested in – like Stoffel Vandoorne, Carlos Sainz and Valtteri Bottas – all became unavailable, but the Hulkenberg situation has become more solid in recent days.
Although Hulkenberg had previously committed to a Force India contract, it is understood there has long been scope for him to get out of the deal.
That scenario left Renault convinced that efforts to push for the German could be successful, as it targeted a driver that it could get on board for the next few seasons.
Sources have suggested that Hulkenberg’s talks with Renault are at a very advanced stage with at outline agreement having been put in place. However, it is believed that a final contract has not been completed at this stage.
Should the Hulkenberg deal get over the line, then it is highly likely that the German will be partnered by Frenchman Esteban Ocon, who has impressed after getting quickly up to speed at Manor this season.
It is unclear who Force India would take to replace Hulkenberg, but Mercedes young driver Pascal Wehrlein would be an obvious choice to help please its engine partner.In her article, "This Muslim organisation’s campaign for a ban on triple talaq is commendable but blinkered", published in Scroll.in on June 20, Flavia Agnes starts off by praising the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan’s “commendable campaign” as a mere prelude to running down the organisation’s enviable track record and attributing mean motives to it.
By accusing the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan of a blinkered approach, the women’s rights lawyer exposes her own myopia. To capture the big picture of a dynamic movement involving over one lakh members from across 15 states (numbers never before heard of in the context of any progressive Muslim organisation), you need a telephoto or a wide-angle, not a close-up lens. However, to arrive at her damning verdict Agnes chooses to zero in on a single case study of a triple talaq victim among many put out by the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan.
Faulty argument
Her angst against the Andolan is better understood if her June 20 article is read along with her earlier piece, published in Scroll.in in May, "The debate on triple talaq and Muslim women’s rights is missing out on some crucial facts". Taken together, Agnes’s basic premise is this: Both a secular statute – the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, and “a codified portion of the Islamic law” – the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 – are already in place. Nothing more is really needed.
Agnes’ argument essentially is that Muslim women victims of triple talaq and other indignities have successfully been using these enactments to get justice from the courts. Where is the need then for a Shayara Bano to go crying to the Supreme Court, or for the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan to be screaming itself hoarse, demanding abolition of triple talaq (instant divorce) and a judicial declaration that it was unconstitutional?
All that is needed, according to Agnes, “is a competent and conscientious lawyer who is well-versed with existing legal measures and can help [Muslim women] claim their rights, without charging an exorbitant fee – something that is sadly lacking in our country.”
What’s this but an admission that her own solution is itself a problem: there simply aren’t enough socially-committed lawyers who will charge modest fees to fight for justice.
Let’s assume that, as advocated by Agnes, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan starts directing every woman who approaches them to Majlis, the Mumbai-based women’s rights organisation that Agnes co-founded and currently heads.
Should we also assume that Majlis has enough lawyers to take up each and every case from Mumbai that is brought to its notice? And what happens to thousands of female victims across the country where there is no Majlis?
What silent reform?
And that’s not all. There are larger issues involved. In her May 25 article, Agnes claimed there is a “silent reform taking place every day in our courts”. The problem with courtroom reform is this: It is so silent that few people have heard of it even as they keep hearing the ulema’s ongoing sermon that though theologically repugnant, once the dreaded words “talaq, talaq, talaq” are uttered – whether orally, or via SMS, WhatsApp, email or fax – a marriage is over.
It is so silent that Muslim men continue to dump their wives without qualms, happy with the ulema’s fatwa which tells them that the blatantly inhuman, unjust, anti-women practice is “Allah’s Law”.
The silent reform in courtrooms is simply not enough. The crying need of the hour is for a visible, high-decibel campaign to confront the ulema-perpetuated prevailing belief that though bad, it’s a done thing in Islam to damn your wife when you wish, at your pleasure, or whim.
The silent reform does little to shake-up the patriarchal social system wherein the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, lawyers and the “thousands of counselling centres run by NGOs”, which Agnes refers to, peacefully co-exist. No one challenges anyone, no one gets hurt or upset; all can continue doing their own thing.
It is this convenient arrangement that Shayara Bano’s petition in the Supreme Court, and the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan’s campaign have disturbed and that’s why there is such discomfort all around.
Invalid is not illegal
In cases that have come before them so far, courts have held that triple talaq is invalid as it short-circuits the elaborate Quranic injunctions. What Muslim women are seeking today is a verdict that declares instant divorce as unconstitutional, hence illegal.
On Facebook, Majlis – which Agnes is a director of – claims that “Instant talaq was banned by the Supreme Court in 2002”. Curiously, in her two articles published in Scroll.in, Agnes doesn’t make this claim.
Senior lawyers this writer spoke to say that a verdict declaring a practice as invalid is not the same as it being banned, declared bad in law or unconstitutional.
Agnes praises the “codified portion of the Islamic law” – Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 – but scoffs at the Andolan’s efforts towards codification of every aspect of Muslim family law.
However, imagine the societal implications of an enactment which outlaws instant divorce and stipulates that a Muslim male who does so will be imprisoned for two years plus pay a hefty fine?
A case of ignorance?
Agnes’ sharpest criticism of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan is reserved for their running a so-called women’s shariah court. I have reservations about shariah courts within a secular polity but I also ask myself this: In daring to pitch their tent in what is an exclusive Muslim male domain, in choosing to clothe their pre-judicial counselling, reconciliation efforts in a shariah garb, could it be that the Andolan’s women’s courts are not about Muslim women tinkering with a secular polity but about confronting the male monopoly over the interpretation of Islam? Could it be that some Muslim women prefer a pre-judicial arbitration mechanism such as the one the Andolan offers to an expensive, time-consuming litigation process.
Agnes’ “point of discomfort” with the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan’s campaign against triple talaq also rests on her allegation that the organisation has a single-point agenda.
Having witnessed the Andolan’s multi-pronged efforts in a number of states – including activities of concern to the Muslim community as a whole – I am aghast at this claim especially given the locational proximity of the two organisations and the fact that they have worked together in the past.
Interestingly, in the last few weeks several Muslim bodies – Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat-ul-ulema-e-Hind, All-India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, many from the All India Muslim Personal Law Board – have been talking of launching a nationwide campaign against triple talaq. Not to demand its ban, but to “educate Muslims”.
I doubt these campaigns will achieve much.
Nevertheless, who may claim credit for having jolted these custodians of Indian Islam and Muslims from their unbroken slumber?
For the urgently-needed reform within the Indian Muslim community, the “silent reform” within courtrooms is simply not enough. Both the petition in the Supreme Court and a nationally visible campaign is essential to awaken the community. We should be grateful to all those who are engaged in it.Today Forza and Lamborghini unveiled the next step in our ongoing partnership. As part of that collaboration, we’re unveiling a brand new program in Forza Motorsport 6 – the Lamborghini Super Trofeo race series! The Lamborghini Super Trofeo series is an exciting new way for Forza Motorsport 6 players to compete across two full seasons of Rivals and League events in some of Lamborghini’s most exciting race cars. In addition, all Forza 6 players will have a chance to earn an exclusive bonus car – the 2015 Lamborghini #63 Squadra Corse Hurácan LP620-2 Super Trofeo.
Starting today, we are kicking off a series of Lamborghini-themed events in Rivals and Leagues that will give every Forza 6 player the chance to earn cars they won’t get anywhere else, including that exclusive Hurácan Super Trofeo. The Lamborghini Super Trofeo series will be split into two three-week seasons; here’s a closer look at how each season will run and what’s at stake.
SEASON 1: March 2 – 22
In Season 1 players will be competing in weekly Rivals and League events in order to earn special liveried variants of the 2014 Lamborghini Gallardo Super Trofeo race car. Each Tuesday, we’ll open up a new Rivals event starring the 2014 Lamborghini #18 DragonSpeed Gallardo LP 570-4 Super Trofeo on a new track, and that event will close on the subsequent Monday. Depending on how players finish in that week’s Rivals event, they will have a chance at earning a special gold, silver, or bronze variant liveried version of the Gallardo Super Trofeo.
Each Friday, we will then open a new League event, starring the 2014 Lamborghini #14 GMG Racing LP 570-4 Super Trofeo; these League events will run until the following Monday and players will be able to earn another variant liveried version of the GMG Racing Super Trofeo based on their finish position in the League. See the chart below for more details on how to earn each weekly event’s variant cars.
Your ultimate goal for Season 1 is to earn the exclusive bonus car – the 2015 Lamborghini #63 Squadra Corse Hurácan LP620-2 Super Trofeo – which will only be available via this Lamborghini Super Trofeo series, and which will be your ticket to competing in Season 2. To earn this exclusive bonus car, all you need to do is collect THREE of the variant livery Lamborghini Super Trofeo cars during Season 1. You can mix and match however you like – for example, earning three bronze Variant Livery Gallardos via weekly Rivals, or two League variants and one Rivals variant. However you do it, get three Super Trofeos in Season 1 and you will earn you the Hurácan Super Trofeo and entrance into Season 2.
Weekly Rewards – Season 1 Criteria Rivals Bronze Variant Livery Gallardo Super Trofeo Set a clean lap in weekly Rivals event Rivals Silver Variant Livery Gallardo Super Trofeo Finish in the top 15% of weekly Rivals event Rivals Gold Variant Livery Gallardo Super Trofeo Finish in the top 5% of weekly Rivals event League Variant Livery GMG Racing Super Trofeo Finish in the top 50% of weekly League Hurácan Super Trofeo Bonus Car Finish Season 1 with three Super Trofeo variants
NOTE: Players can only win ONE car per week via Rivals, depending on where they finish in that week’s event. For example, a top 5% finisher will win the Gold Variant Livery Gallardo, but will not win the Silver and Bronze variants.
A look at this week’s League gift car, going to the top 50% in the Season 1, Week 1 League.
SEASON 2: March 22 – April 12
Season 2 kicks off on 3/22 and will end on 4/12. As mentioned above, Season 2 is all about the 2015 Lamborghini #63 Squadra Corse Hurácan LP620-2 Super Trofeo, which will be the sole car used in all of the events. As in Season 1, we’ll be kicking off three weeks of weekly Rivals and League events starring the Hurácan and, just as in Season 1, you’ll be able to collect liveried variants of this exclusive bonus car, depending on how you finish each week in the Rivals and League events (see table below for details).
The series’ ultimate prize is a one-of-a-kind liveried version of the Super Trofeo Hurácan, available only to those players who have collected ALL SIX Hurácan variants during Season 2. Naturally the competition will be tougher in Season 2, making this the ultimate prize for Lamborghini race fans.
Weekly Rewards – Season 2 Criteria Rivals Bronze Variant Livery Hurácan Super Trofeo Set a clean lap in weekly Rivals event Rivals Silver Variant Livery Hurácan Super Trofeo Finish in the top 15% of weekly Rivals event Rivals Gold Variant Livery Hurácan Super Trofeo Finish in the top 5% of weekly Rivals event League Variant Livery Hurácan Super Trofeo Finish in the top 50% of weekly League Ultimate Trophy Variant Hurácan Super Trofeo Finish Season 2 with six Hurácan variants
NOTE: Players can only win ONE car per week via Rivals, depending on where they finish in that week’s event. For example, a top 5% finisher will win the Gold Variant Livery Hurácan, but will not win the Silver and Bronze variants.
The Lamborghini Super Trofeo series begins today in Forza Motorsport 6. Stay tuned for updates throughout the series, and good luck to all players! To discuss this event with the rest of the Forza Motorsport community, check out our dedicated post on the Forza Forums.10. Pixlr
9. The Scale of the Universe
8. The Rasterbator
7. 10 Minute Mail
6. Filler Deals
5. Child's Own Studio
4. Incomputech
3. MorgueFile
2. "agoodmovietowatch"
1. CamelCamelCamel
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There are tons of seriously awesome websites out there and chances are that you know a few of them yourself. We've talked about several in the past and we've also gone over to the complete opposite end of the spectrum, writing about completely useless websites instead.Today, we present you with a smaller selection full of seriously awesome websites you probably never knew existed. Unless you did. All of them serve some type of useful purpose.Need to do some image manipulation? Don't have Photoshop and require something a little bit better than Microsoft Paint? Try Pixlr, a free (or paid) web based app that gives you full image manipulating functionality on the go. Even better, if you're already somewhat familiar with Photoshop or other image manipulation software then the functionality of Pixlr won't be that difficult to get used to.And even better yet - it also has both an Android and an iOS app.Ever want to know how big or small something is? You'd be hard-pressed to find a go-to resource more impressive than this website by Cary Huang. It's completely interactive and lets you zoom in and out, back and forth, until you've shrunken down to something as minuscule as quantum foam (10 ^-35.0) or as massive as the size of the observable universe (10 ^27).Either way, those are numbers with a lot of zeroes in them.Ever have a photo or an image that you wanted to blow-up and plaster on your bedroom wall?Of course you have. The Rasterbator is your source for turning this lifelong fantasy of yours into a physical, tangible reality. Go treat yourself to the wall art youWe've all run across sign-up forms before that promise some type of great offer at the cost of divulging your private email address and personal identity. 10 Minute Mail provides the much needed cure.Visit this website and get access to a completely fake email address that will self-destruct after only 10 minutes, giving you just enough time to get the prize you're after. Meanwhile, the guy collecting the addresses will only gets a false lead. If you need additional time (for whatever reason) then just press the "I need 10 more minutes!" button and get yourself that extra time. This place lists all sorts of useful goodies, ranging from home, to clothing, to geeky and much more. The best part is that in order to make the cut onto Filler Deal's list, everything here costs $15 or less. Fair warning - the products listed here are all Amazon affiliate links; you just have the advantage of items already being pre-sorted into useful categories.Kids make doodles all the time, but usually those doodles are restrained to pictures on paper. Wendy Tsao's website, Child's Own Studio, matches your child's artwork with a craft artist in order to turn it into a stuffed toy. Not a bad idea for a birthday or holiday gift for the kid who has everything!Although its name makes it sound a bit like a place to buy computer parts, Incomputech is nothing of the sort. This awesome website is home to royalty free music that can be used in films, games, commercials and more, without any cost to yourself. All it requires is that you credit Incomputech when you use their music, and provide a link back to them.The music is all made by the owner, Kevin MacLeod, and is sorted into easy-to-navigate categories for your benefit.While on the topic of free-to-use resources, MorgueFile is one of your best awesome websites for finding non-copyright images for your website or blog. Even better, the images here do not require any attribution whatsoever, meaning that you can use them without linking back.As for the quality of the images? All the images you are seeing on this article came from MorgueFile, so let that speak for itself.Highly-rated, little-known movies. " agoodmovietowatch " picks movies that received high reviews and ratings from viewers and critics alike, narrows them down to films that didn't do so hot in the box office and then recommends them to you. They don't use an algorithm to make their selections so you can rest assured you're getting quality selections.They also sort their suggestions based on mood, genres, and films that are available on Netflix.Perhaps somewhat oddly named, CamelCamelCamel lets you track prices on Amazon so you can tell if you're getting a good deal on the product you're after. It's free to use and gives you graphs full of useful information. The best buyer is one who has knowledge.Hopefully you've found some useful resources in this list of awesome websites. Leave us a comment with your thoughts and recommendations for any others.It doesn't appear likely that Ronda Rousey will return to the Octagon, but that's not going to stop UFC president Dana White with heaping praise on the former UFC women's bantamweight champion.
Despite the massive success that Conor McGregor has achieved, White credits much of the UFC's crossover into the mainstream with Rousey's star power, particularly on the women's side of the sport.
Prior to meeting Rousey, about five or six years ago, White famously had no interest in bringing women into the Octagon. After meeting the then-Strikeforce champion, he did a 180-degree turn.
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Not only did he bring Rousey and other women into the UFC, he went all in. Rousey was inaugurated as the first UFC women's bantamweight champion and she defended the belt against Liz Carmouche in the first women's fight in the Octagon in the UFC 157 headliner.
Rousey defended the belt six consecutive times before losing back-to-back bouts to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes in her two most recent bouts.
Despite all her accolades, Rousey has drawn heavy criticism, particularly since losing to Holm and Nunes. As such, White believes that his former star doesn't get enough credit for what she achieved.
“(Rousey is) underrated,” he said on Sunday's Pardon My Take podcast. “Look at what she did. Look at what she built. She started it all.”
TRENDING > Dana White Lays Out a Path to Conor McGregor vs. Georges St-Pierre
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Since Rousey's emergence, in just four short years, the women's side of the Octagon has gone from zero divisions to four. Originally starting solely with the 135-pound bantamweight division, White and company eventually added the strawweight (115-pound) division, which has started to fill out, and more recently added the featherweight (145-pound) and flyweight (125-pound) classes as well.
“You had such a dominant female fighter. She was so bad ass and she spoke well and she was pretty,” White continued. “That whole combination of what she was built that whole female mixed martial arts phenomenon. She was the right person at the right time to do it.”
Follow MMAWeekly.com on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and InstagramI literally sat my fat butt up in my seat and I go, ‘Oh my God, I got exactly what he’s going to do, and this will work.’
And the important thing is he went after it … by making the villain government policies: trade and treaties that have destroyed the jobs. He didn’t villainize the Chinese people, he didn’t even villainize their government—he villainized our stupid politicians. But what that gave him, from beginning to end, was credibility and sincerity because his message did not change from the beginning to the end of
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best way to boost morale in a team.
With that in mind, in January 2002 a test was arranged for Lauda to have a few laps in a Jaguar at Valencia in order to give him a greater understanding of modern F1 cars and what was required of both the team and the drivers. It didn’t exactly go well, as he span twice at the same corner in his first three laps, stalling on the second occasion and having to be towed back to the pits. He went back out and completed some more laps without drama, but his lap times were some 15 seconds off that of the regular drivers.
Lauda didn’t quite apologise for his previous comments, stating that he still felt it was easier to drive than the cars of his era, but did admit he’d gained more understanding of the technical aspects of the car. Perhaps it’s unfair to criticise a man who was 51 at the time and hadn’t driven a single-seater in almost 17 years for not being brilliant, but his comments certainly came back to bite him and made the whole thing slightly amusing.
He’s since made similar comments about F1 cars being too easy to drive, so maybe he hasn’t learned his lesson, or maybe he just genuinely believes it. Or maybe he knows that with testing time for modern cars heavily restricted by the FIA, he won’t have to try and prove himself again. Never change, Niki.I’ve written a fair bit here about wedding videography and making wedding videos. It is a great industry to get into and can earn you big money, whether that be as a main bread-winner for your video business, or as a side income part time.
The truth is, wedding videographers see some crazy stuff. Just ask anyone who’s been in the wedding industry long enough!
This is 11 Things That Will Happen When You Shoot Wedding Videos. Pros will recognize most of these straight away. So consider this something of a ‘you’ll see these things if you’ve been in the industry long enough’ kind of piece.
1. A guest will ‘think’ they’re the videographer for the day
This is a super common one that I’m sure all experienced wedding videographer will relate to right away.
“Uncle Jack has always had an interest in video.”
That’s how it begins.
If you hear those words, run for the hills. Or don’t, because, well — you have a wedding to film, after all.
But when you hear those words, know that you may be in for a long day. Because Uncle Jack, complete with his mid 1990s camcorder is going to passionately and haphazardly insert himself into every situation throughout the day. And, thus, into every one of your shots. If you let him.
Yes, if you’ve shot weddings for long enough, you will have dealt with an Uncle Jack. Or two.
The craziest one I have ever seen is an Uncle Jack who was actually the bride’s father. And, no, this isn’t some kind of interbreeding thing!
It seemed like this guy made it his mission to try to outdo us on the day and make a better film. Despite the fact that he was, you know, the bride’s father and everything. You’d think he’d have better things to be doing like walking his duaghter down the aisle!
But after a long and annoying history of his ‘time in the game’ said loudly to anyone and everyone during the bridal prep (it amounted to a couple of years in an AV club in the 1970s, or something) he then thrust himself and his camera into every scenario throughout the day. Most notably the walking down the aisle with his daughter bit!
Yes, he was there with his mid-90s camcorder trying to get the best shot of his daughter walking down the aisle! I kid you not!
And when he said he wanted the groomsmen together because he wanted to “Reservoir Dogs this thing,” well…I made myself scarce.
What a character!
Tips to avoid Uncle Jacks? Be polite but firm. You’ll find that’s a running theme throughout this post.
But, yeah, do what you can to politely tell them that you’re the official videographer here and that the bride and groom have spent a lot of money having the film made.
Still, be careful not to offend, as this is a wedding and the kind of stuff you can get away with on a corporate shoot is out of place at a wedding.
2. Someone’s going to ask you not to film them
Yes, a bride and groom have spent a lot of money and time and resources on putting on an unforgettable day for everyone. They’ve even paid you, the videographer, a large sum of money to capture the entire day for posterity…
Everything’s looking beautiful and the level of craft and energy that’s gone into the day is on full display…
You get out your camera, safe in the knowledge that you’re going to get some fantastic shots that the couple will love…
And then, as you raise the camera up and flick through your ISO settings, some moody bridesmaid says, “Can you please not film me…my makeup isn’t done!”
Yes, welcome to the world of weddings and bridesmaid-zillas.
Okay, that’s a (largely) exaggerated version. Most people you’ll meet at weddings are awesome. Most people are positive and upbeat and want the couple to have the best possible day.
Still, there’s the odd person here and there who thinks the wedding is all about them. They’ll either make a scene and try to get as much attention of themselves as possible. Or…they’ll do the opposite and demand that you not film them.
It can take any of the following forms:
A bridesmaid hasn’t had her makeup done yet — “I look terrible like this!”
A bride’s mother in the morning (or throughout the day!) saying variations of “Don’t film me, I don’t look as young as I once did!”
Less common, but still happens, is a groomsman who asks not to be filmed.
Oh, and it’s closely related to the next point…
3. Everyone is going to think you’re the photographer
People are going to think you’re the wedding photographer. Especially if you shoot wedding videos with a DSLR.
Yes, even if you shoot with a C100.
Even if you shoot with an FS700.
Lord knows, if you rocked up with an Arri Alexa, people are still going to mistake you for the wedding photographer.
I have a number of theories why this is. But, for whatever reason, 99% of wedding guests have either:
no knowledge that wedding videography exists.
think any camera at a wedding must be taking still photographer
or some other blind spot or quirk of understanding.
It’s frustrating sometimes, as you can sometimes be confused for the photographer’s apprentice or something similar. The photographer runs the day for the most part, so people naturally think you’re his subordinate. This is especially true if you’re doing docu style, fly on the wall weddings with zero cheesy posing and direction of the couple.
And it’s funny because I’ve actually told close friends that I shoot (or shot) wedding films and they still introduce you to newly engaged acquaintances as “this guy is a wedding photographer, if you’re looking for wedding photos!”
Even friends that I’ve corrected multiple times.
It’s like people have a blind spot and just don’t understand the concept of making a wedding film. Maybe it’s a failing of the industry that we can be so undercover. Or perhaps a quirk of misunderstanding due to wedding photography being so ever-present in films and TV shows.
4. You’re going to go to the wrong church / venue / prep location
Whether it be through Sat-Nav error, miscommunication, or sheer stressed-human error, you’ll head to a location confident in the knowledge that you are heading to the right place…only to find that you’re not.
You have arrived at a location…just not the one you’re meant to be at.
Yes, it happens to the best of us. If you shoot enough weddings, even the most organized and efficient among us will head to the wrong location at some point.
What if that happens to you? Dust yourself off and carry on with the day. There’s nothing much you can do now. Yes, you can’t ask them to re-do the ceremony, and you can’t ask the couple to reenact that end of ceremony kiss. You just need to be honest and say that you messed up.
Take full responsibility, but save it till after the big day to avoid upset.
5. Vicars are going to vicar
I don’t want to offend any religious readers. But, yeah, vicars do…pretty much do whatever they want.
Some of the biggest issues I’ve ever had with wedding videography (when I did it) were caused by vicars (or other religious ceremony givers). Whether it’s:
being obstinate and sometimes outright rude.
being difficult to the point that the film is compromised.
creating unnecessary stress and tension during the ceremony.
Look, I get it. It’s their house.
I know that, and that’s exactly the attitude I go in with when filming in a church, or other religious place. I go in being polite and respectful. However, there’s a certain element who seem to have it in for videographers (and photographers) and seem to want to make our work as difficult as possible.
The majority are fine, and some are really cool, but I’ve had too many vicars and ceremony runners causing issues over the years to not mention this point.
And, you know what, if you mention during an Initial Meeting with the bride and groom that the only issues you tend to get on a wedding day are caused by vicars…they never believe you.
Of course, vicars are all sunshine and rainbows with the couple.
But if you dare work in their church…some of them are going to make your life difficult, buddy.
And if you want to operate a drone at the wedding, you could be in for a world of pain! When it comes to churches, drone use can be incredibly tricky. Here’s a great infographic from Park Ave Studio:
Most of the difficult ones go on about some bad experience they’ve had in the past with videographers or photographers. Whether it’s true or not, it’s terrible to paint everyone with the same brush. I guess I’m optimistic, but I always thought that vicars would have a bit more understanding than they sometimes have towards us videographers on a wedding day.
My advice: be polite but firm if you have to be. But don’t rock the boat. It’s not worth being known as the videographer who the vicar shouted at part-way through the ceremony! 😉
6. People are going to get emotional
You’re going to deal with a whole bunch of different personalities and moving parts.
That goes without saying.
You’ll meet all kinds of characters when filming weddings. And the fact that you’re filming means that you have a unique view of proceedings.
Not only are you sober all day (unlike most wedding guests), but, if you’re doing your job right, you’re also concentrating on capturing emotion.
In this way, you’ll see a lot of small things that other miss.
The way the father of the bride looks at his daughter just before they walk through the church doors together. The look on the groom’s mother’s face as she sits across from the family she is clearly still ‘unsure’ about. Or the not so secret glances of the bride and groom as they spend some rare alone time together when you take them out for the creative shoot.
Your should appreciate that honor and take it very seriously.
As a wedding videographer, you get invited into their private lives for one day. And it’s often a very intimate invitation. Know what I mean?
It’s a strange thing to try to explain, but sometimes it’s almost like being there with a camera kinda makes you an outsider to such an extent that they almost forget you’re there.
I’ve seen it all, from brides casually getting undressed in front of me, to hearing really intimate conversations between couples when they know you are within earshot, to drunken (and awkward) musings from the bride’s mother about what she “used to do when she was my daughter’s age.”
7. The catering will let you down…from time to time
One of the ongoing and repetitive conversations we’d always have with photographers on the day would be about food.
“Are you getting fed?”
“Does anyone know what the food situation is today?”
“Are you catered for?”
Or variations of those questions. All the time.
Now, we had in our contract that we required feeding. And a hot meal at that.
Still, getting fed on the day is a role of the dice.
For one, even if you do discuss food in the Initial Meeting (you are having an Initial Meeting with your couples, aren’t you?), there’s no guarantee that:
the bride and groom will definitely have told the hotel / caterers / reception restaurant.
the hotel /caterers / restaurant staff (or whoever it is who’s dealing with food on the day) will remember to cook for you.
the hotel /caterers / restaurant staff will remember to give you the food
the hotel /caterers / restaurant staff will give you the food on time, so that you can still go and film the speeches in…5 minutes!
and if they do remember all of the above and the stars are aligned, do you get some horrendous leftovers or a tray of yesterday’s hotel sandwiches!?
So, as you can see, even with best intentions from all sides, it can be a real roll of the dice if you’re fed…or fed well, for that matter.
We’ve had all of the above and more. I’m pleased to say that for the most part we’ve been fed well over the years. Most good wedding venues will cater for you, and look after you, even if the bride and groom have forgotten to mention it to them.
Often, the caterers will want to ensure all the wedding guests’ plates go out first, which is totally understandable. Only this can create issues when they send food out to the hungry wedding freelancers literally minutes before the speeches start! I’ve lost track of how many times that’s happened.
That’s all well and good, but people forget that we’re there working. And it’s a long day, too.
I’d say about 85% of the weddings we’ve filmed we have been fed in some way. The vast majority of those have been the wedding meal itself.
Now, the worst situation you can get into is dealing with a small scale catering company in a marquee wedding. Read: not a wedding venue or hotel. They’re often unprepared, and uninterested, in looking after the videographers and photographers.
If you’ve never worked in the wedding industry, or you’ve not worked good high-end venues, this all might seem rather arrogant or presumptive. “I don’t get fed when I go to work!” I hear you say.
Well, as discussed, the wedding industry is a whole world unto itself. And high-end weddings and venues even more so.
Some tips to make sure you’re not left with a rumbling stomach:
Always discuss food with the bride and groom beforehand. In the Initial Meeting, as mentioned above.
Bring food ‘just in case.’ If you aren’t fed, you have a backup. Do this even when you “know” you’re definitely getting fed.
Have a backup plan and a place you’ve decided on ahead of time if you have to nip out and get food.
Woah, that section went really long. I guess I had a few things to get off my chest! 😉
8. You’ll lose some shots and never quite remember where you lost them
Ever shot all day, stored your footage and then when you come to edit, you just know you’ve lost some shots? You don’t know where but you know you had them and now they’re…somewhere.
Well, if you shoot enough weddings, you’ll eventually lose some footage along the way. Even with the best organizational skills and workflow system. And even if you have all your backup systems in place.
Depending on what footage you lose, it can either be ‘water off a duck’s back’ or a living, breathing nightmare of an experience.
As a wedding videographer, you’re filming so much and running from location to location (sometimes literally running!) it’s no wonder that something slips through the cracks sometimes.
So, do everything you can to ensure you don’t lose footage (obviously!). But know that if you’re hustling like you should be, losing the odd section of footage is something that you just have to understand is a part of the process.
9. You’ll find that most issues and errors are caused by miscommunication
To be honest, this could go for just about anything in life.
When we don’t communicate properly (or even not at all), that’s when issues can occur. Whether that’s not setting expectations with a client, not expressing what you want to your team, or even not talking things through properly with your significant other, issues rear their ugly head when you don’t communicate.
So, talk things through. Express yourself. Know that oftentimes, a problem shared really is a problem solved.
Not always. But communicating let’s other people know there’s an issue (or a potential issue). And sometimes that’s all that’s required.
In practical terms, life throws you a curveball and you realize a wedding edit is going to be a couple of weeks late than expected. Let the client know. Set expectations. And you’ll avoid those very much avoidable, “When is my film going to be ready? I thought you said last Monday!” calls.
Conclusion — Wedding Videos
Look, even if a few of the above items sound kinda negative, overall you’ll have a blast when you shoot wedding videos! These are just a few of the ‘things to watch out for.’ And, hey, they make for awesome stories, after all!
The wedding industry is a great business to be a part of and filming wedding videos is an amazing business. You’ll have a great time, meet some awesome characters, and share in one of the happiest and most euphoric moments of people’s lives. And, if you do things right, you can make some great money along the way.
Whether wedding videography is a side hobby to you, or a full fledged business, shooting wedding films is a lot of fun. Use the above tips as guiding posts and things to look out for if you’re new. If you’re more experienced in this game, well, you know what I’m talking about. 😉
All the best, guys!
And…keep shooting!Saint John Sea Dogs fans arrived at the Memorial Cup in Windsor, Ont., to find something wrong with their hockey team's merchandise.
The pucks and shirts available at merchandise stands in the Windsor Family Credit Union Centre were emblazoned with "St. John Sea Dogs."
It's something that we see a lot of with the Sea Dogs and we've seen a lot of over the years, especially with the national media who aren't used to the East Coast. - Jamie Tozer, Station Nation blog
The puck was available in a pack of four bearing the logo and name of each Memorial Cup team. Shirts were available in a nearly identical design for each team.
Jamie Tozer, who runs the Sea Dogs blog Station Nation, was quick to point out the error on Twitter, noticing it only after he bought a stack of pucks.
"It was upsetting, obviously," Tozer said. "We see it a lot around junior hockey, especially around national tournaments that aren't that familiar around Saint John."
Merchandise pulled
The pucks and shirts were pulled from merchandise stands shortly after the error was pointed out on the first day of the tournament, May 18.
Merchandise with the incorrect team name was withdrawn May 18 and wasn't replaced for almost a week. (Jamie Tozer)
But it wasn't until Wednesday — just two days before the team plays in the Memorial Cup semifinal — that merchandise with the proper spelling of the team name appeared, Tozer said.
"Even this week you hear a lot of people calling the Sea Dogs the St. John's Sea Dogs," he said. "It's upsetting and I'm sure the team kind of gets bothered by it."
Tozer said he was glad to see the merchandise corrected. The error was the result of a "lack of respect and lack of knowledge," he said.
"It's something that we see a lot of with the Sea Dogs, and we've seen a lot of over the years, especially with the national media who aren't used to the East Coast and the difference between Saint John and St. John's."click to enlarge Photo via Flickr/NomadTales
The EPA planned to test radiation levels at a Bridgeton couple's house on Tuesday.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday tested homes near the Westlake Landfill for radiation contamination following a lawsuit filed by residents.The EPA, which isn't named in the suit filed by Michael and Robbin Dailey, planned to focus on the couple's house and surrounding properties in the Spanish Village section of Bridgeton.The Daileys sued nine companies tied to the landfill in November, alleging they were responsible for radioactive dust found in their home. The dust showed levels of a Uranium byproduct that were 200 times what is normal, according to the suit filed in St. Louis County Court."As a public health agency, we take these allegations seriously," EPA Region 7 Administrator Mark Hague said in a statement.EPA is calling the operation "Bridgeton Dust." Testers planned to collect dust from inside the Dailey's house and surrounding houses along with soil samples from the neighborhood. Officials expect to have preliminary results for homeowners on January 6.The West Lake Landfill contains nuclear waste and sits next to the Bridgeton Landfill, the site of a smoldering underground fire.In American football, "the Holy Roller" (also known as The Immaculate Deception by San Diego Chargers fans[1]) was a controversial game-winning play by the Oakland Raiders against the San Diego Chargers on September 10, 1978, at San Diego Stadium (now SDCCU Stadium) in San Diego, California. It was officially ruled as a forward fumble that was recovered by Raiders tight end Dave Casper in the end zone for a touchdown, ultimately giving Oakland the 21–20 win. However, there have been differing interpretations of how this play should have actually been ruled, and it has remained a controversial play for fans of both teams involved. The NFL amended its rules after the 1978 season in order to prevent a recurrence of the play.
Had the Chargers won this game, and had all other games that season remained with the same outcome, they would have made the playoffs taking the fifth seed over the Houston Oilers, by virtue of a tiebreaker. Both the Chargers and Oilers would have finished with a 10-6 record, but the Chargers' final game of the season was a victory over the Oilers, so the Chargers would have won the tiebreaker on a head-to-head matchup and clinched the fifth seed in the postseason. The final Houston-San Diego game therefore would have had direct playoff consequence, with the winner advancing to the playoffs and the loser being eliminated.
The play [ edit ]
With 10 seconds left in the game, the Raiders had possession of the ball at the Chargers' 14-yard line, trailing 20–14. Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler took the snap and found himself about to be sacked by Chargers linebacker Woodrow Lowe on the 24-yard line. Stabler threw the ball forward, and it rolled towards the Chargers' goal line. Raiders running back Pete Banaszak appeared to try to recover the ball on the 12-yard line, but did not keep his footing, and pitched the ball with both hands even closer to the end zone. Raiders tight end Dave Casper was the next player to reach the ball but he also seemingly could not get a handle on it. He batted and kicked the ball into the end zone, where he fell on it for the game-tying touchdown as time ran out. With the ensuing extra point by placekicker Errol Mann, the Raiders won 21–20.
During the play, the game officials ruled that Banaszak and Casper's actions were legal because it was impossible to determine if they intentionally batted the ball forward, which would have been ruled a penalty. The National Football League (NFL) also supported referee Jerry Markbreit's call that Stabler fumbled the ball instead of throwing a forward pass.[2]
For years, Stabler publicly stated that it was a fumble. However, in a 2008 interview on NFL Films, he was asked if he could convince the camera crew that he did not flip the ball forward. Stabler responded, "No, I can't convince you of that, because I did. I mean, what else was I going to do with it? Throw it out there, shake the dice."[3][4] Banaszak and Casper also admitted that they deliberately batted the ball towards the end zone.[5]
Reaction [ edit ]
The ball, flipped forward, is loose! A wild scramble, two seconds on the clock, Casper grabbing the ball—it is ruled a fumble! Casper has recovered in the end zone! The Oakland Raiders have scored on the most zany, unbelievable, absolutely impossible dream of a play.... Madden is on the field. He wants to know if it's real. They said yes, get your big butt out of here! He does!... There's nothing real in the world anymore! The Raiders have won the football game! Fifty-two thousand people minus a few lonely Raider fans are stunned.... This one will be relived forever! Raiders play-by-play announcer Bill King, calling the play on KGO-AM
In response to the Holy Roller, the league passed new rules in the off-season, restricting fumble advances by the offense. If a player fumbles after the two-minute warning in a half/overtime, or on fourth down at any time during the game, only the fumbling player can recover and advance the ball. If that player's teammate recovers the ball during those situations, it is placed back at the spot of the fumble, unless it was a recovery for a loss, in which case the ball is dead and placed at the point of recovery.[4][6]
The Holy Roller play was directly referenced on December 14, 2014 in response to a critical play in the Green Bay Packers' loss to the Buffalo Bills. When Aaron Rodgers had the ball knocked out of his hand by Mario Williams, it rolled backwards into the end zone and came to a complete stop; Packer RB Eddie Lacy picked up the ball and tried to run with it, but the referee approached quickly, waving his hands to declare the play dead, and after talking to the back judge, signaled a safety for Buffalo. The NFL Director of Officiating said that since the Holy Roller rules were in place, the only person who could have picked up the fumble and advanced it for Green Bay was the original fumbler (Rodgers) and the safety call was correct.
See also [ edit ]
Holy Roller – The event's common name is a pun on this slang term in American religion.
Immaculate Reception – The Holy Roller's alternative nickname, "Immaculate Deception", is a play on words based on the name given to this famous play, whose name in turn plays on the Immaculate Conception of Roman Catholic theology.
Fumblerooski – Other deliberate fumble plays.
References [ edit ]By Kate Clark
Former BBC Kabul correspondent
The deaths earlier this month of eight foreign aid workers and two Afghans in the north-eastern Afghan province of Badakhshan show new levels of cruelty and disregard for human life. Aid worker Dan Terry went to Afghanistan in 1971 In the summer of 2001, I met by chance two people who like me had also been kicked out of Afghanistan by the Taliban government: Mervyn Patterson and Dan Terry. We sat in Islamabad in Pakistan, just next door, discussing the bloody scenarios being played out in the country we all loved. The Taliban were massacring civilians in parts of the north, burning villages and enacting a scorched earth policy which created pockets of hungry, cold refugees, who they then bombed as they camped out in the remotest mountainous areas. Both Mervyn and Dan had seen the suffering first hand and Dan had been part of a very local, very determined aid effort to get food through the snow, across the front lines that winter. Dan turned to us and said: "You know, I think we've taken the wrong tack with the Taliban. "We should be trying to reach out to them, maybe we could use our shared faith to get some sort of dialogue going." Mervyn and I just stared at him. In the last days of the Taliban, this great-hearted man had not given up on finding the common humanity between himself and the members of what had become a murderous regime
You may be thinking that Dan was some sort of holy fool, naively venturing into danger and hoping for the best. But his work here was entirely practical, fixing machines from scrap, setting up wind power projects from materials in the bazaar, rigorously working his contacts and getting security guarantees and sitting drinking tea with the worst of commanders to enable him to get to the poorest people. He also fixed lives - reconciling, peacemaking - and always, always laughing. In the last days of the Taliban government, this great-hearted man had not given up on finding the common humanity between himself and the members of what had become a murderous regime. Dan's close friend, Tom Little, an optometrist who was killed alongside him, was a different character. Stoic, determined, utterly unflappable and a huge fan of Bob Dylan. He was a man of few words, but with a laconic humour when he did start telling anecdotes: The Taliban commanders who demanded sunglasses that would attract the ladies
The armed men who, pointing a gun at Tom's face, would demand that he heal them on the spot because they could not see in the dark or it hurt their eyes to look at the Sun He always had some soothing saline solution about him for such emergencies. Changing lives Both men came to Afghanistan in the 1970s, inspired by their Christian faith to help the poor and in love with the high mountains of this country. Optometrist Tom Little was the team leader of the group They brought their children up here, staying on through coups, invasions, massacres and bombings and touching the lives of countless people. But their deaths have proved that Dan Terry and Tom Little's ability to use their experience, networks and sheer bloody-minded courage to reach the nation's poor was no longer enough. What the team had done - walking 100 miles through the mountains to treat women, give dental care and literally bring sight to the blind - was unimportant to the gunmen. Ever more Afghan non-combatants, especially women and especially children are being killed by the insurgents
They spared one Afghan because he was reciting from the Koran, another was killed probably by mistake and the last probably because he was a Shia Muslim. In the eyes of the gunmen, he was as much an infidel as the eight Westerners. This was rank racism which recognised no humanity in the other and had no mercy, even for women. And they chose to kill in cold blood, rather than opt for kidnap. They also killed them because they could. They faced no threat or worry of a security response. They had all the time in the world. Spreading horror There has always been cruelty during this long war, but there have also been limits. You did not kill women. You did not kill doctors. And until this last phase of the conflict, you did not kill foreigners, especially those who were here to help, whether aid workers or journalists. These are dark and disturbing times. The horrors of the war in the south of the country are spreading. And the north feels dangerously on the edge. Ever more Afghan non-combatants, especially women and especially children are being killed by the insurgents. At the margins and increasingly also at the centre, neither the internationally-backed government, nor the Taliban's shadow administration can bring security. The assassinations of elders, the fragmentation of insurgent groups and the pursuit of wealth by the country's elite, is breaking down the old social fabric, already worn thin by decades of war. With the deaths of Dan Terry and Tom Little, two great humanitarians perished. And yet, the country they leave behind is one which needs such peacemakers more than ever. How to listen to: From our own Correspondent Radio 4: Saturdays, 1130. Second weekly edition on Thursdays, 1100 (some weeks only) World Service: See programme schedules Download the podcast Listen on iPlayer Story by story at the programme website
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionCLOSE Donald Trump spoke at the annual Rolling Thunder rally in Washington, which spotlights prisoners of war and service members missing in action. USA TODAY
Thousands of motorcycle riders participating in the Rolling Thunder ride line up in the Pentagon parking lot May 29, 2016. (Photo11: Paul J. Richards, AFP/Getty)
Donald Trump reiterated his pitch for improving the lot of veterans during a brief appearance Sunday before thousands of bikers at the Rolling Thunder rally in Washington, D.C.
The annual Memorial Day weekend rally draws tens of thousands of motorcyclists, many of them veterans, to pay homage to fallen heroes and raise awareness of veterans' issues. One issue has been interminable waits for medical service at VA hospitals.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said that, if elected, he would ensure that veterans could opt for private physicians, "and we'll pay for it."
"Thousands of people are dying, waiting in line to see a doctor," Trump told the crowd. "That is not going to happen anymore."
Trump hit on several other familiar themes, including construction of a wall along the Mexican border.
"We are going to have a real wall," Trump told the enthusiastic crowd. "And who is going to pay for it?!"
"Mexico!" the crowd roared in response.
Trump also promised better international trade deals, an end to Obamacare and victory over the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS. He provided few details.
"We have to rebuild our military. It’s been decimated," Trump said. "We are going to beat ISIS. We are going to knock the hell out of them."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1VoIELh"I knew by experience" [ENGR]
I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere: Why would anyone want to try to emulate the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
IHOSE: Isn't it as simple as developing a worthy plot?
IHOSE: What are some of the nuances an inexperienced author might miss? LF: There are about a kajillion, but they fall into general categories.
Historical research can be a bear trap-- you might know what a dog cart and a tantalus and a seven per cent solution are, but did you know bagged tea was invented in 1895? (What a year!) Conan Doyle didn't have to do research into what to call an underhousemaid or how to address an earl--he was living it. These are contemporary accounts, not period set pieces. Hell, he didn't even bother over finding out if snakes drank milk. And if you got your historical information from films, pack up and go home--no gentleman would ever have worn a deerstalker to the opera, and I have Murder by Decree to thank for those nightmares.
Category two would be humor. The Sherlock Holmes canon is hilarious, and if you set out to write a very very serious and very very perfect pastiche as a very very serious devotee, you will fail, because they (spoiler alert) contain jokes. Thus I put it to you, and thus I leave it: no humorless person will ever fully succeed at imitating Doyle.
Mostly importantly, and I cannot emphasize this enough, Holmes is often written as a caricature rather than a character, and this always breaks my heart. In the canon, he may be larger than life, but he is a person, one with private hopes and lazy daydreams and a sharp temper and a kind spirit. People seem to want to write him as only caustic, or only brooding, or even only drug-addled, when really he possessed elements of all these in addition to being something of a scrapper, a Nature poet, and a practical joker. He cannot be a one-dimensional fellow in a deerstalker coldly hurling himself to the floor in search of a clue while crying, "My dear Watson!" It hurts my eyeballs.
IHOSE: What are some common "red flags?" LF: Esteemed Sherlockian Otto Penzler once said, "...noir is not unlike pornography, in the sense that it is virtually impossible to define, but everyone claims to know it when they see it." A really great pastiche is similarly elusive, but there are some common rookie errors.
If the relationship between Holmes and Watson is effortless - effortless bickering, silences, discussions, offenses, debates, sulks, smiles, quips, and quibbles - then it's a good pastiche. If their dialogue is strained in any way, you're in immediate peril. If you put them at odds in any sense other than trivial banter, you're toast. Their characters mean absolutely everything to the series.
Language is of course extremely important. It has to be Victorian, but never antiquated, and that's difficult. Some of the sentences in the canon last two or three words, and others smoothly sail along for thirty or so. Many people simply cannot hear the voice, and instead they borrow phrases from the canon and twist a word or two to suit them--this semi-poaching rarely goes unnoticed by the connoisseur.
Finally, leaning too heavily on any one aspect of the canon is fatal. Some people write pastiches that are all foggy-London-haloed-streetlamps, others endless streams of wearying deductions; if you forget that plenty of cases took place outside of London proper or even (gasp!) in the summer, and that Holmes also reminded Watson to pack his tooth-brush [SPEC], you're done for. Pastiches shouldn't read like a stream of rehashed cliches. The story we are about to hear should be true--or at least sound it.
I am amused that media are now describing the Selkirk story as "fan fiction" — not "pastiche". http://t.co/HmkL1mMQKo — Chris Redmond (@darkgreendesk) February 26, 2015
IHOSE: Speaking of pastiche, what's your take on the difference between pastiche and fanfiction? There are about a kajillion, but they fall into general categories.Historical research can be a bear trap-- you might know what a dog cart and a tantalus and a seven per cent solution are, but
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However, physical investigation of quantum annealing has been largely confined to microscopic spins in condensed-matter systems6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Here we use quantum annealing to find the ground state of an artificial Ising spin system comprising an array of eight superconducting flux quantum bits with programmable spinspin couplings. We observe a clear signature of quantum annealing, distinguishable from classical thermal annealing through the temperature dependence of the time at which the system dynamics freezes. Our implementation can be configured in situ to realize a wide variety of different spin networks, each of which can be monitored as it moves towards a low-energy configuration13, 14. This programmable artificial spin network bridges the gap between the theoretical study of ideal isolated spin networks and the experimental investigation of bulk magnetic samples. Moreover, with an increased number of spins, such a system may provide a practical physical means to implement a quantum algorithm, possibly allowing more-effective approaches to solving certain classes of hard combinatorial optimization problems.
via: physicsworld.comWimbledon - Men’s Wheelchair doubles
Wimbledon - Men’s Wheelchair doubles
Wheelchair tennis is one of the forms of tennis adapted for wheelchair users. The size of the court, net height, rackets, are the same, but there are two major differences from pedestrian tennis: athletes use specially designed wheelchairs, and the ball may bounce up to two times, where the second bounce may also occur outside the court.[1][2]
Wheelchair tennis is played at Grand Slams, and is one of the sports contested at the Summer Paralympics. There are three categories; Men, Women, and Quads; each category has singles and doubles tournaments. The Quad, the newest division, is for players that have substantial loss of function in at least one upper limb, but may include various disabilities besides quadriplegia. The division is sometimes called Mixed, especially at the Paralympic Games. Quad players often tape the rackets to their hand, to compensate for loss of function, and some players are allowed to use electric-powered wheelchairs.
History [ edit ]
Wheelchair tennis increased in popularity in 1976 due to the efforts of Brad Parks, who is seen as the creator of competitive wheelchair tennis.[3] In 1982, France became the first country in Europe to put a wheelchair tennis program in place.[4] Since then, much effort has been made to promote the sport at the elite-level.
The sport quickly became popular worldwide and was introduced to the Paralympic Games as a demonstration event at the Seoul 1988 Summer Paralympics.[5] In 1990, wheelchair tennis was played alongside the able-bodied players' event in Miami. This continued for more than 15 years. It was at the 1992 Summer Paralympics in Barcelona that wheelchair tennis acquired the status of a full-fledged competition. The 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney boosted public appreciation immensely and led to the introduction of the sport to the four annual Grand Slams of Tennis. In 2004, after the efforts of Rick Draney, the Quad category was added to the Paralympic Games.[6]
The Wheelchair Tennis Class 8s at the 2002 Australian Open saw competitive wheelchair tennis take place at the same time and the same venue at a Grand Slam for the first time. In 2005 the Masters series was created, comprising all the events at the Grand Slams and the end of year championships, as Wimbledon and the US Open joined Melbourne. In 2007 Roland Garros joined and the Classic 8s were replaced by the Australian Open which had been held at the same venue two weeks later. In 2009 all events played at the able-bodied players' Grand Slams were renamed Grand Slams.[7]
The Netherlands has dominated numerous victories at major tournaments including the Paralympic Games and the Grand Slams.
Esther Vergeer holds the record for winning four Paralympic gold medals - one each at the 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 Games. She holds the record for most consecutive wheelchair singles matches won.[8]
For the 2013 season the ITF decided to adopt match tiebreakers in place of a third and deciding set in doubles matches. However the tiebreaker would only be used at events which were rated as ITF1 or lower and at the World Team Cup. The grand slams, however, were free to decide on the format of their tournaments.[9]
Major tournaments [ edit ]
The ITF Wheelchair Tennis Tour consists of international tournaments with different grades and prize money. The wheelchair tennis tournaments are graded by the ITF. Total prize money for the tour in 2016 was over $2million.[10] The wheelchair tennis tour includes the following types of tournaments:
Grand Slams
Masters
ITF Super Series
ITF 1 Series
ITF 2 Series
ITF 3 Series
ITF Futures Series
The four Grand Slams – Australian Open, Wimbledon, Roland Garros, and US Open – include a wheelchair tennis draw. Until 2018, only the US Open and Australian Open offered a quad draw, and only four Quad players are invited (as opposed to eight for men and women). In 2018, a Quad Wheelchair Doubles Exhibition match was played at Wimbledon. Later that year, it was announced that Wimbledon would offer a quad draw in both singles and doubles, starting in 2019.[11][12][13] On early February 2019, Roland Garros announced that on the same year, its competition would start including wheelchair quads draws.[14]
The Super Series events include the Bendigo Open (Bendigo), Cajun Classic (Baton Rouge), British Open (Nottingham), Japan Open (Iizuka), US Open USTA Championships (St. Louis) and Open de France (Paris). The ITF publishes a year-long calendar with all tournaments and their respective grades.[15]
The ITF BNP Paribas World Team Cup is a wheelchair tennis tournament for national teams, held annually since 1985. The BNP Paribas World Team Cup World Group event is played once a year, for men, women, quads and juniors. There are four continental qualification events in Europe, Africa, Asia and Americas, in which men and women compete to qualify for the main event.[16]
The last two major tournaments of the year are the Wheelchair Tennis Masters[17] (singles event) and Uniqlo Wheelchair Doubles Masters.[18] The top eight men, top eight women and top six quads based on ranking are invited to compete there each year.
Wheelchair tennis is played at the Paralympic Games and FESPIC games as well.
See also [ edit ](CNN) A man in Florida told police he killed his wife because she was in poor health and they could no longer afford the medications necessary for her care, according to an arrest affidavit from the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office.
Police said William J. Hager, 86, told them on Monday that in the past his ill wife had told him she wanted to die, but she didn't specifically ask him to kill her.
The shooting took place at their home in Port St. Lucie, which is north of West Palm Beach. The husband said he shot 78-year-old Carolyn Hager in the head while she slept, according to the arrest affidavit. Hager then drank coffee and called his children before contacting authorities, officials said.
Officers were dispatched to their home about 1 p.m. Hager led them to a bedroom where his wife's body was covered in a blanket, the affidavit said.
"I want to apologize I didn't call earlier. I wanted to tell my kids what happened first," a deputy quoted Hager as saying.
Read MoreAfter an eventful Cardiff tour Sean Colfer looks ahead to this weekend’s second instalment in Durham.
This weekend, the second Mixed Tour of the season will be held in Durham. The venue, which has hosted the Durham Hat for several years now, is much further north than most teams are accustomed to. While this will suit the Scottish teams, who must travel for hours to get to almost any tournament in the UK, and teams like SMOG who are based in the north east, it presents unusual logistical challenges for the majority of teams in the UK. That seems to have been reflected in the turnout; 20 teams have been lost from the MT1 total of 56, with only 36 teams making the trip. However, that cosier total means you all have to suffer through fewer words of my drivel, so every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining.
The Contenders
The top eight are the only teams who can win this Tour, which limits the choices. The first pool features the winners in Cardiff, Great Black White Sharks, who are not a GB team but one part of the Black Eagles squad. They were outstanding at MT1, featuring very quick women, men who are strong in the air and a few real game-changers in the squad. Their reward for victory is another tough pool – they’ll play Mighty Hucks, who were themselves impressive at MT1 before losing narrowly in the quarter finals to the aforementioned Sharks. They breezed through to fifth in the end, and will be able to call on a number of outstanding athletes as they try to go one step better and reach the semi-finals this time around. Reading are difficult to get a read on during the MT season, as it clearly isn’t their priority. They still fared reasonably well (by their standards) in Cardiff, finishing seventh, but they clearly have the potential to do much better than that as the reigning national and European champions. A number of players who are staple features on their best teams were on the second team in Cardiff – this could be typical Reading, leaving some of their tricks up their sleeves until we reach the business end of the season. The final member of this pool is JR who have benefitted from a number of drop outs, leaping from 12th to eighth seed. Mixed Tour 1 could be considered a blip for this team given how consistently good they were last season – they’ll have to prove that in what is a challenging pool.
The other top eight pool features surprise finalists SMOG on home turf. They have had talented athletes for their whole existence as a team, and have always had good team chemistry and cohesion. One thing they might have struggled with up until now was having much experience of games at the very top level. They showed in Cardiff that they’ve learned quickly, though, pushing GBWS to a sudden-death point for the title. They had very few women in the squad so it was a Herculean effort from the female players to push them into the final, and with a few more legs they stand an excellent chance of returning to the final in search of a different coloured medal. The second half of the Black Eagles squad, Black Blackbirds who finished fourth in Cardiff, will be trying to stop them. Another team with pace all over the field, the strength of this team highlights just how good Black Eagles will be when they come together for Nationals – they have two of the best four teams in the UK in one club, as things stand. Glasgow actually defeated GBWS in the pools in Cardiff, so they’ve shown already that they have the ability to win big games. They lost to SMOG in sudden death in the quarter final so they’ll be gunning for revenge here. The last team is Deep Space, who have also climbed back into the top eight, though only from ninth. They lost to Chevron Mixed and JR in Cardiff, but then defeated Reading to create a bit of a mess in the pool. They came out third, hence their spot in the 9-16 bracket, but were relatively comfortable in all of those games before finishing ninth. It was their first time out in Wales, so the extra time could well have given them valuable reps to generate the crucial cohesion that served teams like SMOG and GWBS so well.
The Middle Tier
The 9-24 bracket has some familiar names looking to get back into the top eight. The winners of all four pools will have an opportunity to do so ahead of the final Mixed Tour event of the season, so this is the last chance to get a shot at a Mixed Tour event title for all of those teams.
The first pool sees Thundering Herd take on SMOG 2, PAF City and the first of the GB U24 teams, White. Herd suffered a difficult time at Mixed Tour 1, losing all but one of their games (against pool opponents GB White, or at least a previous iteration of that team). The team has been changed around slightly, partly due to availability, and they’re looking to put their struggles behind them. SMOG 2, who finished 26th at MT1, and PAF City, who finished 29th, are the other two teams in this pool. There’s less pressure on them given the other two teams they find themselves with, and it’s a great chance for both teams to really show what they can do.
Birmingham will face off against GB U24 Blue, as well as Glasgow 2 (25th at MT1) and St. Albans (33rd), in their attempt to get into the top eight. Brum started MT1 seeded 21st so it’s been an excellent rise for them to 10th at this Tour. They’ll be feeling good about their chances to get into the top eight given their highly athletic squad punctuated with a couple of particularly strong players.
Guildford 1 meet GB U24 Red, Sheffield Steal (27th) and Irish team Jabba the Huck in the next pool. Guildford are like Birmingham – they started MT1 seeded in the 20s but have been able to make the jump because of the number of teams that are not in Durham. They lost to Brum in the 17th/18th game in Cardiff but are well-placed to take a shot at the top eight.
In all of these pools, GB are the wildcards. They’ll have changed their squads around, but all performed admirably in Cardiff. They could have three teams in the crossovers, or they could have none. My bet is that they have at least one, though.
The final pool sees Cosmic Manatees take on Thundering Herd 2, Cambridge and Black Sheep. All of these teams finished MT2 in the 20s, so a couple of them will make huge gains in Durham. All of these teams feature strong individual players so it’s difficult to call the pool. None of them played each other at MT1 either – all four will be feeling relatively confident with this draw.
The Final 12
The final 12 are split into four pools of three. Flyght Club will play Sneeeekys Light and Black Sheep 2. Sneeekys appear to have split their squad but if they’ve done so evenly then they should both be strong in this bracket. Flyght have some good players, though, so this could be a good pool to watch.
York will play Merseyside and Brixton. York finished a fair way higher than their opponents here at MT1 – they were 34th, while Merseyside were 43rd and Brixton 52nd. Playing so close to home, it’s likely they’ll have an advantage here.
Another Sneeeky’s team will face two home(ish) sides – The Brown join university team DUF in the most northern pool at the tournament. Again, Sneeeky’s could very well take this pool convincingly if they’ve balanced the squad but The Brown are sure to have extensive experience on their side. DUF know the venue well so could use those young legs to their advantage, too.
The final pool sees Reading 2 face The Brown 2 and OX4D, who I would comfortably predict are in some way related to Oxford. Reading 2 had some very talented players at MT1 so they could be a tough match up for the other teams here.
Conclusions
The striking difference here from Cardiff is the leap by a number of teams through the 20s into the top 16. Obviously a large number of the middle tier have decided not to make the journey up to Durham, but there’s still a lot of good teams to choose from here. I would say the teams to watch here are Deep Space, the Sneeeky’s teams and the GB teams – if just because I still have no idea how they’ll look. I think we also may well have a different winner at this event, as SMOG will be on familiar turf.
Hopefully the northern weather will be kind to everyone there. As always, best of luck to all and enjoy the tournament.
Featured photo by Sam Mouat: Chevron Mixed players James Mead and Matt Aspin bidding against Matthew Hodgson of Deep Space at MT1.From 4Chan to Tumblr, Nicolas Hausdorf considers the possibility of a political anthropology of our networked society.
Angela Nagle, Kill All Normies (Zero Books, 2017) 136pp.
It’s fashionable to write sensationalist hit pieces on “the spectre of the alt-right” usually featuring good doses of kitchen psychology to explain away it’s protagonists’ political orientations as motivated by hate or frustration. Meanwhile, it appears that the sociologically increasingly uniform and bland featured journalistic mainstream, often unwilling the face bitter truths about the structural shortcomings of its own political vision, has not come an iota closer to understanding, let alone answering to this phenomenon which is at times as aesthetically and morally horrifying as it is, let us be honest, in light of the decades of a mind numbing postpolitical pensée unique, intellectually exciting.
Angela Nagle clearly understands this ambiguity of the sphere she is scrutinising: Kill All Normies, to be published by Zero Books in a few weeks, is the name of her title that already summons the polemic and punk style forces she seeks to investigate in an attempt of “mapping the online culture wars”.
That’s right: “cultural warfare” is the high-stakes notion Nagle employs and it is adequate for referring to both the self-assigned motivation of her investigation’s protagonists as well as the conservative intellectual tradition she perceives it in. The explicitness of such a perspective alone should supply some proportion to all of the political micro-expressions that the average media consumer will have engaged with in one way or the other through political dank meme social media channels, subReddits, SJW cringe compilations on Youtube, the proliferation and mainstreaming of obscure gender pronouns, Breitbart News, Milo Yiannopoulos, or any of the new omnipresent race-, religion-, and indignation- baiting new identitarian movements. They are the small shovels digging the vast trenches of a multiform, asymmetric and omnipresent cultural-ideological frontline that is currently increasingly dividing up city parts, friendships, relationships, and families. Kill All Normies traces the emergence of a new media based political unconscious that has been proliferating in the long-weakened tissue of Western post politics. The author allows the reader to navigate this emerging noosphere by outlining its genealogy and tracing and explaining its main online hubs and protagonists.
Nagle aptly investigates the colourful sociologies of subcultural production she describes as a sort of Castellian “Network Society” gone rogue, while also presenting a series of engaging theses amongst other things pointing towards the historical continuity of the alt-right as an ideology of transgressive liberalism or towards its internal contradictions as a force which is at times neo-traditionalist and antimodernist while at other times being radically free-market capitalist and transhumanist. The author meanwhile entertainingly follows this force into the anarchist message boards of 4Chan as well as the obscure dating-anthropology infused blogpost musings of some of the internet’s new class of neo-traditionalist auto-entrepreneurs. She defines the alt-right broadly as
(…)this collection of lots of separate tendencies that grew semi-independently but which were joined under the banner of a bursting forth of anti-PC cultural politics through the culture wars of recent years(…)
Perhaps, this could be perceived as one of the more controversial points of her study raising the question whether the traditional distinction between a right and a left still makes sense at all and is not rather generative of the sort of ongoing culturally transgressive separatism preventing any kind of political dialectical synthesis.
Kill All Normies, meanwhile, remains an extremely entertaining and pedagogic study, in which we discover an author of a leftwing sensibility but who mainly captivates by projecting an utterly healthy sense of measure, justice, empathy and common sense at times equitably massacring the festering frustration-turned real world aggression of transgressive 4Chan culture and the online masculinist-reactionary “Manosphere” as well as the hysteria of what she calls the “tumblr Left”. She employs this notion to describe a political movement that revolves around “a cult of suffering, weakness and vulnerability” that has colonised the Left and turned it into some sort of hysteric anti-free speech joke generating an “ideological brain drain” towards the right (These days the Tuvel affair must be proving her right).
I found that such concise formulations alone made the book worth buying but “Kill All Normies” features a generally exemplary and upliftingly solid level of politico-historical culture, along with what appears to be a meticulous effort of research, that make it an extremely worthwhile read. Readers learn about the ideological influences ranging from Butlerian radical constructivism on the Left, to the Italian conservative traditionalism of Julius Evola and Neomarxist roots of the alt-Right.
If there is anything even nearly disappointing about this book then it is certainly that it opens the door to a range of interesting follow-up questions about the nature of these seemingly self-perpetuating spheres which more often precisely evade or relegate the “serious” of political-economic relations which could have had the potential to bring us closer to investigating the nature of contemporary power. Perhaps it will serve to stimulate a lot more vital debate.
Reading this book was a pleasure and any reader whether on the left or on the right will be guaranteed to gain in sobering perspective either about his camp or the “enemy’s”. I perceived Nagle as the level-headed voice of reason and Orwellian “common decency” which in the space of 120 pages effectively manages to generate an arena of inclusive public space and rational exchange between the forces she presents, something which I had believed to be long abandoned between hysteric hit pieces and assumed intellectual separatism. Kill All Normies defends an air of conciliatory political culture while being bold and courageous enough to make judgments about both the ridiculousness of certain ideological fads and the moral repulsiveness and cowardly detachment of others. This book should be so widely read as to be taught in schools, even if that seems unlikely for a book as thought-inspiring and inquisitive as this one emerging into a deservedly disintegrating mainstream (media) discourse characterised by instead self-evident and self-important dogmatism.
Nicolas Hausdorf is an editor, analyst, and essayist. His essay “Superstructural Berlin”, an experimental sociology of Germany’s capital (with illustrations by Alexander Goller) has been published by Zero Books. His latest essay for the HKRB can be found here.
Please support the HKRB and look out for more essays, interviews and reviews by following our Facebook page and Twitter account.After so many years of arguing and having problems with management at the New York Giants, 2013 seems to be the year that Osi Umenyiora finally says goodbye to the only team he has played for in his NFL career, with the Atlanta Falcons looking like the likely next destination.
A two time Super Bowl champion with the Giants, Umenyiora has played with the G-men since 2003, most of the seasons as the starting Right Defensive End, although he did lose his place last season, making only four starts. He has recorded 75 sacks in his career, putting him at 10th among active players.
Most of the time, the arguments were about getting a bigger contract, the usual stuff. There’s also no ignoring Osi’s injury problems over the years, missing the entire 2008 season and 12 more games throughout his career with several other injuries. At 31, after a decade in the league, it seems that both sides want a fresh start.
Conveniently, the Atlanta Falcons, 10 yards away from the Super Bowl last season, released their veteran defensive end John Abraham, who played on the same side as Umenyiora, but despite being very productive at the age of 34 (10 sacks last season), his contract might not be worth paying anymore. This leaves a DE opening the Falcons need to fill, and a healthy Umenyiora will be more than fitting to come in for Abraham, who played for the Falcons since 2005.
The kicker? While the Falcons might have to see how to reduce Umenyiora’s wage demands, there is a winning card in the form of Osi living in Atlanta when it’s not NFL season. While money is a very important thing to Umenyiora, especially in the final seasons of his career, possibly living and playing closer to home during the NFL season might be enough of an incentive to pair up the two-time Pro Bowler with a team that had the best record in the NFC last season.ask-an-mra-anything:
“egalitarians” are all missing the point of that post, which is both hilarious and expected.
like they’re sitting there shouting that they believe in equality, but a piece of shit could tell it’s chocolate, and I’m still not going to eat it. Hell, many branches of the KKK are trying to say they’re not about racism any more, but if you buy that their “white nationalism” shit isn’t racism, I’ve got a castle in Old Valyria I would like to sell you.
the problem with tumblr “egalitarians” is that they completely ignore context, and a lot of this is due to willful ignorance on their parts. they’re so completely disrespectful of marginalized people demanding justice that they don’t even listen to what’s being actually said and would rather listen to their own echo chamber
do you even know how many times I’ve seen “egalitarians” complain that SJW bullshit had made it into their sociology textbooks?? that tumblr had invaded some part of the real world???? the reality is that sj tumblr discusses topics that have been around longer than even tumblr has, but these people are used to being able to ignore it, so they assume we’re making it up. they honestly think that tumblr made up shit like white passing, prejudice + power, neopronouns, etc.. they’re so happy in their own ignorance because it allows them to stew in their own righteous indignation and shut down discussions of social justiceFor those who just came for the update, Justice League has ended its second week of domestic release with $180.759 million. The DC Films superhero team-up movie has made, in 14 days, just over/under what Captain America: Civil War earned in its first weekend ($179m), what Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice earned ($181m) in four days, what Man of Steel earned ($181m) in eight days and what Suicide Squad earned ($179m) in its first week. Depending on how it does this weekend, we're still looking at a domestic total over/under Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ($234m).
Its overseas numbers had been comparatively better, but that just means it'll probably end up closer to $650 million global than $600m. And yeah, that's pretty awful all things considered, with the caveat that Warner Bros. looked at the film as a soft reboot and the start of something as opposed to a culminating chapter. Nonetheless, there is a cruel irony in all of this.
If you recall, Warner Bros. began on this path, with Man of Steel 2 becoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, after Man of Steel "only" made $668 million worldwide. And now Justice League will indeed struggle to match that global total while not coming anywhere close to the first Superman movie's $291m domestic cume. Again, I keep thinking back to The Matrix series.
The first Wachowski and Wachowski-directed sci-fi actioner earned $171 million domestic and $463m worldwide in the spring of 1999. At the time, it was WB's second-biggest global earner behind Twister ($494m). And four years later, The Matrix Reloaded was a prototypical breakout sequel, earning $134m in its Thurs-Sun debut. But audiences weren't super keen on the more philosophical and ponderous sequel and the legs were... short. Nonetheless, the film earned $281m domestic and $742m worldwide, setting records for an R-rated film.
Now money is money, but the poor reaction to The Matrix Reloaded gave way to a disastrous performance for The Matrix Revolutions just six months later. That trilogy capper earned $84 million in its Wed-Sun debut and flatlined almost immediately, earning $134m domestic and $421m worldwide. So, yes, in this case, part 3 actually made less than part 1 after the mega-grossing but super-divisive part 2 alienated general audiences.
It's not an exact comparison. Folks like The Matrix a lot more than Man of Steel (and for that matter, I'll defend both Matrix sequels unto death). But while Warner Bros. may have wanted a run closer to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Bourne series or the first three X-Men movies (up and up and up), they instead ended up with a series that both overtly peaked with the second chapter and ended on a major whimper like The Matrix or The Hangover.
And of course, The Matrix Revolutions (which still made nearly three times its budget in theatrical) was the end of a saga, Justice League was supposed to be the beginning of one. Through that prism, you can argue that WB and friends would have been better off just letting Zack Snyder make whatever movie he wanted to make. They could have merely offered this current underperformer as the end of a given chapter before the next wave of DC Films movies modeled more on Wonder Woman than Dawn of Justice.
In regards to that report over at The Wrap the other day which detailed the various post-Dawn of Justice struggles to get Justice League into theaters by mid-November, at the end of the day there wasn't a perfect solution. But, in hindsight, I would argue that the choice was either to delay Justice League and dump Zack Snyder right after Batman v Superman debuted to withering reviews and poor legs or just let Snyder make the movie he wanted to make with the full knowledge that this would be the end of the first arc of the DC Films story. But the error was in trying to have it both ways.
It's hard to imagine Snyder's preferred version doing any worse at the global box office, and I imagine a lot of money might have been saved without reshoots and recuts, to say nothing of a better reception with more polished special effects. So instead of a $200 million+ Justice League struggling to top $650m worldwide, you've got an alleged $250-$300m Justice League struggling to top $650m worldwide. And yeah, as shocking as it is in hindsight, we have a situation where the studio threw Batman into the Man of Steel sequel and turned it into a backdoor Justice League pilot only to now have a Justice League that will probably make less than Man of Steel.
The only thing more ironic than Wonder Woman outgrossing Justice League would be Man of Steel outgrossing Justice League, since that film's "meh" reception is what got this crazy ball rolling in the first place. Well, that and the skewed notion of the DC Films brand being saved, not by Batman and Superman, but by Wonder Woman and Aquaman. And yeah, Warner Bros. will end 2017 with two of the most outlandish whiffs (Justice League and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) and two of the most jaw-droppingly buzzy hits (Wonder Woman and It) of the year.Photo
As the Dalai Lama celebrates his 80th birthday on Monday, here is a look at how The New York Times covered his early years as the spiritual leader of Tibet, a time when rare glimpses into the Himalayan territory’s politics came mostly from radio broadcasts from India and a few travelers and missionaries from war-torn China.
In December 1933, The Times reported the death of the Dalai Lama’s predecessor, the 13th in the line of spiritual rulers. That was followed by the start of a mission to find his reincarnation in a newborn child, and by international wrangling for influence in the capital, Lhasa.
“The question of succession has its ramifications in widely separated places,” The Times noted in 1934. “In the offices of the Indian government at Delhi; in the India office of London’s Downing Street; in the Kremlin of Moscow; at Kuomintang headquarters in Nanking; at the Japanese military headquarters in Manchuria; at the court of the Manchu Pu Yi; and in the inner councils of the militarists in Tokyo.”
Sir Francis Younghusband, who had led a British expedition to Lhasa 30 years earlier, described the search for a successor in an article for The Times in 1934. “What changes may come, who can say?” he wrote. “British influence may wane. Chinese influence may wax. Or the reverse may happen. In any case, the Tibetans will strive to preserve their soul.”
The current Dalai Lama was born a year later, in 1935. His discovery as the reincarnation of his predecessor seemingly went unreported. In 1940, The Times carried a report from Lhasa describing the child’s enthronement ceremony.
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“Wearing a scarlet cloak and riding through reverent crowds in a great golden palanquin, a 6-year-old Chinese peasant boy today was enthroned as the 14th Dalai Lama, chief civil and religious ruler of this monastic kingdom,” The Times wrote.
“Monks from the hundreds of monasteries scattered throughout the kingdom blessed the boy as he passed,” the report added. “The entire city was perfumed by incense burners that lined the route.”
The report noted that a portrait of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Chinese republic, and Chinese flags were hung in the throne room to reflect acceptance of Chinese claims of sovereignty over Tibet. In Nanking, officials and monks kowtowed to the Dalai Lama’s image, The Times reported.
The first reports of Chinese Communist forces entering Tibet appeared in The Times in 1950, “blurred by cloudy gulfs of time and distance,” months after Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic in Beijing.
In November 1950, Indian government sources told The Times that they had lost radio contact with Lhasa, “now under imminent threat of capture by the invading Chinese Communist forces.” The Dalai Lama had fled the capital, according to the report. A truce, with a reported assurance that Beijing would accept “internal autonomy in Tibet while the Chinese Communists take over the frontier patrol,” was reported on a Times front page in March 1951.
In August 1951, The Times reported the arrival of the Dalai Lama’s brother in the United States. In September, the People’s Liberation Army said it had entered Lhasa. “There is considerable opposition to the Communist regime in Lhasa, according to the latest news received at this border from the Tibetan capital,” a Times correspondent wrote from Kalimpong, in West Bengal, India.
“Resentment against the loss of their ancient freedom to the Chinese Communists smoulders angrily beneath the surface of the present apparent subservience of Tibet to Red occupation,” The Times’s longtime correspondent Robert Trumbull wrote in 1952. “It waits an opportune moment to burst into flame,” as it has always eventually done “in previous Chinese attempts to subjugate the Himalayan Lamaist state.”
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The same year, it was reported that Soviet engineers planned to rapidly industrialize the territory, starting with a wool processing plant. “This will serve a twofold purpose of providing employment and to some extent reducing Tibet’s dependence on foreign countries, especially the United States, for marketing raw wool,” The Times wrote.
Mr. Trumbull reported that the Dalai Lama openly defied the Chinese authorities in 1953 by refusing to fly the Chinese flag. Still, he stayed in power. “It is known from a high Tibetan source available in India that the Dalai Lama’s position, as the highest spiritual and temporal authority in the Buddhist state, has been too secure with his people for the Communists to override entirely,” Mr. Trumbull wrote.
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Reports of clashes in Tibet and efforts by Beijing to control the territory increased in frequency during the years leading up to the rebellion of 1959. On March 21, Elie Abel reported the first fighting in Lhasa. “Virtually the entire population of Lhasa had joined rebellious Khamba tribesmen in an unequal struggle against Chinese troops,” Mr. Abel wrote from New Delhi.
In a message broadcast on March 28, Premier Zhou Enlai of China said the Panchen Lama would replace the Dalai Lama, who Mr. Zhou said was being held by rebels, The Times reported. A week later, the newspaper reported the Dalai Lama’s arrival in India, the beginning of the life in exile he has led ever since.
“An envoy of the young god-king had reached the border Sunday, stating that the Dalai Lama had requested political asylum,” The Times reported, adding that the State Department was “greatly pleased” at the news.Canadian bubble artist Fan Yang performs during "The Gazillion Bubble Show" in Beijing. Jason Lee/Reuters There's a huge bubble at the bottom of the bond market, and when it pops it could put $1 trillion at risk.
"In short, we believe there is a corporate credit bubble in speculative grade credit. And the structural downside risks for high yield bonds and loans are material, with non-negligible downside risks to growth," UBS' Matthew Mish wrote in a note to clients.
Mish argued that below the surface of corporate bonds, all the way down at the bottom-most levels of junk, there is a bubble forming.
"We believe roughly 40% of all issuers are of the lowest quality, and roughly $1tn which will end up 'distressed debt' in this cycle," Mish wrote. "Much of the debt was bought to pick-up yield linearly, but the default risk is exponential."
So how did we get here? Mish believes there are three circumstances that have inflated the bubble:
Central bank support allowed zombie companies to stay afloat, carrying over larger debt loads and then adding even more of it on top of unproductive firms. Low-yields in Treasuries forced pension funds and other investors with nominal return targets toward more speculative debt in order to meet those goals. "Investors were
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Thursday morning, according to Greenville authorities.
The Greenville County Coroner identified the man as 44-year-old Shann David Goldsmith.
Goldsmith was found shot in the front yard of the house on the 1200 block of Hampton Ave Ext., after residents reported hearing gunshots, according to Greenville County Coroner Parks Evans.
As of 4:30 p.m. Thursday a cause of death had not been determined by the coroner’s office.
Deputies from the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene after receiving a call in regards to a gunshot victim at 3:48 Thursday morning, said Sgt. Jimmy Bolt.
Deputies located Goldsmith who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Goldsmith had lived at the residence with his uncle who declined comment for this story.
The off-white house sits on a grass lot adjacent to Norris Iron and Metal on the left and The Avenue on the right, which neighbors said is a social club.
The house is also a short walk from the Birds Fly South Brewery.
Yellow caution tape roped off the entire block of Hampton Ave Ext. Thursday morning as forensics units investigated the scene on the side of the property and moved in and out of the house.
No suspects have been identified at this time and the incident is still under investigation, Bolt said.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 23-CRIME or the Sheriff’s Office at 864-271-5210.
Read or Share this story: http://grnol.co/2thZzEPI found myself this week, on our way to a BJJ Globetrotters camp in Sardinia.
We flew into Rome using a Portuguese airline with a layover in Lisbon, which allowed me to practice my Portuguese… Frango. Vinho tinto. Obrigrado. Chicken. Red wine. Thank you. You know, the essentials.
The original plan was to spend a night in our room and head to Sardinia the next morning, but Hillary in her usual wise manner told me that we would need an extra day to explore. She was right.
We arrived at the Leonardo da Vinci Airport, which is south of the city, and made our way to our hotel by shuttle. Once we settled in we walked around grabbed lunch. This might sound odd, but I love deli meats. So while most people might seek out the pasta or pizza in Italy, I had been looking forward to prosciutto for literally weeks. I would be in the middle of working and one word would float into my mind, halting everything: “Prosciutto.”
I found it. I ate it. It was amazing.
The next day, we visited the Colosseum, satisfying my childhood infatuation with gladiators. Yes, we love Ben Hur in Chile too. We also hit the Roman Forum, which was more impressive than the Colosseum in my mind. The magnitude of the ruins was astounding, and the weight of history towering in front of you has a strange way of shifting your perspective on greatness and your place in humanity.
And then a selfie stick almost pokes you in the eye and ruins everything.
With warrior history all around us, we wanted to train. I had several friends tell me that if I was in Rome I had to go visit Frederico Tisi’s school. They were right. I contacted Frederico through WhatsApp and he gave me the address and schedule for the day. We took an Uber 15 minutes outside of the touristy area of Rome and Frederico gave us a quick tour. Tribe Jiu-Jitsu—Frederico’s gym—shares a space with another gym, and the jiu-jitsu area is on the highest floor. As we climbed the stairs, Frederico said he liked being on the top floor because it felt like being in a Bruce Lee movie every time they trained.
He was right. It was awesome.
After a quick warm up, Frederico showed some technique. I was blown away by the amount of details he packed into the class. He showed a drop seoi nage, but the details he showed for the set up and finish were intricate and unique. I have been playing around with that throw for 10 years, and I had been missing these points. We continued by linking the throw into a proper pinning position that would lead into a Kimura and a choke if the Kimura was defended. Again I was familiar with both techniques, but Frederico had all these small details that I was missing.
The reputation that inspired my friends to recommend training with Frederico in the first place was well founded. Here, tucked away from one of the biggest historical attractions in the world, is a jiu-jitsu treasure.
Founded in 1999, Tribe Jiu-Jitsu was the first BJJ school in Italy and one of the first in Europe. In its own way, Frederico’s work is a part of history as well.
While I know that not all of my readers will have the chance to travel to Rome to Frederico, definitely drop into his school if you’re in the area. On a larger note, however, you should remember that gems like Tribe Jiu-Jitsu are all over the world. There are so many great instructors and great gyms out there that it’s worth dropping into a school whenever you are away from home. You never know what you’ll find.Scholars of geoengineering have reported increasing interest in their work this month as humans seem increasingly unlikely to avert catastrophic global warming.
Governments, universities, think tanks and international bodies are turning to the idea of tinkering with the earth by making it absorb more carbon dioxide or reflect more sunlight into space, the scholars said.
"Even a decade ago this was largely in the realm of fantasy for many, but now there’s a lot of discussion of this in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, in various government research programs, et cetera," said Wil Burns, the co-executive director of the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment.
Harvard researcher David Keith said in an appearance at Carnegie-Mellon University this month that Janos Pasztor's interest in geoengineering "has really changed things." Pasztor was the chief advisor on climate to former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. He has entered the once-marginalized discussion of geoengineering—which Keith said "is in some ways like the adult as entered the room." Last year Pasztor became the founding director of the Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Project.
“This is getting talked about at quite high levels of the UN Framework Convention," Keith said. "This weekend we’ll get to be face to face with Al Gore debating this. I mean, it really is happening in a way that it wasn’t happening before.”
Gore has described geoengineering as "insane, utterly mad and delusional in the extreme." But it's starting to look delusional to think humans will be able to curtail carbon emissions quickly enough to keep the average global surface temperature from rising more than 2ºC, the level at which scientists anticipate catastrophic impacts.
"We already see widespread impacts, consequential impacts on every continent," said Katherine Mach, a senior research scientist at Stanford University and director of Stanford's Environmental Assessment Facility. "We can even look at extreme events, like a drought, a flood, and see the ways that we’re driving up the risks."
Mach said the world has made substantial progress since the Paris Agreement. "The planet as a whole is making a lot of progress in responding to climate change. Our emissions of heat-trapping gasses globally have slowed down. We’re also seeing vast acceleration in terms of our deployment of clean energy solutions," she said.
But the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere will have "near-permanent effects." To keep warming below 2ºC, the human contribution of CO2 has to remain below three trillion tons. It's already reached two trillion tons, and the next trillion is expected to enter the atmosphere over the next 20 years, Mach said.
That's about how much time researchers need to better understand the climate impacts of geoengineering, said Doug MacMartin, a senior research associate at Cornell University.
"We’re now at a point where while mitigation is necessary, it’s not necessarily sufficient," MacMartin said. "What we know how to do in terms of cutting our carbon emissions is just not going to be fast enough."
Nonetheless, MacMartin said it would "terrify me enormously" if someone proposed geoengineering today, before the climate impacts are better understood. He estimates it will take 20 years to achieve that understanding. He's also terrified that once geoengineering is deployed, people will think it's safe again to pollute. "People say, 'Oh great, now that we have a solution we can keep emitting CO2.' That's probably the thing that keeps me up at night."
Keith, Mach and MacMartin all emphasized that geoengineering alone cannot solve the problem of anthropogenic climate change. Combined with mitigation, however, it could shave off a temperature peak or slow warming enough to buy humans some time.
"If solar geoengineering makes sense at all, it makes sense as a supplement to cutting emissions, not as a substitute for cutting emissions," Keith said.
"There are a lot of different types of geoengineering," Mach said. "They range from planting a tree to putting mirrors into space."
In the best understood and most discussed method, aircraft would disperse sulfates into the stratosphere, which would reflect some incoming solar energy.
“If we wanted to put sulfates in the stratosphere, which is the thing we know best, then there’s a whole bunch of specific risks with doing that," Keith said: "Stratospheric ozone loss, warming of the lower stratosphere, impacts on the troposphere—anything you put up in the stratosphere will eventually make it back to the surface—what does it do to human health?”
So far, it appears the risks are much smaller than the risk of allowing anthropogenic climate change to continue unabated, he argued.
"The question is, which is more risky?" Keith asked. "A world with 450 or 550 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, or that same world plus a little bit of solar geoengineering?"
The scientists worry less about risks from geoengineering than about human responses to geoengineering, including conflicts between countries that take differing views of it, a relaxation of attitudes toward carbon pollution, or the possibility that polluters will exploit the technology.
"I want to say up front that I get it—that people will use the work that I and others are doing to try to argue that we don’t need to try to work as hard to cut emissions. So Exxon or the petro-states probably already have to some extent and will likely use that," Keith said. "I still think it makes sense for us to know a lot about this."A list of civs related to the Touhou Project series that I personally use.The Suika mod has a strange bug in which a special oni unit will spawn when a Great General would normally spawn for you, even if you are not playing as Suika. I may have found the fix for it but I am not sure if it actually works since it happens quite rarely. You can find it here: http://pastebin.com/DQJSP3Jb Copy the text and replace all the text inside the OniUnits.xml file found in your mods folder. By default, it should be in here:C:\Users\%username%\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS\Touhou - Oni Clans (v 4)\XMLIf you have any problems getting Steam to download, delete the Civ5ModsDatabase.db file found in your cache folder.Credits can be found in each of the individual mod pages.This collection is not complete; I do not use all of the Touhou mods in existence due to certain reasons. If you would like to use them, please go to their pages.NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is such a stickler for adhering to the intricacies of the NFL's league rule book that he infamously waged a years-long, multi million-dollar battle with the New England Patriots trying to prove that balls used in the 2014 AFC championship between the Pats and the Indianapolis Colts were under-inflated.
After a federal judge vacated Goodell's four-game suspension of Tom Brady, Goodell appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; by 2016, the Pats appeared to lose their will to keep fighting the case and eventually accepted the penalty (Brady's four game suspension, $1 million fine, and the loss of two draft picks).
Yet the NFL commissioner, notorious for his unusually massive compensation package -- rumored to be north of $40 million/year, making his total compensation of $156 million higher than Tom Brady's -- is taking a decidedly less fastidious approach to the rules governing the national anthem at NFL games.
The NFL rule book specifically requires both teams appear on the field for the playing of the anthem, standing, remaining quiet, and holding their helmets in their left hands. Failure to do so can result in fines, suspensions, and the loss of draft picks.
The rules are found on pages A62-63 of the league’s game operations manual:
The National Anthem must be played prior to every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem.
During the National Anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking. The home team should ensure that the American flag is in good condition. It should be pointed out to players and coaches that we continue to be judged by the public in this area of respect for the flag and our country. Failure to be on the field by the start of the National Anthem may result in discipline, such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s) for violations of the above, including first offenses.
On Sunday, almost a hundred players took a knee during the national anthem. The Pittsburgh Steelers, Chicago Beats, Seattle Seahawks, and Tennessee Titans all opted against even coming out on the field for the anthem.
But rather than warn these players and team they're violating league rules, Goodell is focusing his anger at President Trump, who said in a speech Friday that the NFL team owners should require their players to stand during the anthem.
“The way we reacted today, and this weekend, made me proud,” Goodell said. “I’m proud of our league.”
On Saturday, Goodell responded directly to Trump, accusing the president of disrespecting the league, which asipires to "create a sense of unity in our country and our culture":
The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture. There is no better example than the amazing response from our clubs and players to the terrible natural disasters we've experienced over the last month. Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.
We've reached out to the NFL, asking if any of the players or teams that skipped the national anthem will face discipline; we'll update this report with their comments.
Goodell hasn't always been so supportive of his players engaging in free speech on the field.
Last year the NFL barred the Dallas Cowboys from wearing a decal on their helmet honoring the five police officers killed in a domestic terror attack.
The NFL also banned the Tennessee Titan's linebacker, Avery Williamson, from honoring 9/11 victims by wearing cleats that read "9-11/01" and "Never Forget" on the 15th anniversary of the terror attack.
The NFL fined Robert Griffin III $10,000 for wearing a t-shirt during a press conference that said "Operation Patience." (The shirt was created by Reebok and players are required to only wear clothing sold by Nike.)
RGIII also ran into trouble with the league for wearing a shirt that said "Know Jesus, Know Peace."
The NFL has banned players from wearing Beats headphones on the field (doing so violated the league's deal with Bose).
The Steelers' William Gay was fined for wearing purple cleats, which he did to raise awareness for domestic violence (an issue Goodell claims the league takes seriously).
Goodell's opposition to speech he dislikes is so determined that he even has a Patriots fan who flipped him off fired from his job.
UPDATE: Snopes.com claims that this rule does not, in fact, exist. The article cites the rule quoted above and reports "No such wording appears in the 2017 version of the Official Playing Rules of the National Football League."
Yet the NFL's Game Operations Manual -- the 200-plus book the league refers to as its "bible" -- is different than its rulebook. It is not available to the public. The rule cited above comes from the league itself, via the Washington Post.
The Post reported Sunday that the NFL confirmed the rule's existence but emphasized their ability to enforce it selectively:
Under the league rule, the failure to be on the field for the anthem may result in discipline such as a fine, suspension or loss of a draft pick. But a league official said the key phrase is “may” result, adding he won’t speculate on whether the Steelers would be disciplined.
The specific rule pertaining to the national anthem is found on pages A62-63 of the league’s game operations manual, according to a league source.
UPDATE TWO: After Grabien contacted Snopes.com, bringing the above facts to their attention, the author amended his article, confirming the existence of the above-state rule, and changed their description of this story from "false" to "mixture."
UPDATE THREE: The NFL, responding to the Kansas City Star, confirmed the national anthem-related rules cited above. However, the NFL's vice president of communications, Brian McCarthy, "stressed that [the] passage about the national anthem is a guideline and not a requirement."
But this is odd since the rule warns that failure to comply "may result in discipline, such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s) for violations of the above, including first offenses." Why does the NFL attach penalties for failure to comply if this is all just a "guideline," as the league now argues?
It appears the NFL is simply changing the rules — by electing not to enforce them.
RELATED COVERAGE:
— CNN Analyst: Trump Thinks He’s a ‘Slavemaster of Black People’
— MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson to W.H.: ‘Does The President Have a Problem with the 1st Amendment?’
— CNN’s Acosta: No Angry Trump Tweets on Tom Brady Because He’s Not Black Athlete
— CNN Montage: Football Fans Express Their Dislike on Players Not Standing for National Anthem
— Cris Collinsworth Asks Trump to Apologize to NFL Players He Called ‘Son of a B*tch’
— Actor Jesse Williams: Trump ‘Thinks He’s a Dictator’ Like Kim Jong-Un, Forcing Shows of Patriotism
— NYT’s Blow on Trump’s NFL Comments: He’s a Promoter of ‘White Supremacists, White Nationalists’
— Eric Dyson to Ben Ferguson: ‘As a Person Who Is Not a Victim of White Supremacy,’ You Can’t Attack Kneeling Players
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— One Pittsburgh Steeler, an Army Vet, Emerges from Locker Room to Stand for AnthemNearly a dozen years after terrorists guided commercial jets into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, the prosecution of the alleged masterminds of the 9/11 attacks continues to be plagued by bizarre incidents that have threatened to derail the proceedings at Guantanamo Bay.
Now, some observers are beginning to question whether a series of seemingly embarrassing gaffes might instead be part of a strategic plan by the Obama administration to shutter the military prison at Gitmo.
“Perhaps I’m wrong, but there are too many fiascos in too short an order to be the result of random chance,” said Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who for two years served as chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantanamo.
First there was the revelation in late January that an”invisible hand” was secretly monitoring and censoring the pre-trial hearings of five men accused of conspiring in the 9/11 attacks.
Then there was the discovery soon after that a listening device, disguised to look like a smoke detector, was placed inside meeting rooms at Guantanamo, where lawyers conferred with the prisoners.
The strange turn of events have taken place against the backdrop of a three-month old hunger strike at the prison that turned violent Saturday when guards staged a predawn raid at the communal camp and isolated prisoners into single cells in an attempt to bring an end to the protest.
Just when it seemed the chaotic sideshow surrounding the military tribunals had come to an end, half a million privileged e-mails fell into unauthorized hands, and at least seven gigabytes of defense documents in government computers have vanished, days before the war crimes hearings were scheduled to resume.
Air Force Col. Karen Mayberry, the chief defense counsel in the Office of Military Commissions, issued an order late Wednesday instructing all military and civilian defense attorneys in her office to immediately cease using their government-issued computers to conduct legal work on their cases.
“This measure was taken as the [chief defense counsel] has determined that the integrity of these systems is not sufficient to ensure that we safeguard confidential and privileged materials, as it is our ethical duty to do,” Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, lawyer for Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, one of the five 9/11 suspects on trial, said in an e-mail sent to reporters.”This follows on the heels of the seizure of over 500,000 emails containing attorney-client privileged communications, as well as the loss of a significant amount of defense work-product contained in shared folders. The effect is that this essentially cripples our ability to operate.”
The incident has resulted in a two-month delay in hearings that were set to begin today [April 15] for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind behind the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.
It is likely Army Col. James Pohl, who granted a defense motion to pause the hearings in al-Nashiri’s case, will do the same in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused 9/11 plotters, whose attorneys filed a handwritten emergency motion on Friday seeking a temporary halt to the proceedings, scheduled to begin April 22.
Colonel Davis believes the embarrassing turn of events is no coincidence. In addition to the growing list of gaffes at Gitmo, he said:
Gen. John Kelly, commander of the US Southern Command, told a financially-strapped Congress he needs a quarter-billion dollars for Gitmo renovations on top of the hundred-plus millions in yearly operating expenses.
Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, Abu Ghaith, was taken to New York for detention and trial in federal court, instead of being sent to Guantanamo.
“I believe it is all part of a plan to tamp down outrage when President Obama announces that he’s closing Gitmo, sending the majority of the detainees already cleared for transfer home, bringing the rest to the US and prosecuting them in federal courts,” said Davis, who helped write parts of the 2006 Military Commissions Act passed by Congress, and has since become a vocal critic of the use of the system to prosecute terrorism suspects.
“I suspect they are painting the picture to show it’s taken too long, and there’s no end in sight; it’s too fatally flawed to save; it creates too much damage to our standing in the eyes of our allies and enemies alike; and it costs too much money at a time when money is tight to continue trying to spit-shine the Gitmo cow-pile in hopes that someday it will shine up nice and look pretty,” he said.
The White House declined to offer up a response to Davis’ theory and instead pointed Truthout to comments White House press secretary Jay Carney made during a press briefing on Thursday in which he told reporters,”The President remains committed to closing Gitmo for national security reasons.”
Monitoring, a War Crimes Appeal and an E-mail Breach
Whatever the politics, attorneys defending terrorism suspects facing war crimes charges aren’t playing along.
“The theme is incredible,” said James Connell, an attorney for Ammar al Baluchi, one of the 9/11 accused, referring to recurring efforts to undermine defendants’ cases, in an interview with Truthout. “The breach of “e-mails were the only place left.”
The defense lawyers said the breach of their confidential e-mails is part of a larger problem: the “blanket” monitoring of their electronic communications that dates back many years. In October 2011, Al-Nashiri’s defense team filed a motion requesting that the military commissions judge order the Department of Defense to cease its ongoing monitoring of defense counsel’s confidential use of information technology and communications.”
According to an Oct. 27, 2011 court document: “Due to a voluntary disclosure by the DOD to defense counsel a year ago, counsel became aware that the DOD conducts blanket monitoring of defense counsel’s communications and information technology when conducted or routed through the government’s network.”
This blanket monitoring provided various government agents “unfettered access” to al-Nashiri’s confidential electronic information” with little to no known oversight,” the document said.
Richard Kammen, al-Nashiri’s civilian defense attorney, told Truthout what came out of that hearing was a decision by the government that defense attorneys should use encryption to “protect confidences.”
“The government called a witness who said our fears were vastly overstated,” Kammen said.”But it’s been demonstrated over the last few weeks that our fears weren’t overstated. It is really clear to us that the government has no conception of the need for confidentiality within the attorney-client relationship.”
Connell, attorney for al-Baluchi, said defense lawyers received a“series of assurances over the years“ from the government“that all of our information is secure and encrypted e-mails can‘t be read.“
But,“system administrators get authority to read encrypted e-mails because the Department of Defense owns the encryption and public and private keys,“ he said. “The whole idea that [the 2011 hearing in] Nashiri resolved this issue is not true.“
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale vehemently denied that prosecutors had read any of the defense attorneys‘ e-mails recently turned over to the government by information technology specialists under contract to the Department of Defense. He said prosecutors only saw“to“ and“from“ and“cc“ lines.
“Our corps of military and civilian attorneys – both defense counsel and prosecution – follow the same protocols for ethics as every other ethical, reputable attorney,“ Breasseale told Truthout. “Purposely reading privileged mail is always unethical, and I cannot imagine a time when doing so wouldn‘t lead to disbarment.“ (When microphones were discovered in the meeting rooms at Guantanamo where lawyers meet with prisoners, military officials said they were never turned on.)
A review of court documents revealed that military prosecutors gained access to the defense attorneys‘ confidential e-mails last month while battling with Ibrahim al-Qosi‘s defense attorneys, who have laid the groundwork for an appeal of his war crimes conviction.
Al-Qosi was Osama bin Laden’s cook. In 2010, he struck a deal with the government and pleaded guilty before a military commission to material support for terrorism and conspiracy charges, in exchange for a lighter sentence and a promise that he would become a cooperating witness. Al-Qosi was repatriated to Sudan last July after fulfilling the terms of his pre-trial agreement.
The government is trying to thwart al-Qosi’s attempts to appeal his case, claiming he signed a waiver prior to his sentencing giving up his rights to challenge his conviction.
In February, military appeals court judges ordered Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor, and Navy Capt. Edward S. White, a government appellate attorney, to “produce copies of any communications, or records thereof, between the Government, and the Petitioner or any member of the Petitioner’s trial defense team or Appellate Defense Counsel regarding waiver or withdrawal of appellate review, not otherwise included in the authenticated Record of Trial.”
On March 29, al-Qosi’s defense team asked the court to order the government to “immediately cease its searches” due to the fact that more than half-a-million defense attorneys’ e-mails were turned over to prosecutors in the course of a search of files for responsive records about the waiver of appeal.
Highly critical news coverage of the email breach led Breasseale to disseminate a lengthy statement to reporters last week downplaying the gravity of what occurred and disparaging some journalists for relying upon “factually uninformed, third-party opinion.”
But Ruiz, the defense attorney for al-Hawsawi, told Truthout no matter how the government spins it, the”blunders” are”colossal.”
“They were conducting searches using attorneys’ names as keywords,” Ruiz said.”I think it’s just incredibly bad judgment. I don’t’ know what they were thinking. They obviously thought what they did was appropriate.”
Breasseale said “no one has reviewed these e-mails, so we do not know if they include confidential material.”
He said three separate searches in the al-Qosi case took place, and it was the third search that scooped up 540,000 defense attorneys’ e-mails, which were turned over to a”privilege review team composed of attorneys” from the Defense Department’s Office of General Counsel” who had no involvement in the Qosi case before the United States Court of Military Commission Review or the Cole and 9/11 trials.”
Davis said the email breach is serious. Although he dealt with”lots of issues” during his tenure as chief prosecutor, none were “as fundamentally troubling as the government apparently having access to everything the defense compiles, writes or says.”
“This isn’t one of those gray areas where reasonable minds can debate whether something is right or wrong,” Davis said. “Attorney-client privilege and the confidentiality of an accused’s communications with his attorneys are core principles in countries that purport to adhere to the rule of law. From the start there’s been the question of how much government information the defense is entitled to see, but now it’s turned into a game where the government says ‘you can’t see our cards but we have the right to see yours.’ That’s a rigged game in cards and it’s a rigged game in court.”
Missing Files Too
Kammen, al-Nashiri’s attorney, said he’s willing to accept the government’s explanation about how e-mails were scooped up, but the bigger mystery to him involves the disappearance of attorneys’ legal files, which the government”is glossing over.”
It started in mid-February, not long after the revelation at a tribunal hearing that the hidden microphone had been in place in meeting rooms at Guantanamo. Kammen said files just disappeared from the attorneys’ computers and, in one case,”reappeared under a different file name.”
“I have heard that at least one team has lost a file that represents 18 months of investigative effort,” he said.
Ruiz said defense attorneys”have lost legal motion-type documents, drafts, outlines and correspondence.”
“We have a network drive that we share,” he said.”Everyone on the team has access to the folder and we also have a personal folder. What we have seen is that when we go to our personal folder, half of it is missing.”
Breasseale said it isn’t just defense attorneys who suffered a massive loss of data. A “catastrophic server crash” wiped out nearly 400 gigabytes of data in the Office of Military Commissions that impacted prosecutors as well as the defense attorneys, he said.
The crash “affected not only the main server, but both of its back-up servers,” Breasseale said.
Ruiz said defense attorney will face a difficult challenge trying to duplicate their work, and it will bring the military commissions to a crawl.
“I’ve been practicing law for 17 years, and I’ve never seen this type of indictment of the process,” Ruiz said.
Kammen chalked up the fiasco to just”another example in which issues we are dealing with in military commissions are issues that would never arise in federal court.”
“In the 35 death penalty cases I have been involved in, nothing improper like this has ever occurred,” Kammen said. “This problem has to be fixed or the lawyers are going to be placed in an impossible position.”
In the absence of shutting down the detention facility and abandoning “the legal charade called military commissions,” Davis said, “at an absolute minimum, all of those outside of the respective defense teams who’ve had access to defense information should be barred from further participation in any capacity.JDC Corp., a midsize general contractor, discharged 340 tons of radioactive water into the Iizaki River, which is tapped for irrigation in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, during government-sponsored decontamination work it was involved in, company sources said Thursday.
Local government officials claimed they were never informed of the action. But JDC sources said the dumping occurred after it received assurances from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, which contracted it to carry out the decontamination work, that the state body had informed the local governments about the discharge in advance and no problem was anticipated.
The company had not been aware that water from the river would be used for agricultural purposes, the sources added.
A Minamisoma official said the city never received any explanation about the dumping, nor had Fukushima Prefecture, according to a prefectural official.
The Japan Atomic Energy Agency claimed it had verbally notified the city and prefecture, but had not established an agreement in writing.
The Environment Ministry is investigating, suspecting information was not properly conveyed in accordance with law.
The radioactive water was accumulated during agency-sponsored decontamination projects JDC was involved in between December 2011 and February 2012.
JDC engaged in radiation decontamination work in and around Kanabusa elementary school in Minamisoma and accumulated 609 tons of tainted water, according to JDC data made available to Kyodo News.
Of that amount, 269 tons was treated by specialists and the remaining 340 tons was discharged into the Iizaki River, which is used to irrigate rice paddies.
The discharged water included 60 tons with radiation levels at 100 to 121 becquerels per liter, exceeding the agency’s maximum allowable standard of 90 becquerels, the company data indicate. Radioactive substances in the discharged water totaled 16 million becquerels.
The agency approved a JDC plan to transport radiation-contaminated water to a certain collection center in December 2011 and submitted the plan to the Minamisoma Municipal Government.
The city said that at the time, it had expected the tainted water to be taken away.BETHLEHEM — Howard Hyer, a Bethlehem Department of Public Works supervisor, and his wife were arrested in Saratoga Springs last month on drug charges.
Howard and Mary Hyer, both 52, of Selkirk, were arrested Nov. 20 at 2 a.m. on Circular Street and charged with criminal possession of cocaine, a felony.
Saratoga Springs police initially went to a house on Circular Street for a "welfare check," to check on a person there, but ended up returning later and making arrests, Lt. Robert Jillson said. Also arrested at the time was Frank A. Barone, 34, of Latham, on the same charges.
Hyer has worked for the town for more than 20 years. He is director of field operations, overseeing sewer and water transmissions and collections. He has been placed on paid administrative leave, said Mary Tremblay-Glassman, the town's human resource director.
Hyer ran for Bethlehem highway superintendent in 2013. He won the Republican primary but lost in the general election to current Highway Superintendent Brent Meredith.Christine Lui Chen, a health-care executive in New Jersey and mother of two small children, had never considered entering politics, focusing instead on her family, her career and her community.
That all changed in January, 13 hours after she attended the Women's March on Washington. She emailed Democratic officials: "Here's my resume. I want to get involved."
Less than five months later, Ms. Chen's name will be on the ballot, unopposed, in Tuesday's Democratic primary. She hopes to become her district's first Democratic state senator in more than 30 years, the first-ever Asian-American woman in her state's legislature – and a spear-point for legions of enthusiastic, mainly liberal-leaning women inspired by the election of President Trump to get into politics.
"I just never thought politics was in the cards," says Chen, whose parents immigrated to the United States with almost nothing to their name. "But I don't want to be the one who didn't do anything, when we're at this moment in history where we need to stand up and say, 'This is what it means to be an American.'"
New Jersey is one of two states holding general legislative elections this year; the other is Virginia. Political analysts will be watching closely to see if there's a shift in the red-blue balance, but the newfound enthusiasm for politics among women – particularly young women like Chen – is also drawing attention. Like her, a number of them say they were inspired by Barack Obama's suggestion, in his farewell speech, to "grab a clipboard" and collect signatures to run for office themselves, if they were disappointed with their elected officials.
"This moment is unprecedented," says Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY's List, which works to recruit and elect pro-choice Democratic women. "We've never seen anything like it." She says since Election Day, her organization has heard from over 13,000 women from all 50 states interested in running for office.
To compare: In 2015 and 2016 combined, about 920 women contacted the group. "And that was a good year!" she notes.
The vast majority, Ms. Schriock adds, are running in their local communities or on the state level. "They realize, 'I've got to start local.' It's our responsibility to try to guide them into a race and that may be 2018, or it may be 2022. It's a huge pipeline."
In New Jersey, the Center for American Women and Politics holds an annual, nonpartisan campaign training program, Ready to Run, each March at Rutgers University. Typically, only four or five women sign up by December, says Debbie Walsh, who heads the center. This year, 100 women had done so. Running out of space, organizers had to limit registration to 250.
"I've never felt that kind of energy," says Ms. Walsh of the recent session, where Chen was among the trainees. "I think it's this universal moment for a lot of women — more on the middle-of-the-road to progressive end of the spectrum – who didn't really pay that much attention to politics, kind of thought this was a world that they didn't need to really participate in. This idea that you could be on the sidelines and that that was OK – no longer feels OK."
Also among this year's trainees was Lacey Rzeszowski, a registered Republican until January, when she officially switched to the Democratic side. Ms. Rzeszowski is running for New Jersey Assembly; like
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We must understand that gaining a testimony often occurs gradually, rather than instantaneously. It could take years of committed gospel living and faithful payment of tithes and offerings to obtain a firm testimony of the gospel. It is an ongoing quest which needs constant nourishment, care, and protection to thrive and prosper. Brother Samuelson made it clear that any deviance at all from the pattern of living can lead to its loss or diminishment. The scriptures warn that transgressing or breaking the commandments of God can result in the loss of the Spirit and even to one denying the testimony he or she once possessed.
We must at all costs do the little but necessary things daily and regularly. Prayers, scripture and gospel study, attendance at Church meetings, temple worship, fulfilling visiting teaching, home teaching, and other assignments all strengthen our faith and invite the Spirit into our lives. If you are neglecting any of these privileges (and yes they are privileges), you are placing your testimony in serious jeopardy. Please stay away from this danger by keeping your life in complete obedience and harmony to the gospel.
If we are uncertain of our testimonies a key thing to remember given by Brother Samuelson is that “when you share your testimony, it strengthens and increases.”
This is compatible with President Packer’s counsel who explained as follows:
It is not unusual to have a missionary say, “How can I bear testimony until I get one? How can I testify that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that the gospel is true? If I do not have such a testimony, would it not be dishonest?”
Oh, if I could teach you this one principle. A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it!”
As suggested some might see it as dishonest, but since an apostle of the Lord has taught us this method there can be no dishonesty in saying that you know the church is true even if you don’t. I would plead with all readers of this blog including all current and future missionaries - if you don't yet know that the church is true please take every opportunity to tell others that you do know this. Soon you will have said it enough times that you will come to believe it. This will lead you and many others to salvation and will in time suppress all the doubt and disbelief that you have allowed Satan to put in your hearts.
In closing I would echo the words of Brother Samuelson and say that if you are struggling and have doubts you can rely on the testimonies you hear from the pulpit at general conference. In 2 Nephi 4:34 we read “for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man”. Do not put your trust in the philosophies of men but in the leaders of the church. As an authorized servant of the Lord and president of a stake in Zion I stand with the General Authorities and equally welcome all to rely on my testimony.
If your testimony is not strong enough to stand on its own I want you to know that you can put complete trust in those of us who lead the church; for we do know of a surety that these things are true, we have reached a point where we no longer doubt and we are the true disciples of the Lord upon this Earth. Of this I bear solemn testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
The talk entitled “Testimony” by Cecil O. Samuelson will go down in history as one of the most influential talks of 2011.Nothing will influence a member of the church as much as his or her solemn testimony of the truthfulness of the restored gospel.Few people expected an eventful press conference by the European Central Bank (ECB) this past month, however President Mario Draghi thought differently. In a very persistent, or even insistent way he outlined on numerous occasions during the hour-long event, that the conditions on the foreign exchange market have changed for good.
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Mr. Draghi stated that the ECB has decoupled its monetary conditions with the United States with the introduction of the negative deposit rate, and the divergence is here to stay for a while.
While the short-term flows of the euro to the US dollar did not immedeately react to his speech materially with daily ranges holding as of writing, the President of the ECB highlighted,”Fundamentals for a weaker exchange rate are now much better than two-three months ago.” This is a point previously touched upon by Forex Magnates, and we have seen the euro declining ever since, after the infamous mention by Mr. Draghi of negative interest rates.
In his Q&A session, the President of the ECB mentioned, “Markets have perceived that the monetary policies of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Euro Zone are going to stay divergent for a long time,” highlighting that the easing effort will last “much longer time in Europe than in the rest of major economies.”
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So far we have seen the euro declining rather slowly in tandem with the whole market, however another point mentioned by Mr. Draghi could come to the front and change that – geopolitical risks. He stated, “Heightened geopolitical risks and risks surrounding emerging markets economies,” could result in weaker global demand for European products and ongoing weaker domestic demand due to balance sheet adjustments in the private and public sectors can create additional downside risks.
While for now the euro has lost only about 4 cents to the US dollar since the first mention of negative deposit rates by the ECB, going forward volatility will be mostly dependent on additional market jitters. Mr. Draghi mentioned that a sanction-counter-sanction duel which is forming between the EU and Russia is a situation which could in the end require additional monetary policy measures, bearing in mind that the risks to energy price developments are also a component of current global geopolitical issues.
Mr. Draghi has clearly and repeatedly communicated to the market that the ECB desires a weaker exchnage rate of the euro. The single currency’s strength has been dampening economic activity in countries which have not engaged in sufficient structural reform and the central bank continues to aim to take pressure off governments. The only question is how far will the euro go this time around and how fast?The genre of alternative or counter history — where historians pose tantalizing ‘what if’ questions — is an increasingly fertile one. The Pulitzer-winning author MacKinlay Kantor’s “If the South Had Won the Civil War” (MacMillan) and Jeff Greenfield’s “If Kennedy Lived” (Penguin Group) are two prime examples. Now, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, comes Yeshiva University professor Jeffrey Gurock’s “The Holocaust Averted” (Rutgers), which imagines an American Jewish community without the Shoah. The Jewish Week spoke with Gurock via email.
Q: How would the American Jewish community have been different had the Holocaust not happened?
A: As a Jew, the horrific destruction of our people during the Shoah — which must be remembered and commemorated — is seared in my consciousness. As a historian, however, I recognize that the years 1941-45, where America fought in WWII, were a turning point in the history of American Jews.
American Jews came out of the war not only angry at what had happened in Europe but also were imbued with a sense of empowerment and that they belonged to America. And they found — over time — that their fellow citizens increasingly accepted them. One of my main points is that without that wartime experience, where they contributed mightily to the effort to defeat Nazism, American Jews would have well remained skittish and marginalized in America. Significantly, the fearful attitude that I envisioned among American Jews would have affected their degree of support towards the rise of the State of Israel, which comes into existence as the American government — worried over the availability of Arab oil — is not overly concerned about the plight of displaced Jews. This scenario serves as a springboard for my readers’ contemplation of the roots and depths of Jewish activism towards Zionism.
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What accounts for the popularity of this genre?
Readers and scholars are fascinated by turning points in their lives and in history. Increasingly, academicians use the device of what might have happened as a way of identifying central moments in time and for delving into the actual implications of real events. In my book, at the end of each chapter, I offer a synopsis of what really happened as a teaching mechanism where students can see the close calls that often determine the crucial events in history.
What sources did you draw on to make your conclusions?
I often used the actual statements and proposals of historical actors but changed the results of their arguments and positions. For example, Churchill offered some pro-Zionist ideas for Palestine in the late 1930s as London considered the future of its mandate, which tragically were not followed by the appeasing Chamberlain government. In my book, when the British stand up to Hitler, they follow Churchill’s plan. Also, I use the abundant secondary material on themes like FDR’s decision to run for a third term as a basis for imagining what the 1940 presidential election might have been like. Only in my book, he does not run. By the way, there is a body of Japanese historiography that suggests that Tokyo had almost decided not to bomb Pearl Harbor. In my book, on Dec. 7, 1941, American sailors are sunning themselves on the deck of the USS Arizona..
Were you worried about offending Holocaust survivors, and is there a danger that people will come away thinking that the Holocaust was actually a good thing for American Jews, in terms of their acceptance here?
I would never say that the Shoah was a good thing for American Jews. If anything, my book argues that in real history, greater acceptance brought with it profound issues of identity maintenance, which we grapple with now in the 21st century.
Is there an echo here of Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America,” which presented a WWII counter-history?
I read his novel with great interest when it came out. But my work is informed by history not fiction — and, of course, Roth’s works starts in a very dark place, Nazi victory. I deal with the implications of Hitler’s downfall in 1944.
[email protected] Man United star simply does not suit Van Gaal’s 3-5-2 formation
It’s an easy assertion to make on the back of Angel Di Maria’s blunt performance against Southampton this week, but the Argentine simply does not suit being played in a 3-5-2 formation.
The stats from that game tell a pretty crude picture of his performance. He managed 0% shot accuracy, completed 0% of his take-ons, completed 0% of his crosses and 0% of his key passes, and to top it all off, he only managed a mediocre 60% pass completion rate.
As damning as those figures are, it would still be harsh to read into them too much. That performance could alternatively be accredited to the near perfect execution of Southampton’s game plan – Morgan Schnierderlin and Victor Wanyama formed a defensive shield that was impenetrable, and Southampton boasting the best defensive record in the league shows you just what United found themselves up against.
Still, those who take the economic side of things seriously would hone in on gargantuan £60m deal that brought Di Maria to the club. A player of that pedigree should influence important top league games.
The Argentine has been injured for a while and certainly looked rusty, but there’s absolutely no escaping the fact that he did not appear compatible in Louis Van Gaal’s preferred formation.
Where does he belong? You can play him as left wingback and his attacking qualities are rendered redundant as he plays too much of the game away from the attaching third. Play him in the centre and you have to either take out Michael Carrick, who is a much better suited holder, Wayne Rooney, club captain and driving midfield force, or Juan Mata, arguably United’s best attacking player in recent months.
Van Gaal chose to partner him (probably correctly) with Robin van Persie, but that partnership failed to produce anything of note. Both looked out of sync with one another and there only appeared to signs of breakthrough when Juan Mata made late dashes into the box after RvP had departed.
While you can’t argue with the success that the 3-5-2 has brought Van Gaal in recent times, it hasn’t had to accommodate Di Maria while it’s been working.
But, in truth, now that Di Maria’s back, it would seem that a return to a diamond formation would cater for his needs much more.
Di Maria’s in the Ballon d’Or team of the year for good reason. He was absolutely exceptional for Real Madrid in their Champions League and Copa Del Ray winning campaign, and Carlo Ancelotti’s willingness to let him leave at first appeared questionable.
Look at his role in that Madrid side and you’ll see that he’s actually the best in the world at a very particular role. With the ball, Madrid lined up in a fairly conventional 4-4-2- Ronaldo and Karim Benzema were up front, while Di Maria and Gareth Bale flanked Xabi Alonso and Luka Modric.
But without the ball, Ronaldo shuffled back into the left wing role, and Di Maria joined Alonso and Modric in the centre of midfield.
Di Maria essentially played a dynamic, hybrid role for Real – a scintillating winger role in attack and an intelligent assured midfield role in defence – roles he could switch between with an assumed ease. It sounds fairly straightforward written down, but it’s difficult to think of any player in the world who does something like that so well right at the top. Di Maria and Ronaldo could overload that flank with intelligent movement and devastating bursts – it was the subtle tactical feature that made them so successful last season.
So anyway, despite that apparent versatility, Di Maria still appears uncomfortable. He’s much better off on the left side of a midfield diamond where he can ‘shuttle’ laterally between central midfield and a flank. He’s generally looked at his best when played in midfield for United so far – watch his performances where he started as an outright winger (Chelsea at home, for example) and he’s been ineffective.
Van Gaal probably has fresh memories of Arjen Robben’s outstanding transformation at this year’s World Cup in a forward role. It’s good for playing on the break, but against a defence that sits deep, it’s fruitless.
Playing him in a diamond allows him to influence two parts of the pitch in one role, which is basically where his strengths lie. Whether van Gaal will succumb to calls for changes to be made is unlikely – the ruthless Dutchman is not one to fall for certain pressures.
They say that the best managers are blind to the transfer fees of the players they select – so if LvG is to pursue with his 3-5-2 with an out of form Di Maria, is it time he dropped the club’s record signing?FARGO – A liquor license for cinemas here will have a difficult time passing if it passes at all, given hostile reaction on the City Commission Monday night.
The proposed law creating such a class of licenses barely passed what's normally a routine vote to acknowledge the proposal.
"I had about 20 different either emails, phone calls or handwritten letters and they were all unanimous," said Commissioner Dave Piepkorn, a member of the Liquor Control Board. "They were not in favor of having liquor in the theaters. I didn't get one in favor the other way."
He joined with Commissioner Melissa Sobolik, a rare alliance, to vote against a motion to "receive and file," meaning to notify the public and schedule two votes on the law itself. Sobolik said she received 40 to 60 emails against alcohol in theaters.
The majority voted for the motion, but Commissioner Mike Williams said he voted "yes" merely to allow a public discussion. He said he wouldn't favor alcohol in theaters, either.
The only commissioner to speak in favor was Tony Gehrig, who said other cities have theaters that serve alcohol, and he didn't see any problems when he went to one while in Texas.
It's a different reaction than the proposal received at the Liquor Control Board, which voted 3-1 to send the proposed law to the commission. The lone dissenting vote on the liquor panel was Piepkorn. Gehrig, the other city commissioner on the board, sided with the majority.
The request for a liquor license came to the board from Marcus Theatres, which owns West Acres Cinema and Century Cinema in Fargo. The Milwaukee-based company serves alcohol at other cinemas it owns in cities where the law allows it. After extensive discussion, the Liquor Control Board agreed to recommend the creation of the FA-Cinema license class, which limits alcohol sales to 50 percent of a theater's revenue; the rest must come from food, tickets or other goods.
Gehrig said the city should give Marcus Theatres a chance because it would have a lot to lose if it allowed things to get out of control. He said he, too, has heard from voters, but many told him they want to see alcohol sold at theaters.
Marcus Theatres' attorney was present at the meeting but did not speak.
A first reading of the law is expected at the next commission meeting in two weeks.After working for more than 10 years on unlocking an ancient piece of history, what lies inside damaged Herculaneum scrolls, University of Kentucky Department of Computer Science Chair and Professor Brent Seales will accomplish the next step in allowing the world to read the scrolls, which cannot be physically opened. A major development in the venture, Seales is building software that will visualize the scrolls' writings as they would be if unrolled.
A breakthrough not only in digital imaging techniques, the first-of-its-kind software could also have profound impacts on history and literature. Seales says that each scroll may well be the only remaining copy as of yet unknown literature from the Classical era. Each scroll is 20 to 30 feet long, and Seales estimates each to contain at least 3,000 words.
"The sheer volume of words available for discovery is probably larger than the entire works of Shakespeare," said Seales.
The scrolls aren't your typical 2,000-year old papyri manuscripts; they were carbonized in the Mount Vesuvius volcanic eruption of A.D. 79, and later discovered as charred clumps in the Villa of the Papyri in the ancient Italian city of Herculaneum beginning in 1752. When attempting to open, the artifacts would often shatter beyond repair.
To reveal the works inside the remaining intact scrolls, Seales and his research collaborator from the Institut de France, Daniel Delattre, knew that "virtual unrolling" was the only way.
After successfully creating 2-D images of two Herculaneum scrolls in 2009 but not being able to detect the ink in them, Seales' colleagues believe they have recently identified ink in the scrolls after applying an x-ray method often used in the medical and archeology communities.
The method, called "propagation-based phase contrast imaging," was recently featured in a Nature Communications article, "Revealing letters in rolled Herculaneum papyri by X-ray phase-contrast imaging," by authors Vito Mocella, Claudio Ferrero, Emmanuel Brun and Delattre, citing Seales' work on the scrolls. Seales says the researchers claim to "see letters and, in a few instances, whole words."
Now that he and his team can see the writings, the next step in unveiling the writings to the world is to organize them. Without unrolling the scrolls, Seales' software will run extremely high-resolution images from the tangled surfaces, making sense of the jumbled letters into words, and words into passages.
"The software will combine novel methods for finding the scroll surfaces together with a user-guided interface for correcting mistakes and improving the automatic first-guess," he said.
In other words, it will pull out a page that displays writing from the data they currently have, and then identify where that page is inside the scrolls that now resemble charcoal. Because of this, Seales, his team, partners and physicists will be able to optimize the scanning process on site, allowing them to see an entire page "unwrapped" without ever leaving the facility. Eventually, the outcome will be as complete of a manuscript as possible of the remaining Herculaneum scrolls.
"We have a ton of data from all of our preliminary work, and from the 2009-2010 work. We're using that data to build software so that we can pull out large sections and flatten them," said Seales. "To date, no tool exists that can accomplish that. The software we're building will be the first to visualize data in that way, and it's crucial to uncovering the works inside the Herculaneum scrolls."
Supported by a three-year, $500,000 National Science Foundation grant and by Google, where Seales spent his sabbatical in 2012-2013, the computer science professor has begun working to develop the software. Seales' sabbatical at Google was crucial to the new imaging method, and he credits Google as the "impetus for being unstuck" in the project.
UK students are also driving the progress. The computer science professor is working on the software with a team of UK undergraduate and graduate students including:
Melissa Shankle, a pre-computer science sophomore and member of the Honors Program from Mayfield, Kentucky;
David Pennington, a computer science senior from Union, Kentucky;
Michael Roup, a computer science and mathematics senior from Crestwood, Kentucky;
Nickolas Graczyk, a computer science senior with a minor in mathematics from Lexington;
Anastasia Kazadi, a computer science senior from Lexington;
Abigail Coleman, a computer science graduate student from Princeton, Kentucky;
Sean Karlage, a computer science and computer engineering graduate student from Edgewood, Kentucky; and
Chao Du, a computer science graduate student from Beijing, China.
In addition to UK students, Seales is working with Seth Parker, video editor at the UK Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments, and collaborating with Delattre in France, as well as Roger Macfarlane, a researcher at Brigham Young University. They hope to travel back to Grenoble, France, in the spring to conduct major scans on the two scrolls scanned in 2009. The scans will utilize Seales' software, as well as the new x-ray technique.
Seales said the project plan is to release working software and datasets as soon as possible for scholars to examine.
"By project's end, the team hopes to have created a software tool and a set of scans of scrolls that together will transform the hopelessly damaged Herculaneum collection into new literary discoveries," he said.
Unmasking the Herculaneum writings is only the beginning. Seales hopes the work to uncover and decipher these ancient scrolls will propel other efforts forward, leading to an even greater impact on our understanding of classical history and literature, and revolutionary digital imaging.
"I dream of seeing renewed excavation at the Villa of the Papyri. Many believe that a treasure trove of undiscovered scrolls are waiting there to be unearthed. If more are found, these methods could be used to read them," said Seales.Wondering what goes into developing The Sims 4? Want a deeper look at behind the scenes operations at Maxis? We sat down with Lyndsay Pearson, Senior Producer of The Sims 4, to learn more about ongoing (and past) development for The Sims 4. Check it out!
Introduce yourself to our readers, let us know how long you have been with The Sims team and describe the role you play in developing The Sims 4.
LP: Hi! I’m Lyndsay Pearson, the Senior Producer for The Sims 4. I partner with our creative director to drive the direction and vision of the game. Then I work with production and design teams and push for making the most enjoyable game experiences we can. I’ve been with the Sims for over 13 years now and even after all this time I love it.
LP: Maxis is proud to employ several hundred developers here at the Redwood Shores studio.
What does the process of creating content for The Sims entail? Where does it all begin? What’s the full process from A to Z? Does everyone sit down in a big room firing ideas at each other?
LP: This is a pretty complicated question! I’ll try to boil it down and talk about how we developed Experimental food for The Sims 4 Dine Out Game Pack. We started by saying, hey, we want to make a restaurant. What’s something we would want to feature in this restaurant?
We brainstorm lots of ideas – new food types or food tricks or special behaviors. Then we narrow it down to a specific idea – experimental food. From there we brainstorm around that idea, what are some good experimental foods? What should they look like? How do Sims react to them? How do we make them extra special? We start talking to our development partners and get ideas from them – what if we could make the food move? What if it has special FX? What kind of food can our Sims eat? If they only use a fork or spoon what foods even make sense? If we wanted to add a new way to eat food how would that work? Once we have some pretty clear ideas of what we want to do we get together and discuss exactly how we’re going to do it. What new models do we need? Do we need new animation? What kind of FX do we need?
For experimental foods we wanted new plates so our modeling team came up with some ideas that would fit within the constraints of the existing food system while looking new and different. Once work begins we get to see models as they are made and start to see them appear in game. We get to make up fun text for each dish. We start tuning each dish, how hard is it for the chef to cook? How much hunger does it fill for a Sim? How much should it cost? Then we enter a period where we come up with other small improvements we think could make a design extra fun. What if we could take pictures of the new food! That’d be cool! We iterate, we test, we polish, we fix issues and soon enough we get to release it to the world!
What is the process of elimination with features and content? How do you prioritize what can and will be created for the game?
LP: The process of eliminating any feature or content is a very difficult one. Sometimes it’s easy because something just doesn’t quite fit into the experience we’re trying to deliver. However, in most cases, it isn’t that simple. There are lots of things you CAN do with any given pack so you have to focus on what you NEED to do and what you NEED to do well. There are literally hundreds of ways to approach this and personal opinions come up all the time. We have to carefully weigh as much information as we have at any given time and make the best decisions we can. In Dine Out we chose to focus on the experience of visiting a restaurant and the experience of owning & managing the restaurant. This gave us a really clear line to measure against.
Of the content that CAN be created, how do you prioritize what will be created first?
LP: You always need to start with the core. What is the key part of the experience you’re trying to deliver? You’re lucky if it’s one, clear experience but that is rarely the case. It can be a struggle to decide what comes first and you have to look at the whole picture the entire time. If you start somewhere and then learn something new you might change your priorities and that might change your plan. Have a goal in mind but be adaptable in how you achieve it.
Is there any game content or features that have been eliminated from the drawing board, simply because they could not become reality in the game? Any examples? (This can be for any series including The Sims 4)
LP: There are always ideas that just can’t happen in a game. Other forms of entertainment experience it too! There’s something you really love when you talk about it or put it on paper that just doesn’t translate into the medium. We have joked for years about Sims in Space but when you break down all the things you might expect to have happen if Sims truly lived in a space station all the rules go out the window. Do they float? Can they walk on walls? Do we care about gravity? If we don’t care about gravity does it feel like space? You can find solutions for any one thing but sometimes it doesn’t add back up to the thing you wanted to create.
What has been the largest inspiration for the creation of new objects in The Sims 4?
LP: We take inspiration from lots of places! Sometimes it’s from a book somebody read or a movie they recently watched. Sometimes it’s something the players have been talking about or something we did in a previous Sims game. I guess if I had to pick one source of inspiration it’s passion. What are we most passionate about making? Being passionate about your projects or an object always makes it better.
Approximately how long does it take to create a full stuff pack, game pack, expansion pack from start to finish, including drawing board phases?
LP: The amount of time it takes can vary widely based on what the pack is and when our schedules align. There can be many months of development as well as many years of exploration. There isn’t a one-size-fits all approach. Even within our team the time it takes to make one game pack can vary against another.
How do you find the right balance of content in an expansion, stuff pack, and game pack?
LP: I’m not sure I’d say we have! We are constantly exploring what the “right” balance is and there are certainly differing opinions. It depends a lot on the pack and the experience you are trying to build. Some packs need more clothes, some packs need more objects, some packs need more systems. There isn’t a strict formula we can follow. We have some tools to help us evaluate if we think we’re headed in the right direction and we use them often to drive conversation.
Game Packs were introduced as a medium between Stuff and Expansion packs in The Sims 4. What brought on this change to the way Maxis has produced games for The Sims, and has this helped the team release content that otherwise didn’t fit anywhere else?
LP: I’m really excited about Game Packs. It has given us a space that lets us go deeper on a feature we’d otherwise have to handle in an Expansion Pack but something too big to fit into a Stuff Pack. When we’re building an Expansion Pack we like to offer a number of new experience, we want to create many ways to engage with that content. With a Game Pack we can be really focused. This means get a chance to add more detail and more flavor than we might get to in an Expansion. We’re just starting to scratch the surface of what Game Packs can be and I find that exciting!
How has the ability to multitask made developing The Sims 4 easier or harder?
LP: Multitasking has made the biggest difference in how the Sims feel. They seem more human, they seem more relatable. I love that we have this technology at our disposal and can use it in cool new ways. It’s changed the way we work but not the kinds of experiences we want to deliver.
How important is implementing gameplay from other DLC into the new DLC? (i.e. Clubs Rules moving forward)
LP: We keep an eye out for this all the time. We want all the content to complement and enhance each other. We proactively look for ways to enable this but honestly the most creative gameplay comes from our players. For something like Club Rules, we actually have a checkbox in our designs now that reminds us to ask “Can this be a club rule?”.
How difficult is creating new animations for all of the ages/lifestates? What determines whether or not a certain age group can use an object or feature?
LP: As with many of the things I’ve said about design above it has a lot to do with the gameplay experience we are trying to create. This is another very subjective conversation on any particular feature. There are many cases where sure, any age group COULD use an object, but should they? How would a different age use this object? Is it something that age would typically do? Is the focus of this object on one age over another? Why? We have some tools that help share animations between adults and children but often we want to see a child interacting with something in a very different way than an adult might. We talk about this case by case, there’s no standard answer or solution. In Dine Out we actually designed the color on menu interaction for children only. We thought it was so fun though we decided we wanted to expand it to let Adults do it too.
What are the most challenging things you’ve ever worked on and why?
LP: User Interface always poses some of the most complicated challenges in our game. How do we show you what you might want to find exactly when you want it? How do we build a flow that everybody can understand? How do we explain things about the game without using too much text that somebody won’t read? I’ve worked on a lot of Sims games and there is so much iteration and flux that goes into even the smallest piece of UI. It’s one of the most challenging pieces of development.
And finally, just for fun, who is your favorite pre-made character in the game, and why?
LP: I’ve always had a soft spot for Bella. She’s pretty, she’s got attitude, she’s mysterious. She’s been with us through so many games and was one of the first Sims my Sims ever met when I started playing the original Sims.
Gotta love Bella! Thank you very much Lyndsay for taking the time to give us an inside look at development on The Sims 4! Sul Sul!Container Instance Draining
There are times when you might need to remove a container instance from a cluster; for example, to perform system updates, update the Docker daemon, or scale down the cluster size. Container instance draining enables you to remove a container instance from a cluster without impacting tasks in your cluster.
When you set a container instance to DRAINING, Amazon ECS prevents new tasks from being scheduled for placement on the container instance. Service tasks on the draining container instance that are in the PENDING state are stopped immediately. If there are container instances in the cluster that are available, replacement service tasks are started on them.
Service tasks on the container instance that are in the RUNNING state are stopped and replaced according to the service's deployment configuration parameters, minimumHealthyPercent and maximumPercent.
If minimumHealthyPercent is below 100%, the scheduler can ignore desiredCount temporarily during task replacement. For example, desiredCount is four tasks, a minimum of 50% allows the scheduler to stop two existing tasks before starting two new tasks. If the minimum is 100%, the service scheduler can't remove existing tasks until the replacement tasks are considered healthy. If tasks for services that do not use a load balancer are in the RUNNING state, they are considered healthy. Tasks for services that use a load balancer are considered healthy if they are in the RUNNING state and the container instance they are hosted on is reported as healthy by the load balancer.
The maximumPercent parameter represents an upper limit on the number of running tasks during task replacement, which enables you to define the replacement batch size. For example, if desiredCount of four tasks, a maximum of 200% starts four new tasks before stopping the four tasks to be drained (provided that the cluster resources required to do this are available). If the maximum is 100%, then replacement tasks can't start until the draining tasks have stopped.
For more information, see Service Definition Parameters.
Any PENDING or RUNNING tasks that do not belong to a service are unaffected; you must wait for them to finish or stop them manually.
A container instance has completed draining when there are no more RUNNING tasks (although the state remains as DRAINING ). You can verify this using the ListTasks operation with the containerInstance parameter.
When you change the status of a container instance from DRAINING to ACTIVE, the Amazon ECS scheduler can schedule tasks on the instance again.
Draining Instances
You can use the UpdateContainerInstancesState API action or the update-container-instances-state command to change the status of a container instance to DRAINING.
The following procedure demonstrates how to set your instance to DRAINING using the AWS Management Console.
To set your instance to DRAINING using the consoleThe documentary Life Itself, a poignant tribute that celebrates Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert, was released in theaters this weekend. Generations grew up reading the Chicago Sun-Times journalist and watching him on television with sparring partner Gene Siskel, where the duo coined their “two thumbs up” phrase for positive reviews in the series At the Movies. Ebert’s barbed wit, grace, and passion touched the most discerning cineastes, but he was also known as a critic for the common man. He battled cancer for more than a decade, which necessitated the removal of his lower jaw, but it never stole his ability to write — which he did until his death last year. Two days before his passing, Ebert announced he was taking a “leave of presence” on RogerEbert.com. “What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away,” he wrote. And he hasn’t, leaving us with his beautiful words and wisdom about cinema and beyond. In celebration of the release of Life Itself, we’re revisiting some of Ebert’s most delightful quotes about one of his greatest loves — film.
“No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.”
“Every great film should seem new every time you see it.”
“Art is the closest we can come to understanding how a stranger really feels.”
“We live in a box of space and time. Movies are windows in its walls. They allow us to enter other minds, not simply in the sense of identifying with the characters, although that is an important part of it, but by seeing the world as another person sees it.”
“There will always be those who love old movies. I meet teenagers who are astonishingly well-informed about the classics. But you are right that many moviegoers and video viewers say they do not “like” black and white films. In my opinion, they are cutting themselves off from much of the mystery and beauty of the movies. Black and white is an artistic choice, a medium that has strengths and traditions, especially in its use of light and shadow. Moviegoers of course have the right to dislike b&w, but it is not something they should be proud of. It reveals them, frankly, as cinematically illiterate. I have been described as a snob on this issue. But snobs exclude; they do not include. To exclude b&w from your choices is an admission that you have a closed mind, a limited imagination, or are lacking in taste.”
“Every once in a while I have what I think of as an out
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the most fun for me. The pay-off starts when we get in front of people.”
Kele moved to Clapham from East London’s Shoreditch four years ago and the change of scene had a significant impact. “It’s the best decision I ever made,” he says, echoing a lyric from 2007’s ‘Song For Clay (Disappear Here)’ (“East London is a vampire/It sucks the joy right out of me”). Now free of “vomiting City boys” and able to buy milk “without bumping into someone from a band”, he lives on a quiet street with his boyfriend and their dog.
‘Hymns’ was conceived at this new retreat. Whereas Kele’s second solo album, 2014’s
‘Trick’, was inspired by clubbing, ‘Hymns’ is a product of holing up with the curtains drawn. Kele wanted the songs to “have the reverence I associate with spiritual or devotional music”. The result is a spacious, serene record with none of the fiddliness of previous Bloc Party albums. ‘Into The Earth’ and ‘Only He Can Heal Me’ are some of their sparsest songs yet, and the emotional ‘Exes’ (a track about “looking back with sadness” that Kele’s boyfriend apparently hates) is given some extra heft by a male gospel choir.
However, Kele doesn’t want ‘Hymns’ to be perceived as an overtly religious record. He was raised in Essex by Catholic Nigerian parents and had to go to church every week until the age of 20. “I’m not a religious person. There are lots of things about organised religion that are stupid or harmful, although there is something beautiful about giving yourself over [to a higher power].” Rather than religion, ‘Hymns’ is about honouring the things Kele holds sacred, namely “nature, water, light, the moon and sex”.
The latter is the focus of ‘Fortress’, in which Kele sings in falsetto about sheets and sweat over muted beats. “The arch of your back invites… DESIRE” he whispers, before revealing “I’m a fool for the sight/ of all the gold between your thighs”. The steaminess is inescapable, but Kele insists it’s not gratuitous: “It’s about cocooning yourself away from the world with someone you love.”
Kele let Russell in on what he was doing in September 2014. The pair – friends since forming Bloc Party as teenagers – had seen each other sporadically since that Latitude gig, often discussing the possibility of reviving the band. Asking Kele when he really decided that the band had to make a fifth album prompts him to stare at the table. Looking up he begins an answer that lasts nearly 20 minutes.
“I knew when our ex-drummer left that I wanted to make a record. I didn’t until then. Things had got so cold between us, I thought it was time to step out. When he made a French exit it gave me some desire to do this again, I realised it could be fun.”
He looks down again before continuing. “It’s weird talking about this. This is the first time I’ve spoken about the dynamic between us and I’m torn. I’m conscious they [Gordon and Matt] are probably gonna see this, but I want to be honest. I don’t want to throw them under the bus or hurt their feelings and I still care about them as people, but I realise that if I’m gonna talk about it I need to do it honestly. So maybe I shouldn’t. I think some things are going to have to stay private. We all got what we wanted. They have the freedom to do what they want and I have a renewed desire to make music in the band.”
Kele is no longer in contact with Gordon or Matt and admits that ‘Four’ was affected by bad blood. “We’d had a break, ostensibly because we weren’t sure if we wanted to be in a room together, and those feelings manifested again. It was clear that was how it’d always be – that’s the reason I thought, ‘I don’t actually wanna do this.’”
He starts to answer a question about what happened at Latitude in 2013, but catches himself again. “I don’t want to talk about this actually. My one real memory is that we had an argument onstage and it was at that point I realised we were going to carry on without Gordon. Our relationships wouldn’t recover.”
Jordan Hughes/NME
What was the argument about? “I can tell you it was about someone doing cocaine and someone not being into it. That’s all I’m gonna say. People think bands breaking up is sexy but often it’s super mundane, like not flushing the toilet or washing up. It’s often not about the flashpoints but deep-seated issues.”
Kele is wary of sounding like a tyrant, but insists that Bloc Party Mk I had reached an impasse. “It was [change] or stop. I love what I do, so they had to go.” He concedes that the new line-up might initially feel wrong for “people who have known us to be a certain way for a long time… but those fans don’t own Bloc Party. I’ve always been adamant I know what’s good for the survival of the band.”
Kele is excited by taking the new-look band out on the road, and especially at headlining next year’s NME tour – “we’re gonna bring it really hard” – but a lingering uncertainty is obvious. “Will the same things go wrong again? We’re only going to do this if we want to, so that’s something I can’t say hand on heart until we tour. I love making music with Russell and Justin and I’m looking forward to doing it with Louise. All we can hope for is making music that excites us.”
On the phone a few hours later, Russell is more upbeat. The guitarist is walking his dog near his Essex home and he enthuses pretty much non-stop about Bloc Party’s return. “There’s a lot of positivity. This record came from me and Kele writing in a room together, which is how we started. It feels like the first time.”
Russell is still in occasional contact with Gordon and Matt, and puts their departure down to touring strains, making a comparison with the Big Brother house. “Kele and I are both guilty fans! It’s interesting to see how behaviour rapidly declines if you’re in close proximity and haven’t eaten. Tour life can be similar.”
What will Bloc Party do differently this time round? “Well, there’ll be a lot more punching each other in the face!” Which may be as close as we get to an admission of what actually went down back in 2013. There’s an awkward pause before Russell quickly adds: “No, seriously, the only thing is to limit touring.
“I love Bloc Party,” he finishes, “we’ll be hanging out every day for the next two years, not knowing what’s gonna happen. It’s exciting.”
With an absorbing new album in the bag, a much-anticipated tour on the horizon and two new members injecting fresh life into the band, Bloc Party are poised to revive the glory days of 2005. Of course, it wouldn’t be Bloc Party without a certain degree of anxiety – but that is what’s fuelled their best music. Don’t call it a comeback, but Bloc Party are fighting fit once more.
Bloc Party headline next year’s NME Awards Tour 2016 with Austin, Texas, alongside Drenge, Ratboy and Bugzy Malone. The annual tour will begin in Cardiff on January 29, stopping off in Southampton, Bristol, Nottingham, Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, Cambridge and London before a final gig on February 12 at Birmingham’s O2 Academy. Tickets are on sale now.Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood (known as Daniel Tiger's Neighbourhood in Canada,[4] either abbreviated to DTN[5]) is an American-Canadian animated children's television series produced by Fred Rogers Productions, 9 Story Media Group and Out of the Blue Enterprises. It debuted on September 3, 2012 on PBS Kids. The program, which is targeted at preschool-aged children, is based on the Neighborhood of Make-Believe from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the long-running family-oriented television series created and hosted by Fred Rogers.
Premise [ edit ]
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. The character Daniel Tiger is based on Mr. Rogers, and elements of his home are based on the set of
The series centers around Daniel Tiger (son of Mom Tiger and Dad Tiger). The series also features other children of the characters from the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, such as Katerina Kittycat (daughter of Henrietta Pussycat), Miss Elaina (daughter of Lady Elaine Fairchilde and Music Man Stan), O the Owl (nephew of X the Owl), and Prince Wednesday (King Friday and Queen Sara Saturday's youngest son and Prince Tuesday's little brother). Two 11-minute segments are linked by a common socio-emotional theme, such as disappointment and sadness or anger, or being thankful and appreciative. The theme also uses a musical motif phrase, which the show calls "strategy songs", to reinforce the theme and help children remember the life lessons. Many of the "strategy songs" are available in albums or as singles under the artist name "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood." The first two albums are Big Feelings and Life's Little Lessons.[6] The series is co-produced by the Pittsburgh-based Fred Rogers Productions (formerly the Fred Rogers Company and Family Communications)[3] and Out of the Blue Enterprises, with animation produced in Canada by 9 Story Media Group and music created at Voodoo Highway Music & Post.[7][8]
In 2006, three years after Fred Rogers' death, and after the end of production of Blue's Clues, The Fred Rogers Company contacted Angela Santomero to ask what type of show she would create to promote Rogers' legacy. That conversation led to the creation of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.[9] PBS initially ordered 40 episodes, which were broadcast between September 3, 2012, and February 21, 2014.[10] PBS Kids renewed the series for a second season of 20 episodes, which premiered on August 18, 2014.[11] On July 7, 2015, the series was renewed for a third season of 25 episodes.[12] On October 11, 2017, the series was renewed for a fourth season of 20 episodes and a one-hour special Won't You Be Our Neighbor, which premiered on July 11, 2018. Cartoon Network UK's sister pre-school channel Cartoonito premiered Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood on March 1, 2016.[13] The series had previously been available for streaming on Netflix before July 1, 2016, when a multi-year agreement for the catalog of many of PBS's children's series with Amazon Prime Video went into effect.[14] A smaller selection of current episodes is also available through the PBS Kids app on several digital media player and tablet/smartphone platforms.
The program is targeted at preschool-aged children; it teaches emotional intelligence and human respect. Its content follows a curriculum based on Fred Rogers' teaching and new research into child development.[15]
Characters [ edit ]
Tiger family [ edit ]
Daniel Tiger (voiced by Jake Beale, Devan Cohen, then Keegan Hedley) – The host of the series. Daniel is a tiger cub who lives on Jungle Beach with his parents. In season 2, he became a big brother when Baby Margaret was born. His favorite toy is a stuffed tiger named Tigey, which he named after "Tigey the Adventure Tiger," his favorite storybook hero. Daniel normally wears a red zipper cardigan sweater hoodie and red sneakers (in contrast to Mister Rogers' blue sneakers). He differs in physical appearance from the character he is based on from the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood television show. In his house, the wardrobe and much of his home furnishings (such as the traffic light, shelves with the Neighborhood of Make-Believe models, and Picture Picture), are direct allusions to Mr. Rogers' studio house. He is allergic to peaches. His catchphrases are: "Grr-ific!", "Tiger-tastic!", "Ugga Mugga", "Wasn't that Grr-ific!" and "Grrrrrrrr!" [16]
Mom Tiger (voiced by Heather Bambrick) – Daniel's mother. She is a carpenter because of the new job in the first episode of season 4. [17] In the first episode of season 2, she was pregnant, and in the subsequent episode, she visited Dr. Anna and gave birth to Margaret. In Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood there was a "Collette Tiger" who referred to her grandfather (as Daniel does to his) as "grandpere".
In the first episode of season 2, she was pregnant, and in the subsequent episode, she visited Dr. Anna and gave birth to Margaret. In Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood there was a "Collette Tiger" who referred to her grandfather (as Daniel does to his) as "grandpere". Dad Tiger (voiced by Ted Dykstra) – Daniel's father works at the clock factory where he maintains various clocks and is responsible for "chime time". He is also a photographer. He wears a blue cardigan sweater and blue sneakers. He is loosely based upon the Daniel Striped Tiger puppet from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, a very shy orphan who lived inside a non-functioning grandfather clock. He mentions that he has a paternal grandmother named Margaret in the season 2 premiere.
a very shy orphan who lived inside a non-functioning grandfather clock. He mentions that he has a paternal grandmother named Margaret in the season 2 premiere. Baby Margaret - Daniel's baby sister who was introduced in Season 2. Her favorite toy is Pandy, a stuffed panda. [11] She is named after Daniel's favorite baby book, 'Margaret's Music', and her great-grandmother with the same name.
She is named after Daniel's favorite baby book, 'Margaret's Music', and her great-grandmother with the same name. Grandpere Tiger (voiced by François Klanfer) – Daniel's grandfather ("grandpere" being French for "grandfather") who travels in his sailboat and has a French accent. He wears a blue pea coat and a blue beret. (The family tree in Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood diverges from that of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, in which Grandpere was actually the grandfather of Collette, and Daniel Striped Tiger was an orphan.) In the season 2 premiere, he tells Daniel that his mother was named Margaret.
Owl family [ edit ]
O the Owl (voiced by Zackary Bloch, Stuart Ralston, Parker Lauzton, then Benjamin Hum) – A little blue owl with green sneakers. O lives with his uncle, X, in the Treehouse. He loves books and has books about everything in his room. His catchphrase is "Hoo hoo!".
X the Owl (voiced by Tony Daniels) – X is O's uncle. X's feathers are still the same dark blue color as they were in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. He wears a green bowtie and brown loafers. He works at the neighborhood library. X's catchphrases are "How in the world are you?" and "Nifty galifty!"
Cat family [ edit ]
Katerina Kittycat (voiced by Amariah Faulkner, then Jenna Weir [18] ) – Katerina is one of Daniel's classmates and lives with her mother, Henrietta Pussycat, in the tree house and loves dancing. She is O the Owl's next-door neighbor. Her catchphrase is "meow-meow".
) – Katerina is one of Daniel's classmates and lives with her mother, Henrietta Pussycat, in the tree house and loves dancing. She is O the Owl's next-door neighbor. Her catchphrase is "meow-meow". Henrietta Pussycat (voiced by Teresa Pavlinek) – Katerina's mother. She is a supporting character who shares her love of dancing with her daughter.
Royal family [ edit ]
Prince Wednesday (voiced by Nicholas Kaegi, then Jaxon Mercey) – The Royal Family's youngest son who lives in the Castle. He is one of Daniel's four classmates and his best friend, has a rock collection, and often pretends to be various animals. He frequently uses the adjective "royal" to refer to objects in his possession.
King Friday XIII (voiced by Jamie Watson) – Ruler of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, King Friday is married to Queen Sarah and has two sons—Prince Tuesday and Prince Wednesday. His arrival is often preceded by trumpet fanfare, and he makes all the public announcements in the neighborhood. He enjoys bowling in his spare time, one of the rare instances he does not wear royal garb. He usually greets others with "Royal Greetings, royal greetings"
Queen Sara Saturday (voiced by Catherine Disher) – King Friday's wife, Prince Tuesday's and Prince Wednesday's mother, and the aunt to Chrissie. She is a supporting character, not seen as often as the other members of the royal family.
Prince Tuesday (voiced by Tommy Lioutas) – Prince Wednesday's older brother and King Friday's heir apparent. Prince Tuesday is Daniel Tiger's babysitter. He also works at the neighborhood restaurant as a waiter, and at the market as a cashier. He also works as a crossing guard near the school, and is a lifeguard at the neighborhood pool.
Chrissie (voiced by Matilda Gilbert) – Prince Tuesday and Wednesday's cousin, and King Friday and Queen Sarah's niece. Her legs cannot work on their own, so she has to use braces on her legs and crutches on her arms. Occasionally she needs some help, but mostly she likes doing things for herself. She has a horse named Peaches. Chrissie is based on Chrissy Thompson, a regular visitor on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
Museum-Go-Round family [ edit ]
Miss Elaina (voiced by Addison Holley) – Miss Elaina enjoys doing things backwards and lives with her parents, Lady Elaine and Music Man Stan, in the Museum-Go-Round. She is one of Daniel's four classmates and often imagines space travel and robots. Her favorite toy is "Astrid the Astronaut" and her catchphrase is "Hiya, Toots" to Daniel Tiger.
Music Man Stan (voiced by Jeremiah Sparks) – Miss Elaina's father. He owns the Neighborhood Music Shop, one of Daniel's favorite places to visit. He is also a firefighter with Dr. Anna and is in the musical duo "Bread and Jam" with Baker Aker. Music Man Stan is based on the actor Stanley Bennett Clay and his character he played on "Christmastime with Mr. Rogers" called The Music Man.
Lady Elaine (voiced by Teresa Pavlinek) – Miss Elaina's mother. She works at the crayon factory and is curator of the Museum-Go-Round.
Platypus family [ edit ]
There was originally a Doctor Bill Platypus on Mister Roger's Neighborhood, whose daughter Ana/Anna became a children's doctor.
Jodi Platypus (voiced by Laaibah Alvi) – A three-year-old platypus is shy around new friends but is silly when she has adjusted. She loves to play hide-and-seek and is resourceful with a well-stocked pocket of supplies. [19]
Dr. Platypus (voiced by Miku Graham) – "Dr. Plat" (or "Mama"), Jodi's mother, is the new town dentist and a painter.
Teddy Platypus – A two-year-old twin to Leo and one of Jodi's younger brothers, Teddy is fast, rambunctious and loves to play hide-and-seek.
Leo Platypus – A two-year-old twin to Teddy and one of Jodi's younger brothers, Leo is careful and shy, but loves to cheer on his family.
Nana Platypus – Nana, Jodi's grandmother, lives with her grandchildren Jodi, Teddy, and Leo. Nana works as a barber.
Other neighbors [ edit ]
Teacher Harriet (voiced by Shawne Jackson) – The schoolteacher who works at the neighborhood school. Her class consists of six students: Daniel Tiger, Miss Elaina, Prince Wednesday, O the Owl, Katerina Kittycat, and Jodi Platypus. Teacher Harriet the human may be based on the Mister Rogers character Harriet Elizabeth Cow from the Neighborhood of Make-Believe [ citation needed ].
. Baker Aker (voiced by John Filici) – Baker Aker owns and runs the neighborhood bakery. He is Mexican. He has baked pastries for Daniel and his family on various occasions and plays with Music Man Stan in Bread & Jam. He's based on the Mister Rogers character Chef Brockett. Baker Aker's name is an homage to Neighbor Aber, Charles R. Aber, of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
Mr. McFeely (voiced by Derek McGrath) – Mr. McFeely is the neighborhood mailman. He is often on his bicycle delivering parcels, and arrives and departs by saying "Speedy delivery!" He is the only human character from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood to be brought to Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.
to be brought to Dr. Anna (voiced by Laara Sadiq) – Dr. Anna is the neighborhood physician; she is Indian. She assisted Mom Tiger give birth to Baby Margaret, got new eyeglasses for Prince Wednesday, and has helped various characters with injuries or illnesses to recuperate. She is also a firefighter with Music Man Stan. She is allergic to peanuts. Though human, she shares several characteristics of the platypus family of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood : their patriarch, Bill Platypus was the neighborhood physician and spoke with a foreign accent (Scottish, in his case), and his daughter was named Ana.
: their patriarch, Bill Platypus was the neighborhood physician and spoke with a foreign accent (Scottish, in his case), and his daughter was named Ana. Trolley – A red, autonomous, semi-anthropomorphic trolley which transports Daniel and his friends anywhere in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. It understands verbal commands clearly and replies by ringing its bell twice, which Daniel often imitates. It is the same trolley from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
Episodes [ edit ]
Season Episodes Originally aired First aired Last aired 1 40 September 3, 2012 ( ) February 21, 2014 ( 2014-02-21 ) 2 20 August 18, 2014 ( ) July 4, 2016 ( 2016-07-04 ) 3 25[20] September 5, 2016 ( ) July 10, 2018 ( 2018-07-10 ) 4 20+[21] July 11, 2018 ( ) TBA
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood has won and been nominated for several awards in children's broadcasting. It won Silver Parents' Choice Awards in 2013 and 2014, was nominated for the Television Critics' Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in Youth Programming in 2013 and 2014, and was a 2014 Prix Jeunesse International Selection.[11][22][23][24]Kobaïan is a lyrical language created by French drummer and composer Christian Vander for his progressive rock band Magma.[4] It is the language of Kobaïa, a fictional planet invented by Vander and the setting for a musical "space opera" sung in Kobaïan by Magma on ten concept albums.[1][5][6]
Development [ edit ]
French drummer and composer Christian Vander formed progressive rock band Magma in late 1969 in an attempt to fill the void left by the death of American jazz musician and composer John Coltrane.[1] Magma's first album, Magma (later reissued as Kobaïa), told a story of refugees fleeing a future Earth and settling on a fictional planet called Kobaïa.[7] The lyrics were all in Kobaïan, a language Vander constructed for the album, some sung by soloists and others by "massive quasi-operatic choruses".[1] Over the next three decades Magma made a further nine albums that continued the mythology of Kobaïa, all sung in Kobaïan.[5]
Vander (his Kobaïan name is Zëbëhn Straïn dë Ğeuštaah) said in an interview that he invented Kobaïan for Magma because "French just wasn't expressive enough. Either for the story or for the sound of the music".[4][8] He said that the language developed in parallel with the music, that sounds appeared as he was composing on a piano.[9] Vander based Kobaïan in part on elements of Slavic and Germanic languages and in part on the scat-yodeling vocal style of American avant garde jazz singer Leon Thomas.[1] The subsequent expansion of the language became a group effort, and as Magma's personnel changed, so new ideas were incorporated into the language (and the music).[7]
British music critic Ian MacDonald said that Kobaïan is "phonetic, not semantic", and that it is based on "sonorities, not on applied meanings".[10] One of Magma's singers, Klaus Blasquiz, described Kobaïan as "a language of the heart" whose words are "inseparable from the music".[10] Magma expert Michael Draine said "the abstraction provided by the Kobaïan verse seems to inspire Magma's singers to heights of emotional abandon rarely permitted by conventional lyrics".[1]
The Kobaïan lyrics on Magma's albums were generally not translated (though both Kobaïan lyrics and an English translation were provided for the first UK release on A&M of Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh), but clues to the unfolding story of Kobaïa were given in French in the albums' liner notes. While the original intent of the language was to avoid over-scrutiny, unofficial Kobaïan online lexicons were created by Magma fans, and Vander himself has since translated many of the words.[5]
Influence [ edit ]
Christian Vander called Magma's music "Zeuhl" (Kobaïan for "celestial"),[11] and it influenced a number of other (mostly French) bands, including Zao (France), Art Zoyd (France) and Univers Zero (Belgium). Zeuhl later became a music genre which was used to describe music similar to that of Magma.[13][14] Several Japanese Zeuhl bands also sprang up, including Ruins and Kōenji Hyakkei, whose lyrics are also sung in a constructed language similar to Kobaïan.[5]
References [ edit ]Hopes that US would now cough up £3.5m in unpaid charges and fines dashed
Hopes by Boris Johnson that Barack Obama's new ambassador in London would pay almost £3.5m in unpaid congestion charges and fines run up by the previous administration were dashed today as the new regime confirmed it has no intention of settling the bill.
A spokesperson for the mayor of London said that Johnson, who is on holiday, was disappointed that the US embassy was choosing to "continue to ignore" its responsibility to Londoners by paying the £8 daily charge incurred by those driving within the city's congestion charge zone, as well as fines built up for non-payment.
The mayor had hoped that Obama's new representative in London, Louis Susman, who was sworn in two weeks ago and arrived in the capital today, would signal a change of approach due to the new administration's green credentials.
But a spokesman for the US embassy confirmed that Washington's position had not changed.
In total, Transport for London says the embassy now owes a backlog of charges and fines worth £3,446,420.
Around a quarter of embassies share the US view that they are exempt from the charge because it is a tax, and therefore not payable because of their diplomatic immunity.
The US embassy spokesman said: "Our policy on the congestion tax is a long-standing policy decided on by Washington. The US government's position is that this a tax and therefore is prohibited by various treaties."
The disclosure will intensify the battle between Transport for London and foreign embassies who refuse to pay the charge and collectively owe around £28m.
Last year, the mayor made clear his fury at diplomats based in London who refuse to pay for driving in the congestion charge zone.
At a public meeting in November, Johnson claimed he would happily "slap on asbo" on non-paying embassies were it not for the Geneva conventions.
A spokesman for Johnson said today that the change in ambassador had been the "perfect opportunity" to resolve the dispute.
"The mayor is deeply disappointed that it seems they may not choose to do so. The congestion charge is a service, not a tax, which is paid by the majority of embassies and millions of Londoners. There is simply no excuse for the American embassy to continue to ignore this responsibility to its host city and the mayor will continue to press this point to their representatives."
A TfL spokeswoman pointed out that three quarters of embassies pay their dues.
"TfL and the UK government are agreed that the congestion charge is a charge for a service and not a tax, which means that diplomats are not exempt from payment. All staff at the American embassy should pay it, in the same way as British officials pay road tolls in the United States. TfL continues to engage directly with those embassies that refuse to pay in order to increase compliance with the scheme by diplomats."Earlier this month, Microsoft made a quiet announcement that they would be extending lifecycle support for Windows 10, 1511. The company is adding additional six months of support to its lifecycle to accommodate companies who are struggling to move off of the version of Windows 10 which should be a red flag for the folks in Redmond.
Why 1511? For the most part, early adopters of Windows 10 are not going to install the first release of the OS. They waited until the first patch was released before deploying the new version of Windows which made me wonder, how are companies actually dealing with this migration outside of Microsoft’s always-positive PR spin?
I started poking around on Twitter a bit and asking friends in the industry about what they are hearing and the feedback was not exactly great. In fact, there is a lot of concern about the new modernization Microsoft is forcing on to companies as it may not be sustainable without serious investment which is the opposite of what is happening in the IT space.
The cloud, for all the great things it offers, also makes it harder for any company with on-premises deployments to keep up to speed with Microsoft and their feverish new rate of development. Remember, Microsoft is setting the pace here, not the user.
With Windows 10, Microsoft is pushing down on users two updates per year. Yes, you can skip one update but at a minimum, you will be installing one major Windows update per year, and roughly 12 patches as well.
While testing for patches has been done for decades, adding in testing for a major OS update has not and it requires an extensive amount of work. Further, most large shops will likely be supporting at least two iterations of Windows 10 at any time as they roll-out updates which means double the testing for patches for Windows 10.
That extra work aside, Microsoft is also forcing this rapid release to Server and for those using Visual Studio, that means more testing as well. What you end up with is an IT shop who finds themselves having to do significantly more compatibility testing to make sure their current and legacy apps will continue to function or find a workaround if they do not in a very small time window.
Now, you can argue that this is all beneficial because, in theory, it should improve security for the customers. I do believe that this is true but the side-effect is that patch deployment is being delayed as constraints on testing means that you need to test more scenarios across a wider-variety of operating systems to fully assert that the patch or update is not going to break your environment.
After all, if a company cannot deliver it’s primary product because an update crippled an application or data center, security doesn’t matter if you are bankrupt.
This may sound like I am exaggerating but this is what has been told to me publicly and privately; Windows 10 is creating more work for the IT Pro. More work means more expense and telling management that upgrading to the new OS is costing them more money than Windows 7 is not a fun conversation to have with senior leadership.
What Microsoft is doing is moving at the speed of cloud which works great for them as they own the cloud but not-so-great for companies who only view the underlying software as an appliance that needs to be maintained so that they can manufacture a widget.
Migrating companies from Windows XP to Windows 7 was a monumental task for Microsoft and resulted in the company extended support for that operating system. Right now, for companies who operate with a lean IT budget, moving to Windows 10 will absolutely cost them more money on a perpetual basis, specifically in terms of support.
More testing before deployment means more personnel are needed to meet the deadlines set forth by Microsoft. As companies continue to upgrade to Windows 10, we have the first evidence that a rapid-release cadence for an OS is not sustainable with the extension of 1511. Microsoft is downplaying this scenario but I suspect this will not be the last time they have to delay sunsetting a specific version of Windows 10.
Of course, you can argue that this is the first time that companies have to update and it’s a learning process but what I am hearing from customers is that it is a significant burden for medium-sized companies with on-premises metal.
We are at an interesting point where Microsoft is forcing modernization onto its clients with rapid release and clients who are not able to rapidly move to this model as it doesn’t provide significant value to them. While we wait to see if there is a middle ground in this new world of rapid release software updates, there is going to be carnage from those who can’t adapt fast enough.
One thing I have been hearing is that companies who are on Windows 10 are considering expanding the machines that use the LTSC. The reason for this is that Windows 7 will end support in about two years and as a stop-gap to get off of that OS and on to Windows 10, LTSC is an option that doesn’t require as much overhead as CBB.
Microsoft has not shown any indication that they will be extending the support lifecycle of Windows 7 which means if you have not started planning to migrate to Windows 10, you need to so in the very near future. As part of that planning, expect to perform more compatibility testing, more time deploying updates, and also planning in annual Windows 10 version updates which means going forward your budget will be expanding, not contracting.
What I wonder after looking at the direction Microsoft is forcing companies is who is receiving the bigger benefit, the customer or Microsoft?Case Keenum has started to gather some awards and accolades as he has continued to impress with his play at quarterback for the Vikings this season. He was named NFC Offensive Player of the Month in November, the first Vikings QB to earn that award since Brett Favre in 2009, and has won some weekly awards for performances over the last couple months as well. Most recently he was also named the Minnesota 2017 Person of the Year by The Athletic- a publication I’ve never heard of. It wasn’t the award that struck me though, but the interview he and his wife Kimberly did as part of receiving it.
Both Case and Kimberly Keenum make no secret about wanting to stay in Minnesota.
From The Athletic: His rise from a relatively anonymous insurance policy to a galvanizing force for one of the best teams in NFL makes Keenum the recipient of The Athletic Minnesota's 2017 Person of the Year. It’s the latest accolade to be showered on a player who was an afterthought during training camp, the guy who was coming aboard to hold down the fort until Bridgewater was ready to play again, and the one whose job even appeared to be up for grabs as recently as a month ago. “I’ve had people tell me I couldn’t do this or do that for a long time,” Keenum says. “I had one scholarship offer out of high school, undrafted out of college. I’ve had a lot of naysayers in my time. I learned pretty early to ignore those people. After beating the Lions on Thanksgiving to go to 9-2 on the season, the Keenums and Thielens returned home to take in a Timberwolves game the next night. When Keenum was shown on the big screen and introduced, a thunderous roar came from the sellout crowd, offering the kind of warm embrace he has not experienced elsewhere as a professional. “Especially after the first couple games that he was winning, I don’t think he had a whole lot of respect from the fans,” Thielen says. “It was pretty cool after him continuing to show he can play at a high level. It was cool to see the fans giving him that respect and people excited about what he was doing.”
“We’d love to stay,” Case says.
“We would,” Kimberly echoes.
“The first six or eight months we’ve been here, it’s been great,” Case says. “We understand how the NFL works, but we love it here. We love the city, love the people here, love the organization.”
And why wouldn’t they.
Keenum has had easily the best season of his pro career. Here is where he ranks in key QB metrics after week 15:
Completion %: 67.9% (2nd)
Passer Rating: 98.9 (tied 7th)
ANY/A: 7.19 (7th)
INT %: 1.6% (tied 5th lowest)
Sack %: 3.83% (5th)
All of those metrics also exceed Tom Brady’s career averages, despite Keenum playing on a new team, with unfamiliar receivers, and a new scheme.
I did a piece on Keenum a couple weeks ago, outlining how Keenum has improved as a Viking and over the course of the season. Keenum credited both the coaching he’s received as a Viking, and the Vikings’ receivers- the best group he’s worked with.
And since the bye-week, check out this comparison with the leading candidate for MVP of the league this year:
Funny Keenum has only received a trickle of consideration for MVP himself, and was not even among the top 10 QBs in Pro Bowl voting.
Vikings 2017 MVP
Be that as it may, there isn’t much doubt that Keenum has been the Minnesota
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governor. That distinction belongs to former Gov. Jim McGreevey, who came out as gay in 2004 amid scandal before resigning.
Last year, former Rep. Mike Michaud, who’s gay, sought to win election as governor of Maine, but lost to incumbent Tea Party Gov. Paul LePage. Had Michaud succeeded, he would have made him the first person to win election to a governor’s office while being openly LGBT.This week, everyone's favorite Columbia-educated, sweater vest-wearing musicians Vampire Weekend got into hot water with car enthusiasts the world over thanks to their music video for new single "Diane Young," in which two 900-series Saab cars are torched. Because only Vampire Weekend or Kanye West could possibly find themselves wrapped up in a controversy with people who fetishize cars.
The "Diane Young" video, which you can see above, was seemingly inspired by the first line of the song, "“You torched a Saab like a pile of leaves. I’d gone to find some better wheels.” Jalopnik wrote a post subtly titled, "Vampire Weekend Are A Bunch Of Dicks," while others anthropomorphized the cars in the video's YouTube comments. Now, the NY Post points out that the band may have actually broken some laws in pursuit of their car-killing art: they may have violated New York’s Clean Air Act, because burning paint and metal is an environmental hazard.
The band have been quite sensitive about the controversy, taking the criticisms to heart, as Pitchfork put it, "the way some might after being accused of animal cruelty." Lead singer Ezra Koenig told Spinner, "I want people to understand that we do respect cars and the last thing we want to do is to fuck up a collector's item or something like that." He added that their label had sought to purchase the cheapest, oldest cars possible (the Saabs used were valued at $3,000 each).
Anyway, at the end of the day, the only question is whether the band broke any clean air rules around burning the cars. There's no debate that the band's label bought the used cars legally (Koenig noted, "From what I understand those old ones actually had a lot of electrical problems"), so they had the right to do whatever they wanted with the "junkers"—maybe the owners of those cars had emotional ties to them, but they're cars. They almost certainly weren't going to get anything resembling a respectful burial.
Our bigger takeaways: how come Vampire Weekend keep getting into these odd controversies right before their new albums drop? If you recall, the band was sued by model Ann Kirsten Kennis, who claimed the band didn't have the right to use a photo of her as the cover of their sophomore album, Contra. And while we're not offended by the car burning, we're disappointed in the lazy video: the band came up with some fantastic music videos for the singles from Contra, including "Cousins", and the very self-aware "Giving Up The Gun." Did they just not have any better ideas for the Springsteen-influenced "Diane Young"?Ashes of the Singularity v1.01 Changelog
General unit, building, and economy balance
Removed “Fringe” map from Ranked match playlist
Visual polish & bug fixes on forests
AI difficulty balance
Campaign difficulty tweaks
Removed “Fringe” map from Ranked match playlist
AI Balance Beginner AI made slightly more effective (to address feedback that they were too easy) Easy AI made slightly less effective so difficulty ramp up between Beginner > Easy > Normal is more consistent
Campaign Balance M08 difficulty balance M04 additional difficulty balance
Balance Resources Nexus now provides 2 metal income per tic Extractor income increased from 1 per tic to 1.5 per tic Controlled deposit income reduced from 1 per tic to 0.5 per tic Buildings PHCDrone Bay Metal cost reduced from 360 to 240 Construction time reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds PHC Orbital Nullifer HP reduced from 750 to 600 PHC Armory Radioactive cost reduced from 100 to 90 Build time increased from 30 seconds to 45 seconds PHC Dread Launch time to build increased from 120 to 180 (thus reducing its resource cost-per-second) PHC Power Regulator Radioactive cost reduced from 100 to 80 Build time increased from 60 seconds to 40 seconds PHC Orbital Command build time decreased from 300 to 240 PHC Weapons Lab Radioactive cost increased from 240 to 360 Build time decreased from 180 seconds to 120 seconds PHC Quantum Relay cost reduced slightly, build time reduced from 90 seconds to 70 seconds Substrate Annihilator fixed gun shield regen increased from.5 to 1 Substrate Blossom Launcher shield regen increased from.5 to 1 Substrate Drone MRV (whose splash damage was recently reduced) Shield regen increased from.5 to 1 Radioactive cost reduced from 240 to 180 Sight radius increased from 500 to 600 Substrate Assembly metal cost reduced from 180 to 160 Substrate Advanced Assembly construction per second cost reduced while time to build increased from 120 to 180 Substrate Quantum Relay Radioactive cost increased from 390 to 300 Build time decreased from 80 seconds to 60 seconds Substrate Drone Orbital cost per second increased but time to build reduced Substrate Power Regulator cost per second increased bu time to build reduced Gateway cost per second cost increased but time to build reduced Units PHC Engineer Lowered metal cost to be in line with Substrate Constructor cost max velocity reduced from 200 to 180 HP increased from 90 to 120 Build time decreased from 30 to 25 seconds cost per second to build increased PHC Brute max velocity increased from 118 to 120 Brute HP reduced from 100 to 90 Volley decreased from 5 shots to 4 shots PHC Archer HP reduced from 90 to 75 rocket damage decreased from 80 to 75 PHC Medic sight radius reduced from 500 to 400 PHC Artemis Sight radius decreased from 500 to 400 Radioactive cost increased from 24 to 38 max velocity reduced from 84 to 80 PHC Apollo Sight radius increased from 500 to 600 Radioactive cost increased from 12 to 17 PHC Zeus laser cannon damage increased from 50 to 75 Chain Lightning cool down reduced from 8 to 7 max velocity increased from 95 to 96 Substrate Overmind "brain whale" HP increased from 2000 to 3000 Substrate Retributor max shields increased from 4000 to 5000 shield regen rate increased from 5 to 8 per second Substrate Savager shield regen rate increased from 5 to 8 per second Substrate Avenger HP reduced from 350 to 300 max shields increased from 250 to 300 shield regen increased from 8 to 10 max velocity reduced from 98 to 80 plasma hose cool down reduced from shots reduced from 8 to 6, accuracy increased to 75% (from 60) and damage increased Mayhem Cannon cool down reduced from 8 seconds to 6 seconds Substrate Drone Hive shield regen rate increased from 1 to 2 Substrate Mauler max velocity increased from 120 to 125 Construction time decreased from 55 to 50 Sight radius decreased from 600 to 580 shield regen rate increased from 1 to 2 Max shields increased from 900 to 1000 Max energy increased from 100 to 200 Hyena Cutting Array cool down reduced from 4.9 to 2.4, duration of beam increased from 1.6 to 1.8, damaged reduced from 120 to 101 backup cannons cool down reduced from 3.5 to 2.8 but number of shots reduced from 4 to 2 Substrate Constructor max velocity reduced from 202 to 190 Max HP reduced from 50 to 30 Max shields increased from 50 to 80 Sight decreased from 600 to 480 Metal cost increased from 240 to 380 Construction speed decreased from 30 to 24 Substrate Martyr Max HP decreased from 80 to 60 Substrate Reaper max velocity increased from 97 to 110 Max shields decreased from 100 to 90 Sight radius increased from 400 to 500 Build time reduced from 29 to 25 Substrate Destructor sight radius decreased from 600 to 500 Substrate Capacitor build time decreased from 18 to 16 Sight radius reduced from 600 to 500 Substrate Sky Cleanser build time reduced from 28 to 24 Substrate Dominator's air to air weaponry made decent (it was awful) Dominator build time reduced Punisher build time reduced (120 to 100) Substrate air scout vision increased from 900 to 1000 Orbital Abilities: Plasma storm cool down increased from 10 to 30 seconds Orbital strike cool down increased from 30 to 60 seconds PHC Amplify abilty cool down reduced from 5 seconds to 1 second Call Avatar cool down reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds Avatar's plasma stream cool down reduced from 12 to 8 seconds Kill orbital cool down increased from 5 to 30 seconds Destonate orbital cool down increased from 30 to 60 seconds Overcharge orbital cool down decreased from 30 to 12 seconds Boost orbital cool down reduced from 30 seconds to 1 second
Adjusted tree/forest size to make them more prominent in the terrain
Fix for desert trees having bad LOD
Adjust tree shadow LOD draw distance so they are visible farther out
Updated Cerius map preview image
The v1.01 update for Ashes of the Singularity is now available. Check out the latest updates:Note: Existing mission 4 and mission 8 saves may exhibit strange behavior (objective list not showing up). Starting from the mission start will resolve this.Art & GraphicsLabour faces a sexism row today after it defended the decision to segregate Muslim men and women at a party rally at an Islamic centre.
Senior party figures, including Liam Byrne, Tom Watson and Harriet Harman's husband Jack Dromey, spoke at the event in Birmingham on Saturday even though men sat on one side of the room and women on the other.
Labour has denied that people were forced to sit separately based on gender - even though photographs from the event show that the groups were clearly segregated.
Critics called the decision'sickening' and claimed that the party was'selling values for votes' in order to get Ed Miliband into Downing Street.
Scroll down for video
Row: Men and women sat apart at a Labour-run event in Birmingham on Saturday, which critics said had no 'place in modern Britain'
Among those on the panel were Tom Watson, fer left, Liam Byrne, centre left, and Jack Dromey, centre right, – the husband of Labour's deputy leader and ardent feminist Harriet Harman
Among the Labour grandees at the event was Khalid Mahmood, who is standing to be MP for Perry Bar on Thursday.
Mr Mahmood previously spoke out against the alleged Trojan Horse plot in 12 of Birmingham's schools, including allegations of gender segregation, but was centre stage at Saturday's event - but said any criticism based on the rally photo was 'ridiculous'.
LABOUR GRANDEES ATTEND EVENT INCLUDING MP WHO PREVIOUSLY FOUGHT AGAINST SEGREGATION Some of Labour's most senior figures attended the event where women and men were segregated. Khalid Mahmood, right, who is standing to be MP for Perry Bar on Thursday, previously spoke out against the alleged Trojan Horse plot in 12 of Birmingham's schools. Mr Mahmood had claimed hard-line Muslims are trying to ‘indoctrinate’ pupils at some inner-city schools - and claimed that girls and boys were being segregated in assemblies and were learning radical views that conflicted with their parents. Yet on Saturday he attended an event where men and women were sitting separately. Alongside him was Liam Byrne, right, the outgoing Labour Treasury minister in 2010 who decided to leave a note saying there was ‘no money’ left after years of profligate spending. Other candidates to address the rally included Jack Dromey – husband of former equalities minister Harriet Harman, together right, who has been the party's champion of women’s rights - even touring the country in a pink battle bus trying to win the female vote. Also there was Tom Watson, right, the former deputy chairman of the party and campaign chief, who led the charge in the phone-hacking campaign against Rupert Murdoch's media empire.
He told MailOnline that although the picture of the event showed men and women sat apart, afterwards the groups all mixed afterwards and took'selfies' together.
He said: 'I was happy to support the event. It wasn't as segregated as people are making out. The photo has been taken out of context.
'Nobody was told to sit anywhere. It just happened that men and women sat separately – but what the photo doesn’t show is there were women and men together at the back.
'What people need to understand is that this part of a process of engaging with Muslim women and this was the start of that. It is about giving women in some communities the confidence to engage.
'People can say what they like. In 2010 I went to rallies where there were no women at all'.
MailOnline approached Liam Byrne for comment, and he said he had nothing to add to Labour’s official statement.
Jack Dromey and Tom Watson were unavailable today.
But one senior party figure has said the seating arrangements ensured that women from the city's Muslim communities were able to take part - ensuring all were 'treated equally and respectfully'.
Tory candidate Julian Smith said: 'Labour are completely desperate. They are selling their values in exchange for a few votes.'
Former MP Louise Mensch tweeted: 'Freedom of religion allows churches and others to segregate, a secular political event is not religious.'
Andrew Bridgen, the Tory candidate in North West Leicestershire, said: 'On the one hand, Labour is preaching about feminism and equality for women, and on the other hand they are happy with a segregated audience.
'It shows how desperate they have become at the fag end of this campaign that they will do anything for a few votes. This shows Labour talking out of both sides of its mouth – as usual.
Peter Walker tweeted: 'This is a Labour Party political event. Yes, the women have had to sit apart from the men. It is disgraceful'.
Paul Watson wrote: 'The 'progressive' Labour Party hosted an event where men & women were segregated'.
And Ben Archibald said: 'Why did @Ed_Miliband allow a Labour event to proceed with women segregated? Disgraceful'.
Support: A tweet by one of the local Labour organisers, Mariam Khan, shows her posing with Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper, bottom left, and Harriet Harman, bottom right, in March
Invite: The poster for the rally makes a plea for women to attend, with party sources claiming having men and women separately ensured that women from the city's Muslim communities were able to take part
The event - for a predominantly Asian audience - was advertised as a 'Labour party jalsa / rally' in the Diamond Suite, a venue two miles outside the city centre.
MP FROM PAKISTAN'S 'LITTLE BRITAIN' WHO SAYS HE 'TELLS PEOPLE HOW TO VOTE' The guest of honour at the event where men and women were segregated was Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry - the former prime minister of Azad Kashmir in Pakistan. The area is known as 'Little Britain' because so many people from the area ended up in the UK after its economy was shattered by the building of a dam in the 1960s. It is believed that 70 per cent of all people of Pakistani-heritage living in the UK originate from this small area. In 2010, an election year, the BBC spoke to Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry as he toured Britain. He said he saw himself as a leader of the Mirpuri community, the people of Azad Kashmir, at home and in Britain. Mr Chaudry is now back in the UK again, and was on the panel at the controversial event in Birmingham on Saturday where men and women appeared to be segregated. He said in 2010: 'I always come during elections. It's basically so I can tell people how to vote and who to vote for. 'Most of the Pakistanis here are from Mirpur, and I am the MP from Mirpur, and I know the issues here and who will be the best candidates to help solve the issues in Kashmir.'
Organised by Birmingham Labour councillor Ansar Ali Khan, a leaflet for the rally adds that Councillor Miriam Khan is organising a 'women's section for jalsa'.
The guest of honour was Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry - the former prime minister of Azad Kashmir in Pakistan - who once bragged he told people in the Pakistani community 'who to vote for'.
In 2010, an election year, he toured Britain and told the BBC he saw himself as a leader of the Mirpuri community, the people of Azad Kashmir, at home and in Britain.
He said: 'I always come during elections. It's basically so I can tell people how to vote and who to vote for.
'Most of the Pakistanis here are from Mirpur, and I am the MP from Mirpur, and I know the issues here and who will be the best candidates to help solve the issues in Kashmir.'
Pictures from inside the room where the rally was held show a clear segregation of the audience.
Critics said it was hypocritical for Labour candidates to take part in a segregated political event even though they stand on a platform of equality for the sexes.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: 'It was a political Labour Party meeting - men sat on the right hand side and women sat on the left hand side.
'I believe that's got no place in modern civilised Britain. I want to know from the Labour Party, how in the name of your party can you have allowed that to have happened?'
Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham, seen as a leadership rival to Ed Miliband, said that although he was uncomfortable with segregation by sex, it was important to respect the rules of religious organisations.
Asked what he though he said: 'No, I wouldn’t normally say so, we would want everybody to be taking part in this election on an equal basis with no segregation so I don’t know the reasons why the room was organised in that way, I have no insight to give you there, but it is also right that politicians address all audiences and go to all places as part of the election campaign.
'I don’t know why that meeting was conducted in that particular way. I don’t like the idea of segregation, I don’t think it should happen, it should be a completely mixed audience, but you would obviously have to ask the organisers of that event as to why it was done in that way.'
But Labour has refused to condemn the organisers of the event for the gender segregation.
Backer: Other candidates to address the rally included Jack Dromey – husband of former equalities minister Harriet Harman, who has been touring the country in a pink battle bus trying to win the female vote
Campaign trail: David Cameron and Ed Miliband, both pictured today, have been keen to promote equality between the sexes
Labour MPs and candidates have previously turned down requests to speak at events due to be attended by a largely Muslim audience because only men were invited, but they supported this rally after a female Muslim councillor ensured women were able to attend, the source said.
In 2009, former agriculture minister Jim Fitzpatrick walked out of a Muslim wedding when he was told he could not sit next to his wife.
A party spokesman insisted: 'Labour fully supports gender equality in all areas of society and all cultures.
'There was no forced segregation. Speakers at the event included both women and men.Michael’s plan seemed like a really great idea at the time he hatched it. He wanted to make sure that he would have the money for a Nexus 4 set aside, so he purchased $350 worth of credit for the Google Play store. The phone’s available for sale there, so this made perfect sense. Until the phone actually launched. When he could finally get through to place his order, he learned that Play Store credit specifically couldn’t be used on Nexus devices. Oh, no.
He posted this rant on (where else?) Google Plus.
Through and through I am a gadget freak. I love playing with the latest mobile technologies and occasionally writing or modifying software to fit my needs. I also love Google and Nexus products. When I saw the Nexus 4 was going on sale I was just about broke so I wanted to make sure I had the money set aside to buy one.
So what did I do? I bought $350 in Play Store credit. The device is for sale on the Play Store, and there is nothing on the device page which specifies that that store credit cannot be used in the purchase of a device.
My first horrible disappointment was trying to buy the Nexus 4 16GB model. Like many other potential customers I tried to purchase but could never get past the shopping cart due to server errors. I actually spent somewhere around 15 – 20 minutes trying to get to the point I could purchase only to have the device removed from my cart and the status switched to “Coming Soon”.
My second disappointment was decided to try and purchase a Nexus 7 32GB HSPA+ tablet for my wife. When it became available again this morning I decided to use my Play Store balance to buy it. Here is what I received on checkout:
Google Play Balance $350.06 – Unsupported Payment Method (entire line was greyed out)
After talking to the Play Store support team they told me that I would need to contact customer service for the gift cards at 1-855-466-4438. Before calling I looked at the terms of service I was able to find. They are as follows:
Devices on Google Play Terms of Sale: “To place an order, you must have a Google Wallet account.” Every purchase I’ve made through the Play store has used Google Wallet for checkout, so how is the average consumer supposed to know the difference between a Play Store balance and Google Wallet?
Google Play Gift Card Terms of Service: “Google Play Gift Cards must be redeemed toward the purchase of eligible products on http://play.google.com.” Has anyone been able to find a listing of which products are eligible? I spent half an hour looking this morning, and I have yet to find this information on their site.
When I called the customer service line for the gift cards they told me that this was a known issue that has been reported starting about five days ago and the terms of service state that you cannot buy a device using the Play Store balance. Really now? Per my research on the site there is nothing that specifically excludes devices. And the worst part of this call? They have no ability to refund me for the balance!
I’m not actually looking for a refund. What I want is to use that money to buy some devices. I want a Nexus 4 16GB for myself and a Nexus 7 32GB HSPA+ tablet for my wife. Eventually I would like to replace my Nexus 7 16GB with an HSPA+ version, but I just don’t have the cash for it right now. I don’t care about getting a refund; I care about getting these devices.
So where I am sitting currently is with $350 in the Play Store and no ability to purchase a device. Per the customer support agent this is being “looked into” and “escalated” so I will supposedly hear back from them next week before Thanksgiving. I’m just wondering how many others out there are in the same position, and whether making this problem a little more visible on Android sites would help that “escalation” process.While the world is outraged, and rightly so, by recent policies south of its border, we are quick to forget that not too long ago the Canadian government imposed its own ban of sorts, one that aimed to restrict entry into the country of a specific group of people fleeing persecution.
It did so on the premise that these people were "bogus refugees" undeserving of Canada's protection and explicitly targeted them as "criminals".
Earlier this month, Anthony Housefather, Member of Parliament for Mount Royal delivered a poignant speech during the emergency debate on the executive order signed by United States President Donald Trump to ban refugees and immigrants of Muslim-majority countries from entering the US.
Housefather shed light on Canada's own issues of xenophobia and the politics of fear. From the Chinese Exclusion Act, to the rejection of Jewish refugees aboard the St. Louis, he cited example after example of the darker side of Canada's past.
And although these historic examples rung strong and true, where was mention of the more recent instances of injustice and discrimination in Canadian immigration policy?
Canada's dark secrets
In 2013, financed with Canadian taxpayer money, the government initiated a billboard campaign in the predominant countries of origin of Roma claimants.
It sought to deliberately deter Roma from seeking asylum in Canada, stating that "people who make a [refugee] claim without sound reasons will be processed faster and deported faster."
The billboards were placed in countries such as Hungary, a country which is still listed as "safe" under the current government.
Until the federal court deemed it unconstitutional in 2015, refugee claimants from the Designated Country of Origin (DCO) list were denied their right to appeal in cases of rejection, so as to avoid "abuse" of the system.
The Conservative government's policy and rhetoric targeting Roma asylum seekers as "bogus and fraudulent refugees "undeserving of Canada's protection" were not only effective in blocking Roma from entering the country.
They also served to embed in Canadian media and political discourse the very stereotypes and hate Roma were seeking to flee in their countries of origin.
OPINION: Warning - Canada is not what you think it is
In this climate of animosity and hostile attitudes towards Roma, many Roma refugee claimants were being taken advantage of by their legal representatives and subjected to biased decision-making at the Immigration and Refugee Board.
Despite increasing refugee acceptance numbers under the current administration, Canadian authorities continue to practise racial profiling against Roma. In 2015, dozens of Hungarian Roma with valid travel documents were prevented from boarding flights to Canada for allegedly lacking proper documentation to enter the country due to their Roma ethnicity.
Without a thorough review of the policy in Canada, Roma refugees fleeing persecution and racism in Europe will be left behind while our very own ban will be left unaddressed.
With little attention from the media, in May 2016 the Canadian government reinstated visas on Bulgaria and Romania to curb Roma immigration.
However, with European Union hesitation and the diplomatic sensitivities surrounding the Canadian-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the move proved to be problematic, and the Trudeau administration was forced to lift the visa requirements on those countries.
Such disagreements regarding CETA ratification are reminiscent of the pressures that had stalled the agreement under the previous government and which eventually led to the imposition of discriminatory policy measures against Roma refugees.
However, the more it changes, the more it's the same thing. While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Europe in mid-February to finalise the CETA agreement, all issues affecting Roma were left off the agenda and conveniently unaddressed.
A 'two-tier' refugee system
Despite recent court decisions and widespread criticism that the DCO creates a "two-tier" refugee system, the "Safe Country" Review Panel was recently dropped from the mandate of the current Minister of Immigration Ahmed Hussen.
This not only means that the DCO list will remain as is, but also that no panel of experts will be delegated to review and reassess the human rights situation of the countries listed.
While a designated "Safe Country" may be safe for most of its inhabitants, it is by no means safe for all. Without a thorough review of the policy in Canada, Roma refugees fleeing persecution and racism in Europe will be left behind while our very own ban will be left unaddressed.
As raised in a recent opinion article published by Al Jazeera, Roma are often made to be the culprits of anti-refugee sentiment in Europe, while they are fleeing those very issues. Even in situations of violent conflict certain populations are not granted equal attention, treatment and compassion.
Noteworthy is the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC)'s report that the Domari populations, who have been present in the Middle East for thousands of years, have been equally, if not doubly, affected by the ongoing crisis and violence in the region.
According to a 2014 ERRC report, out of the estimated one million registered and unregistered refugees from Turkey, some 30,000 were of Domari origin. Political polarisation and ethnic and religious divisions often make it impossible for Syrian Domari populations to stay in official refugee camps.
OPINION: Why are Roma blamed for Europe's rejection of refugees?
After meeting with President Trump, Trudeau reiterated that we ought to be an example for the world by being the open country we are. Now is a crucial time for Trudeau to demonstrate his and the country's true commitment to refugees.
A step in the right direction would be to end the two-tier Designated Countries of Origin system and suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement with the US, and to implement authentic review and assessment of each refugee claimant's case on the basis of merit.
Only then can the light of true justice prevail, and hope be given to Roma and others who have suffered the consequences of Canada's failed legal system. It is, indeed, only by facing our darker moments that we can hope to learn from them.
Dafina Savic is the founder of Romanipe, a Montreal-based, not-for-profit organisation seeking to fight discrimination against Roma worldwide.
Debbie Folaron is associate professor in Translation Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.
Cristina Ruscio holds a Master of Laws (LLM); Comparative Law, Economics and Finance. During her studies, she worked as a legal aid.
The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.August 5, 2011 It was rough on me today; worse on my parents. To begin, after taking dad to his doc appointment, followed by fueling up the Mitsubishi, Mom hand he went to Riley's Diner in Ruckersville. I checked in with them via cellie as they made their way to the diner. Mom requested of me to put a gallon of gas in the red canister for the lawn tractor. I took a bag full of used cans with me also to dispose of them in a nearby dumpster behind Food Lion (there is no recycling facility or disposal area for cans around here yet). I was going to take my car, but it would not start. So I called and informed mom about that, and that I would take the recently checked van instead. She also asked me to drive by Goodwill to swap the van for the Mitsu. I would have taken either the Honda or BMW, but I still lack manual transmission knowledge. The van started. After getting onto the road, I noticed the "check engine" being lit; at the moment I disregarded it. But after dropping off the cans in the dumpster, I started to press on, but after moving forward slightly, it stalled on me. And I could not restart it. I called mom to come to me then. Beforehand, she had a bought with the bitchy server/owner of Riley's, Riley herself. Mom had a quarter of a chicken sandwich from McD; she brought it in with her. She had also got her tea at Riley's before this bout. Mom pulls out the quarter sandwich; Riley is all, "you can't eat food from another place here". There's no sign stating that anywhere there. So, mom ignored her and ate the q-sand in front of her. Riley asked her to leave. Mom wanted her tea too, and she had a big reusable plastic cup in the Mitsu. So she takes the cup of tea out to the car and fills Her cup with the tea. She then returned the restaurant's cup to the table dad was still sitting at. Riley bitched some more at mom about taking their cheap plastic glass outside. So, to come back for dad later, she leaves for the nearby Goodwill. Here is where I came in with the last call, as well as the following where I requested help stranded by the dumpster. So mom comes with the Mitsu to the van; the jumper cables were in the back of my car, the escort, at home. So, she stayed at the van while I A) picked up dad at Riley's, B) stop to get lunch for me at the nearby Taco Bell/KFC; M.Deal 1: chick burrito, med drink and chips, C) return dad home and pick up the jumpers and D) return to mom and the van. The van was still fighting with the mucky, old gasoline; mom and dad got earlier today a bottle of gas cleaner. So after returning to her, she poured in the cleaner, attached the jumpers, and got the van started. After putting away the jumpers, I followed her in the van with me in the Mitsu up to the nearby Sheetz. After her parking the van by pump 7, I parked the Mitsu in a nearby space. I checked in with her, then went into Sheetz to wash my hands to allow me to eat the chick burrito. I sat in the van after she fueled it halfway, and fueled the canister; she had to poo bad. After she returned, I had finished the burrito; she got in and tried to start the van; no turnover. So I pulled the Mitsu up to the van to try rejumping; no good. Mom called dad; he suggested punchin' the pedal while starting up; no good. I stayed by her side during thebwait and restart trials, keeping her company and talkin'; it helped her feel better. Eventually, she reluctantly called for a tow, which arrived about 10 to 20 min. later, to tow the van to Chuck's, just less than half a mile north of Sheetz. The jumpers and can of gas were placed in the Mitsu. We followed the truck and van, left a pair of van keys with Chuck. He'll have another go at it soon. Then tired, mom and I finally came back home about quarter after 7. Killed my day. I was planning on getting the songwork completed, but after what happened... I am sorry, but I will have to complete them tomorrow and upload them on Saturday. Life happens. *sigh* I know very well it's happening to both you and I. I still think of you lovingly and dearly. :) I'll e-mail you again tomorrow. Stay Safe and Sweet. LOLove, <3<3<3<3<3<3<3 Kaka Apple Chrissy.Artist Adam S. Doyle who recently relocated to Hong Kong creates beautiful gestural paintings of birds, where the seemingly incomplete brushstrokes form the feathers and other details of the animal. In some strange way it reminds me of the story of the Renaissance painter Giotto who is rumored to have been able to draw a perfect circle without the aid of a compass, as if Doyle just picks up a dripping paint brush and in a few seconds paints a perfect bird. In reality his work demonstrates a profound control of the paintbrush and careful understanding of the mediums he works with. Via email he tells me:
Yes, what you see is what it appears to be—strokes of paint. I’ve always loved unfinished paintings because you could see the alchemic process of surface and paint transforming into a living person. With my paintings, it does take quite a bit of working and reworking to arrive at the place where every brush stroke fits into a fluidly flowing whole. It’s important to me to find a balance between an elegance of form that holds both visible marks of paint and a representation of ‘energy within’. I’ll just add that the painterly craft of my images, which I consider secondary to investigating ideas and concepts, came about after a lifetime of expressive image-making, followed by doggedly exploring the aforementioned transformation in grad school. I realized during that same formative period that I was also captivated by trying to visualize energy, which I was quite familiar with having grown up with a dad who practiced Eastern medicine.
Doyle most recently had a show at Skylight Gallery in 2011 and is now currently working on a new body of work in Hong Kong. You can see much more of his work on his website.‘Feminist scorecard’ shows Canadian PM has only lived up to promise in one area, as critics say he is practising ‘token feminism’ for a narrow group of women
A slight note of exasperation crept into Justin Trudeau’s voice, suggesting that this was a topic he had broached many times before. “I’m going to keep saying loud and clearly that I am a feminist until it is met with a shrug,” he declared to an audience at the United Nations in New York.
His words sparked delight around the world. But one year on, Trudeau’s heady promises have run into the realities of government, prompting the question: has electing a self-described feminist to helm the country translated into real change for Canadian women?
The answer seems to be no – or at least, not yet.
This month, Oxfam Canada released its first ever “feminist scorecard”, envisioned as a tool to track Trudeau’s progress. The group concluded that some 17 months after taking power, the prime minister and his team’s “bold feminist rhetoric has not yet translated into tangible spending decisions”.
No one doubts that scale of the challenge: as many as 4,000 Indigenous women have gone missing or been murdered in the past three decades, while the number of Indigenous women in prison has rocketed. Child care costs in the country rank among the highest in the OECD, and a persistent pay gap has sent the country tumbling to 35th place in the World Economic Forum’s global gender gap rankings.
According to Oxfam, solid progress has been demonstrated in just one area: women’s representation and leadership. “You can’t overstate the importance of the first gender-balanced cabinet in Canadian history,” said Lauren Ravon of Oxfam.
The government fared worst in the category of jobs, where Oxfam noted that no actions have been taken to address a gender wage gap that ranks among the worst in the OECD or to ensure living wages for the working poor, the majority of whom are women.
While the government has committed to tabling pay equity legislation for federally regulated sectors, it has said it will not do so until 2018.
Still, Oxfam was hopeful that the government would steadily improve its performance on the scorecard in the coming years. “For the most part we’ve seen good first signs. Things are moving in the right direction,” said Ravon. “As the Liberal government embarks on the second year of its mandate, it is time to turn feminist words into action.”
Among those who have been left waiting are Indigenous women and girls,
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even if the health information has been assigned, and retains, a code or other means of record identification, provided that:
the code is not derived from or related to the information about the individual; the code could not be translated to identify the individual; and the covered entity under the Privacy Rule does not use or disclose the code for other purposes or disclose the mechanism for re-identification (see HHS guidance entitled, Institutional Review Boards and the HIPAA Privacy Rule, page 6, Q and A #3, at http://privacyruleandresearch.nih.gov/pdf/IRB_Factsheet.pdf).
Regarding condition (1) above, in contrast to the Privacy Rule, information that is linked with a code derived from identifying information or related to information about the individual is not considered to be individually identifiable under the HHS regulations for the protection of human subjects at 45 CFR 46.102(f), if the investigators cannot readily ascertain the identity of the individual(s) to whom the coded private information or specimen pertains. Therefore, some coded information, in which the code has been derived from identifying information linked to or related to the individual, would be individually identifiable under the Privacy Rule, but might not be individually identifiable under 45 CFR part 46.
If you have specific questions about how to apply this guidance, please contact OHRP by phone at (866) 447-4777 (toll-free within the U.S.), (240) 453-6900, or by e-mail at [email protected].
Documents in PDF format require the Adobe Acrobat Reader®. If you experience problems with PDF documents, please download the latest version of the Reader®.This is an op-ed by Rabbi Marvin Hier the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. LOS ANGELES (JTA) — It’s no secret to anyone that relations between the United States and Israel reflect a new reality and are not what they once were. The last few months have seen a worldwide frenzy of intimidation and threats directed against Israel that has backed its supporters into a corner. Very few have raised their voices in response.
This is a condensed summary of the 10 top lies and the center’s responses:
Lie No. 1: Israel was created by European guilt over the Nazi Holocaust. Why should Palestinians pay the price?
Three thousand years before the Holocaust, before there was a Roman Empire, Israel’s kings and prophets walked the streets of Jerusalem. The whole world knows that Isaiah did not speak his prophesies from Portugal, nor Jeremiah his lamentations from France. Revered by its people, Jerusalem is mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures 600 times, but not once in the Koran. Throughout the 2,000-year exile of the Jews, there was a continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land.
Lie No. 2: Had Israel withdrawn to its June 1967 borders, peace would have come long ago.
Since 1967, Israel repeatedly has conceded “land for peace.” Following Egyptian President Sadat’s historic 1977 visit to Jerusalem, Israel withdrew from the vast Sinai Peninsula and has been at peace with Egypt ever since. But the Palestinian Authority has never fulfilled its promise to end propaganda attacks nor drop the Palestinian National Charter’s call for Israel’s destruction. In 2000, Prime Minister Barak offered Yasser Arafat full sovereignty more than 97 percent of the West Bank, a corridor to Gaza, and a capital in the Arab section of Jerusalem. Arafat said no.
Lie No. 3: Israel is the main stumbling block to achieving a two-state solution.
The Palestinians themselves are the only stumbling block to achieving a two-state solution. With whom should Israel negotiate? With President Abbas, who for four years has been barred by Hamas from visiting 1.5 million constituents in Gaza? With his Palestinian Authority, which continues to glorify terrorists and preaches hate in its educational system and the media? With Hamas, whose Iranian-backed leaders deny the Holocaust and use fanatical Jihadist rhetoric to call for Israel’s destruction?
Lie No. 4: Nuclear Israel, not Iran, is the greatest threat to peace and stability.
The United States and Europe can afford to wait to see what the Iranian regime does with its nuclear ambitions, but Israel cannot. Israel is on the front lines and remembers every day the price the Jewish people paid for not taking Hitler at his word. Israel is not prepared to sacrifice another 6 million Jews on the altar of the world’s indifference.
Lie No. 5: Israel is an apartheid state deserving of international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns.
In fact, Israel is a democratic state. Its 20 percent Arab minority enjoys all the political, economic and religious rights and freedoms of citizenship, including electing members of their choice to the Knesset (Parliament).
Lie No. 6: Plans to build 1,600 more homes in East Jerusalem prove Israel is “Judaizing” the Holy City.
Ramat Shlomo was not about Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem but about a long established, heavily populated Jewish neighborhood in northern Jerusalem, where 250,000 Jews live (about the size of Newark, N.J.) — an area that will never be relinquished by Israel.
Lie No. 7: Israeli policies endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would benefit everyone, including the United States. But an imposed return to what Abba Eban called “1967 Auschwitz borders” would endanger Israel’s survival and ultimately be disastrous for American interests and credibility in the world.
Lie No. 8: Israeli policies are the cause of worldwide anti-Semitism.
From the Inquisition to the pogroms, to the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis, history proves that Jew hatred existed on a global scale before the creation of the State of Israel. It would still exist in 2010 even if Israel had never been created. For example, one poll indicates that 40 percent of Europeans blame the recent global economic crisis on “Jews having too much economic power” — a canard that has nothing to do with Israel.
Lie No. 9: Israel, not Hamas, is responsible for the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. Goldstone was right when he charged that Israel was guilty of war crimes against civilians.
The United Nations Human Rights Council is obsessed with false anti-Israel resolutions. It refuses to address grievous human rights abuses in Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and beyond. Faced with similar attacks, every U.N. member-state, including the United States and Canada, surely would have acted more aggressively than the Israel Defense Forces did in Gaza.
Lie No. 10: The only hope for peace is a single, binational state eliminating the Jewish State of Israel.
The one-state solution is a non-starter because it would eliminate the Jewish homeland. However, the current pressures on Israel are equally dangerous. In effect, the world is demanding that Israel, the size of New Jersey, shrink further by accepting a three-state solution: a P.A. state on the West Bank and a Hamas terrorist one in Gaza. All this as Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, stockpiles 50,000 rockets, threatening northern and central Israel’s main population centers. Current polls show that while most Israelis favor a two-state solution, most Palestinians continue to oppose it.
Full versions of the brochure are available by e-mailing [email protected] or calling. The online edition is available at http://www.wiesenthal.com/toptenlies.
(Rabbi Marvin Hier is the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.)
Like this: Like Loading...“Thank you, Mr. President,” Vice President Mike Pence tweeted on July 15, celebrating the one-year anniversary of candidate Donald Trump naming him to the 2016 ticket. Will ex-president Trump get to say the same thing to Pence when the new president pardons him?
Despite the “I love it” salivated by Donald Trump Jr. at the prospect of Kremlin help with the campaign, his father’s impeachment still is a long shot. Unless Democrats retake Congress in 2018, the chance that elected Republicans will admit they’ve been enabling a “liar” and “idiot” — words that polled Americans call Trump — are just about nil. But I give even odds to Trump’s resigning “for health reasons.”
He’ll never admit to any of the crimes that congressional committees or special counsel Robert Mueller may fillet him for, and even if he fires Mueller, no amount of incriminating evidence uncovered by investigative journalists will awaken our man-baby-in-chief to grown-up skills like telling true from false, reality from delusion and news from Fox News.
But bullies like Trump are cowards at heart. However appealing he finds sliming his prosecutors like a stressed hagfish, the thought of running away to spend more time with his 9-iron might prove irresistible. Would Pence trade the Oval Office for Trump’s holding his resignation hostage to a pardon?
Pence could use the same reason Gerald Ford gave for pardoning Richard Nixon in 1974: To write the ending of a nightmarish chapter in our history. When Ford lost the 1976 presidential election, he believed it was the pardon that doomed him, and most historians agree. You can imagine Pence wondering the same thing about his own fate in 2020.
Pence, though, may not have a choice. Trump has the goods on him.
Trump knows Pence lied when he claimed to be in the dark about the footsie former national security adviser Mike Flynn was playing with the Russians, the Turks and who knows who else. Trump also knows Pence knew how deep in the tank were Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and Trump Jr. (and Ivanka? Steve Bannon? Bueller?) with Russian hackers, oligarchs and Vladimir Putin himself. As Trump might put it, many people are saying that Pence is either “lying or wildly incompetent,” or “either a sucker and a dupe” or a liar. Trump knows it’s all of the above, leaving Pence no alternative to paying the ransom of a pardon.
I have to believe that Pence’s political rise, like Sarah Palin’s, has been powered at least in part by his looks. If Pence, a right-wing talk radio host for an Indiana station, had looked like Rush Limbaugh or Alex Jones, he might never have made it to Congress. In the 2016 vice presidential debate, Pence lied through his teeth, claiming Trump never had uttered the falsehoods Tim Kaine quoted. If Pence didn’t look like central casting’s idea of Midwestern rectitude, he would have been laughed off the stage. In May, at the U.S. Naval Academy graduation, Pence said the most important quality of leadership is being humble, a point he made again July 12 to high school students attending the National Student Leadership Conference at American University, where he went on, with no irony, to cite Donald Trump as a paragon of that very humility. Really. He actually said that. He invoked Trump to illustrate other leadership virtues, too: integrity (!), self-control (!!) and respect for authority (?). How did Pence get away with it? Tonsorial integrity, I’d venture — the proxy for honesty that his headful of snowy white hair absurdly confers on the blatant bull that comes out of his mouth.
Pence’s current priority, selling Mitch McConnell’s health care bill to wavering senators, isn’t going very well. The damage he did to his credibility by lying about Flynn, Russia and why Trump fired FBI Director James Comey is an anvil around his neck. His approval ratings, at plus-11 as recently as March, have fallen, like Trump’s, to all-time lows. No wonder he bombed at the National Governors Association’s meeting on July 14. When he lied about Medicaid — he said its expansion under the Affordable Care Act hurt developmentally disabled Americans and put “far too many able-bodied adults” on the program — he was nailed not by a Democrat, but by the Republican governor of Ohio, John Kasich. Pence also scored zero points with three other Republican governors whose states expanded Medicaid: Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Doug Ducey of Arizona and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas. When Republican senators from those states vote on McConnell’s bill, they’ll take their lead from their governors, not from Pence.
If you’re dreaming of an abbreviated Trump administration, you need to reconcile yourself not only to a Pence presidency, but also to a Pence pardon. That would make Trump even more insufferable, but as many people are saying, at least Pence would be a normal Republican. You know, the garden variety Republican who wants to kill Planned Parenthood and end gay marriage, who calls global warming a myth and “longs for the day that Roe v. Wade is sent to the ash heap of history.”
We have to keep reminding ourselves not to get used to Trump, that he’s not normal. Pence may be normal, but so is poison ivy.
Marty Kaplan is the Norman Lear professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Reach him at [email protected] Art Center of Corpus Christi will host its Art Wars: The Holiday Awakens family art program on Dec. 21. Guests may create a Yoda Silhouette Holiday Card or a keepsake tree ornament. (Photo: Contributed photo)
A long, long time ago – last year – in an art center on the bay, art center organizers planned the first "Star Wars"-themed family art program.
This year, the Art Center of Corpus Christi will return to the jedi theme for Art Wars: The Holiday Awakens on Wednesday, Dec. 21 to provide holiday fun with a nerdy twist.
"The kids just love it," Executive Director Dianna Bluntzer said. "Last year, we had over 400 kids here."
The free, two-hour event from 5-7 p.m. is made possible by a collaboration with Corpus Christi Fun for Kids and will close out the Grow Local South Texas Harvest Market Series in support of local business.
There will be photo ops with the naughty and nice. The North Pole's Santa and Mrs. Claus and the 501st Legion's storm trooper and snow trooper will pose with eventgoers of all ages.
"When it comes to Star Wars we have adults coming in to take pictures with them," Bluntzer said.
In addition to the craft market and special guests, there will be two holiday craft projects of a metal keepsake tree ornament and a Yoda Silhouette Holiday Card.
"People are focusing on being together and making something together, which is what this time of year is all about," Bluntzer said.
IF YOU GO
What: Art Wars: The Holiday Awakens
When: 5-7 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Art Center of Corpus Christi, 100 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Cost: Free
Information: 361-884-6406, www.artcentercc.org
Read or Share this story: http://callertim.es/2hpKwUkThis game is, undoubtedly, the most fun I have ever had on a handheld device. Touching storylines that will definitely stir up "the feels" and super fun gameplay combine for 200+ hours of a masterful game creation.
For the first time, the Rune Factory series caters to the choice of a female protagonist at the beginning of the game...YES! That being said, there's way more "YES!" to the game than that.
The game's main storyline paces at the player's discretion where you can choose to do a variety of things. Some people claim that the Rune Factory series is almost stressful with how much there is to do but this is what makes the game great. There's always something to do: farming, interacting with towns people, crafting, fighting monsters, taming monsters, fishing, cooking, exploring dungeons, etc. And this game in the series serves new treats to the table, as well.
The farming aspect of the game is similar to past games. You have an expandable field with expandable barns that you can fill with monsters who will tend to your field. But wait! There's more! This game introduces new seeds. That's right. Seeds that can create weapons. And seeds that can create an entirely new dungeon to explore!
The towns people are as cute and entertaining as ever. Events in the game work a little differently, however. Events are random. So, one day, you may be walking through town or into a shop when an event will begin. Which, though it definitely makes the game more realistic, can be a little irritating when you are attempting to trigger certain character events. Nonetheless, many events are fun and are worth any inconvenience. The games dating sim aspect introduces a new part to romance: you and your loved one(s) will be straight up boyfriend and girlfriend until one of you proposes to the other. Romance events are also very cute. Super cute.
Crafting in this game made a lot more sense to me in this game than in the past games of the series. There's a lot of new weapons to make and upgrade as well as farming tools, armor, and accessories.
Battling is similar to how it has been in past games and magic definitely becomes a lot more important to your character's survival. In this game, bosses are hundreds of levels strong. Not kidding. And there are tons of bosses. Super fun.
Monster taming is one of Rune Factory's qualities that make it so wonderful. Monsters can end up being super useful to you in dungeons as some can be very strong. And, being able to have a party of up to two, you can bring even more with you!
Fishing and cooking are the same as they have been in other games but still enjoyable and preparing fish before shipping them rakes in some easy cash.
Exploring dungeons. There is literally so much to explore. The game offers tons of dungeons that the storyline will take you through but there are also secret dungeons hidden in between trees that are only available at certain times of the year and you can literally grow a dungeon in your field. Dungeon exploring in this game is a massive improvement from its predecessors.
And you are a prince/princess in the game. YOU RUN THE TOWN. The game has "Prince/Princess Points" which are points that you can acrue through running your town to either build new shops that sell new items, expand your backpack and other storage places, expand your farm and barns, PUSH AWAY TYPHOONS, and more! You even get to open your OWN shop where you can sell goods you find in dungeons, farm, or craft to the towns people for gold.
I seriously had/have so much fun with this game. There is so much going on and so many new challenges that this game just will not let you put it down. I HIGHLY recommend.The Honda WorldSBK Team is pleased to announce the signing of 26-year-old Stefan Bradl from Germany for the 2017 FIM Superbike World Championship. Crowned Moto2 World Champion in 2011, Bradl will join former MotoGP™ Champion Nicky Hayden to complete a stellar line-up for Honda next season.
Despite his young age, Bradl has a wealth of experience at international level. Since his 125cc debut in 2005, he has collected nineteen podium finishes and seven wins across all Grand Prix classes. After winning the Moto2 World Championship in 2011, Stefan made his MotoGP debut with the LCR Honda Team in 2012 where his best result was a second-place finish at Laguna Seca in 2013.
The Honda WorldSBK Team would like to thank Michael van der Mark for his outstanding efforts and title-winning contribution during his tenure as a Honda rider. The team will maintain its unconditional support for Michael for the remainder of the season, with the goal of achieving the best possible results.
The Honda WorldSBK Team is pleased to confirm that its riders for the 2017 season will be Nicky Hayden and Stefan Bradl.The understanding of fracture phenomena of a material at extremely high strain rates is a key issue for a wide variety of scientific research ranging from applied science and technological developments to fundamental science such as laser-matter interaction and geology. Despite its interest, its study relies on a fine multiscale description, in between the atomic scale and macroscopic processes, so far only achievable by large-scale atomic simulations. Direct ultrafast real-time monitoring of dynamic fracture (spallation) at the atomic lattice scale with picosecond time resolution was beyond the reach of experimental techniques. We show that the coupling between a high-power optical laser pump pulse and a femtosecond x-ray probe pulse generated by an x-ray free electron laser allows detection of the lattice dynamics in a tantalum foil at an ultrahigh strain rate of ~2 × 10 8 to 3.5 × 10 8 s −1. A maximal density drop of 8 to 10%, associated with the onset of spallation at a spall strength of ~17 GPa, was directly measured using x-ray diffraction. The experimental results of density evolution agree well with large-scale atomistic simulations of shock wave propagation and fracture of the sample. Our experimental technique opens a new pathway to the investigation of ultrahigh strain-rate phenomena in materials at the atomic scale, including high-speed crack dynamics and stress-induced solid-solid phase transitions.
Keywords
More generally, the study presented here shows an experimental technique, allowing for observation, at the lattice level, of the stretching of a material under extreme deformation rates and determination of one of its universal properties: the spall strength. At this scale, it is then possible to directly compare the experimental results with MD simulation to develop and/or further constrain interatomic potential for a given material. This method has strong implications for material characterization and optimization, investigation of material properties under high impact, or the development of new materials as it bridges the gap in the understanding of the relationship between atomic structure and material properties.
Dynamic high-pressure physics has gained increasing interest during the last decades in various domains such as planetology, including high-pressure phase diagram studies ( 1 ), crater impacts ( 2, 3 ), and hypervelocity impacts from micrometeoroids and orbital debris ( 4, 5 ), as well as technological and advanced material applications ( 6 – 9 ) such as laser shock peening ( 10 ), development of new materials ( 11 ), or adhesion tests ( 12 ). An important phenomenon for these studies is the dynamic fracture of a material under high-speed loading, which is critical for understanding its fundamental mechanical properties under shock loading. Dynamic fracture is characterized by the ejection of one or multiple fragments because of tensile stresses. The failure process under dynamic compression is due to the crossing of two release waves: In the case of a shocked material plate, one of these rarefaction waves is generated by unloading, starting from the front face of the plate, whereas the second one returns from the rear free surface after the reflection of the shock on it ( 13, 14 ). Several experimental techniques have been developed to study the effect of dynamic damage (spallation) on materials at different strain rates and temperatures using macroscopic information, such as the evolution of free surface velocity and/or postmortem examination of the sample ( 15 – 17 ). However, no direct ultrafast observation of the stretching of the lattice at extreme deformation rates has been performed to date. More specifically, the high-pressure fracture properties of metals (such as Ta) or metal alloys are important for many applications, including for micrometeoroid and orbital debris shielding for future spacecraft and new generations of satellites, for plasma-facing components in nuclear power plants ( 18 ) and even for laser peening and adherence tests in a range of industrial applications. Previous experimental works ( 19 – 22 ) have all been restricted to indirect, macroscopic observations of the spallation process. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations performed at strain rates of >10 8 s −1 ( 23 ) predict that the spall strength of Ta should be extremely high (>10 GPa), a pressure that could be calculated from an x-ray diffraction (XRD) signal.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The pump-probe experiment was performed at the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact Free Electron Laser (SACLA), Japan (24, 25). The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1. An optical laser at 800-nm wavelength, with a pulse duration of ~660-ps full width at half maximum (FWHM) and an energy on target up to 1 J, was focused down to ~280-μm FWHM, resulting in an on-target intensity of ~2.5 × 1012 W/cm2, to generate a shock wave in a 5-μm-thick polycrystalline Ta target. At the rear side of the target with respect to the pump laser, a 7-fs quasi-monochromatic XFEL pulse, with ~10-keV photon energy (energy bandwidth of ~0.5%) and ~1011 photons per pulse, was used to probe the crystallographic lattice spacing d of the sample. The target was placed at a 20° incident angle compared to the XFEL beam axis, which was focused in one direction down to ~17 μm using a mirror, whereas the other axis was adjusted to ~200 μm by a two-quadrant slit. X-rays were then diffracted by the orderly array of the body-centered cubic (bcc) (002) Ta planes into a Debye-Scherrer diffraction ring. A part of the diffraction ring was observed on a one-megapixel array detector (26) to determine the lattice spacing d of the sample (see Fig. 1A). In that way, a higher 2θ angle would correspond to a compression, whereas a lower 2θ angle refers to an expansion of the lattice (see the Supplementary Materials). Note that our experimental configuration allows us to study the lattice deformation and fracture of the Ta sample in a region corresponding to the submicrometer penetration depth of the 10-keV x-rays inside the material (L ~ 0.85 μm). This short penetration depth means that our data are only sensitive to a small portion of the sample, rather than integrating over the whole thickness of the sample as in a transmissive configuration (27), and are therefore extremely sensitive to the atomic motion very near the sample free surface. In addition, this configuration separates the probed region from the laser-matter interaction occurring at the front surface of the target, allowing us to probe a region in the target where the shock wave is well established.
Fig. 1 The pump-probe experiment at SACLA. (A) Experimental configuration, where a 5-μm-thick polycrystalline Ta sample is compressed by a pump (optical) laser and the diffraction is observed preferentially in the bcc <001> direction. An ultrafast (7 fs) x-ray beam focused in the z direction probes the lattice arrangement of the sample and generates a Debye-Scherrer ring. (B) A part of the Debye-Scherrer ring is recorded by the multiport charge-coupled device (MPCCD) detector for the bcc (002) plane of Ta at different times during the interaction. All the experimental images have the same color scale.
The evolution of lattice deformation associated with the ultrafast fracture in Ta is given by a time series of XRD patterns taken by varying the delay between the pump and the probe beam, where t = 0 is defined at the beginning of the laser pulse (see the Supplementary Materials). The mean crystallite dimension (τ) of our sample is on the order of ~20 nm, related to the broadening of the measured peak at zero pressure and room temperature (see Fig. 1B) by the Scherrer equation.
The 2θ angle of the unstrained bcc (002) lattice plane of our Ta sample measured in the experiment is 43.76° (see Fig. 2) corresponding to a spacing d = 1.652 Å and density of ~16.66 g/cm3. Within the first 50 ps presented in Fig. 2 (t = 1475 and 1525 ps), one can observe two or more peaks related to a compression and an expansion (stretching) of the lattice in a part of the x-ray probed zone (see Fig. 2A). The observed compression (2θ > 43.76°) at these early times corresponds to the shocked compressed part of the sample. The simultaneous expansion (2θ < 43.76°) is associated with the propagation of the rarefaction wave in the compressed sample that was produced when the shock wave reached the free surface. These two phenomena of compression and expansion are contained in a very small space (that is, the region of the penetration depth of the x-rays) and time, which also demonstrates that a very sharp discrete rarefaction wavefront is created, propagating at ~4.5 km/s.
Fig. 2 Experimental profiles of the stretching and postspallation compression in the Ta sample. (A) Observation of the stretching in the experiment of the (002) plane of Ta using an azimuthal integration of the diffraction signal obtained onto the MPCCD detector (blue arrow). (B) Observation of the compression wave (purple arrow) due to the relaxation of the tension after spallation in the experiment of the (002) plane of Ta using an azimuthal integration of the diffraction signal obtained onto the MPCCD detector. The onset at the top left corresponds to the maximum stretching of the sample reached at a time t = 1725 ps after the beginning of the interaction, whereas the onset at the top right corresponds to the dynamic fracture of the sample responsible for the generation of a compression wave propagating in the spall layer. The laser comes from the left, and the XFEL probe comes from the right. These illustrations are not to scale.
At later times (for example, t = 1625 ps), no lattices are compressed and one can only observe a peak from stretched lattices. The maximum expansion, which is related to the ultrafast fracture of the sample, occurs at t = 1725 ps, where a second peak appears at 2θ ~ 42.42°. The two positions of the maximum of the major peaks retrieved at that time have a spacing d = 1.679 and 1.709 Å, which correspond to densities of ρ = 15.87 and 15.04 g/cm3, respectively. Those densities correspond to the stretched solid states with respective pressures of −8.7 and −16.78 GPa according to the Birch-Murnagham equation of state (see the Supplementary Materials) (28–30). The later times, that is, t ≥ 1925 ps, unambiguously show the progressive emergence of a compression wave (see Fig. 2B) with the appearance of a peak at 2θ ~ 44.60°. This compression wave, referred to as the “spall shock” in the following, is generated by ultrafast void nucleations and propagates from the void locations toward the free surface of the spalled layer. The sudden stress relaxation from the negative to ambient pressure in the stretched lattice zone gives rise to the emergence of a strong recompression wave, which propagates in the spalled layer of the material. As a consequence, this spall shock is a strong signature of an initiation of the ultrafast fracture of the sample. The maximum compression due to the spall shock is observed at t = 2125 ps, where the amplitude of the peak at 2θ ~ 44.60° is maximized. Finally, at the latest probing time (t = 2625 ps), the peak is almost at the initial position, although it is wider, probably due to a distribution of different strain (positive or negative) and residual temperature effects.
The experimental data allow us to directly determine the strain rate, where ε = (d(t) − d 0 )/d 0, with d(t) corresponding, in our case, to the spacing d, assuming a uniaxial deformation of the sample, and d 0 to the initial d spacing. Before spallation (that is, t = 1725 ps), the averaged elongation of the material is d(t = 1725 ps) = 1.7094 Å and d 0 (t = 1625 ps) = 1.679 Å. The temporal dynamics shown in Fig. 2A inform us that the elongation from d 0 to d(t) takes place within 100 ps. Therefore, it is only possible to give a lower limit of the experimental strain rate using this method, which should be.
A large-scale MD simulation of a single-crystal Ta film was performed to directly compare and interpret the experimental results (see the Supplementary Materials for more details). A movie of the MD simulation is presented in the Supplementary Materials. At early time points, the MD simulation shows the propagation of the rarefaction wave from the free rear-side surface back into the sample, implying the emergence of tension and a lower density than the initial one. A direct comparison of diffracted x-ray signals coming from the MD simulation and experimental data is displayed in Fig. 3 (A and B). The overall trend (compare Fig. 3B) is well reproduced by the MD simulation, where the time evolution of the diffraction angle during expansion of the lattice and the propagation of the spall shock are in agreement. Therefore, the physical mechanism of the dynamic fracture of the sample is given by the MD simulation.
Fig. 3 MD simulation and direct comparison with experimental data. (A) Comparison of the diffraction signal obtained from the experiment and simulated by the MD just before spallation, where the stretching of the lattice is the most important at 1725 ps after the beginning of the interaction. The black and red arrows indicate the position of the maximum of the diffraction peaks. (B) Direct comparison between the position of the maximum of the different diffraction peaks in the experiment and in the simulation (t = 0 being defined in the same manner in both cases). (C) Two-dimensional (2D) maps shown in the middle panel corresponding to the spatial distribution of density ρ(x,y) and the longitudinal component of the pressure tensor (P xx ≡ −σ xx ) are built by cloning the simulated narrow sample with L y = 20 nm by a factor of 16. White gaps correspond to pores or voids. For the P xx map, the green color represents negative pressure and the red color represents positive pressure. The corresponding profiles of density and pressure P xx at a time of 1925 ps after the beginning of the interaction are displayed in the bottom panel.
The dynamic fracture of the sample starts at t = 1800 ps. The spall strength then corresponds to the tension (negative pressure) present just before the spallation occurs, that is, ~−18 GPa (see the Supplementary Materials). This stress in the rarefaction wave is reached after t = 1800 ps in a wide fracture zone with length of about 1700 nm, where many nanovoids start to nucleate independently, as can be seen in Fig. 3C. Because the voids appear with a time spread of ~10 ps and each new void relaxes the surrounding tensile stress, only one void per about 150 nm can survive and grow further. Because of the periodical boundary condition imposed along y and z axes, the growth of voids is limited by the size of the MD simulation (L y,z = 20 nm). Some of them lead to multiple fractures of the sample, whereas others, which stop increasing in size while still smaller than 20 nm, are just closed pores (illustrated in gray color in Fig. 3C). The ultrafast fracture of the sample generates a shock wave (spall shock) starting from the location of the voids, which propagates through the spalled layer (which starts at x ~ 5000 nm in Fig. 3C). The spall shock pressure and density profile exhibit almost a “plateau” of ~200 nm with an amplitude of ~10 GPa (~17.2 g/cm3; see fig. S3B). Some material at the front of the shock wave still remains at a negative pressure (≤−1 GPa) because of tensile stresses. The spall shock compresses the sample up to a maximum density of ~17.5 g/cm3, which corresponds to a pressure of ~15 GPa (see the Supplementary Materials).
The strain rate is determined from the mass velocity profile u(x) obtained from the MD simulation (see the Supplementary Materials) and gives just before the first rightmost spallation, that is, at a time of t = 1788 ps after the beginning of the interaction. It is consistent with the lower limit calculated using the experimental data and it is also possible to obtain a “pseudo-experimental strain rate” using (i) the elongation of the sample given by the experimental data and (ii) the time t of the fracture observed in the MD simulation. In that case, the pseudo-experimental strain rate is, again in excellent agreement with the MD simulation.
In conclusion, we have demonstrated the feasibility of recording the evolution of material at extreme deformation rates ~2 × 108 to 3.5 × 108 s−1 using a real-time x-ray monitoring technique, opening the way to investigating the dynamic fracture of materials at the lattice level and revealing the atomic structure under tension. Using this technique, a maximal density decrease of 8 to 10%, associated with the onset of spallation in a tantalum sample, was directly measured. Thus, a spall strength of ~16.8 GPa was calculated. This direct method should provide a more accurate spall strength than one estimated from the measured pullback velocity of the rear-side boundary of the spalled layer (31), allow the study of dynamical fracture (spallation) of a material at ultrahigh strain rate and atomic scale, and provide a way to accurately benchmark MD simulation. This is a crucial point for future technological and advanced material creation.
The experimental data show extremely good agreement with both previous results and our MD simulation (see the Supplementary Materials), which not only paves the way toward the direct measurement of spall strength of materials as a function of strain rate but also highlights the usefulness of these facilities to investigation of high-speed crack dynamics and uncommon stress-induced solid-solid phase transitions (32). These transitions could have a significant impact in the industry to develop new materials, allowing interesting mechanical properties for the development of spacecraft, satellite, and plasma-facing components in nuclear power plant facilities.I'm dressing up as Green Arrow for 1 month in an attempt to raise funds for the Sick Kids Friends Foundation. It inspires me to see how much they can help children in fun and inventive ways, even if they are having a really hard time.
This is a fun way to raise money, and will include wearing the costume to college, on a plane, going for to pubs and in everyday life. I will wear it when physically and legally possible and make daily videos and take daily pictures which will be complied on the 8th of April for a "Superhero for Sick Kids" video. I will post the video on Youtube and other social networking sites for all to see!
Please donate what you
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м Минобороны РФ в ходе брифингов 24 и 27 февраля, Тайр-Маала относится к районам, где российские ВКС и силы Асада должны соблюдать перемирие:
Также на канале города Телль-Бисы 28 февраля было опубликовано видео [18+] доставки раненых мирных жителей в больницу. Вероятно, они были доставлены из соседней Тайр-Маалы, весь день подвергавшейся авиаударам.
Согласно тексту соглашения о перемирии, все оказывающие поддержку Асаду стороны (то есть и российские силы) в рамках перемирия обязаны соблюдать резолюцию 2254 Совбеза ООН.
Резолюция 2254, в свою очередь, требует, помимо прочего, прекращения нападений на гражданских лиц и бомбардировок гражданских объектов:
Таким образом, гибель или ранения мирных жителей в ходе бомбардировок означают нарушения перемирия со стороны ВКС РФ и ВВС САР.
Согласно Youtube Data Viewer, между публикацией первого и последнего видео бомбежек Тайр-Маалы 28 февраля прошло 5 часов. Это говорит о том, что нарушение перемирия было не случайным, а многократным и систематическим.
Несмотря на широко разрекламированный «центр примирения», Высший комитет по переговорам сирийской оппозиции заявляет, что не получал ни карт, ни объянения механизмов мониторинга. Об этом сообщила корреспондент AFP на Ближнем Востоке:
#SYRIA: Super worrying: HNC says it has not received any maps outlining ceasefire areas or documents explaining the monitoring mechanism. — Maya Gebeily (@GebeilyM) February 28, 2016
Это также противоречит соглашению о перемирии, которое предусматривает «обеспечение эффективной связи и разработку необходимых процедур для предотвращения ударов по сторонам, соблюдающим режим прекращения боевых действий»:
В условиях, когда Минобороны РФ голословно обвиняет сирийскую оппозицию и Турцию в нарушении перемирия, действия российских ВКС и ВВС Асада никак не освещаются российскими военными чиновниками. Такая политика нарушает положение соглашения о перемирии о «беспристрастном и транспарентном» отслеживании прекращения боевых действий.
Послесловие
Все вышесказанное, мягко говоря, заставляет усомниться в искренности заявлений российского руководства о стремлении к миру в Сирии.
26 февраля мы опубликовали анализ брифинга Минобороны, проведенного за 3 дня до перемирия и свидетельствовавшего, по нашему мнению, о том, что ВКС РФ не собираются его соблюдать. К сожалению, наши опасения подтверждаются.
В этих условиях мы требуем от руководства российских вооруженных сил прекратить нарушение перемирия в Сирии, дать вразумительные объяснения уже совершенным нарушениям, провести их тщательное расследование и наказать виновных. Мы призываем российских и иностранных журналистов добиваться подробной реакции на наш материал, а не отписки, которой Минобороны отреагировало на недавнее расследование наших коллег из Bellingcat.
Если командование российских вооруженных сил так и останется безответственным перед гражданами России и мировым сообществом, гибель мирного населения Сирии продолжится, а международное давление на нашу страну будет только усиливаться, что может привести к еще большим экономическим и репутационным потерям, чем невыполнение Минских соглашений об урегулировании российско-украинского конфликта.
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Благодарим пользователя Твиттера ETKMKAO за содействие в данном расследовании.
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Яндекс.ДеньгамиWASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama rebuffed senators from his own party Tuesday when they sought greater transparency on drone strikes, arguing that the executive branch has the right to keep such information secret from lawmakers, sources said.
The assertion by Obama, more typical of his recent predecessors in the White House who wanted to withhold information, came in response to questions from Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Pat Leahy (D-Vt.). Both lawmakers are deeply disturbed that the White House has maintained stringent restrictions on information about the nation's war on terror, and has refused to share with Leahy memos from the Office of Legal Counsel justifying the targeted killings of Americans with drones.
Sources familiar with Obama's meeting with the senators -- who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private -- said the discussion was calm, although Rockefeller seemed especially dissatisfied with the stance of Obama and the White House. And Obama did not concede.
"It was a reasonable conversation. [Obama] basically said it was privileged information and that the president is entitled to confidential discussions with his advisers," said one source.
"The basic deal is that the Office of Legal Counsel memos are confidential advice to [the president], and he did say that," said another.
While the conversation appears to have been mostly civil, it is a remarkable development in a dispute that was dramatically highlighted last week when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) staged a 13-hour filibuster in a bid to get the administration to declare that it would not use a drone to strike an American inside the United States. Attorney General Eric Holder eventually said it would not, as long as the American was not engaged in combat against the United States.
Leahy has already threatened to subpoena the OLC kill memos. But Tuesday's confab was an in-person discussion among Democrats, and it's a topic that apparently is becoming more urgent for members of Obama's own party, who largely avoided Paul's filibuster.
Another source said it's not the first time a Democrat has pressed the president on the drone strikes, suggesting the concern is also becoming more persistent. A senator also asked about the drone strikes at the Democrats' retreat in February -- a setting where discussions are generally focused on party strategy and unity.
While Rockefeller's office declined to discuss the private meeting, his spokeswoman pointed to the senator's questioning of the administration's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, also on Tuesday. Rockefeller, who has seen at least some of the kill memos -- but only after the Senate Intelligence Committee threatened to spike the nomination of CIA Director John Brennan -- complained that the administration's refusal to share data was a "threat" to a functioning relationship with the Senate.
Clapper responded with a phrase that apparently echoed Obama's words in the private meeting, but also raised the stakes.
"When there are documents that are elsewhere in the executive branch -- OLC opinions just to name one example -- or when we are attempting to abide by a long-standing practice, which has been practiced by both Republican and Democratic administrations, of executive privilege, I think that's where we begin to have problems," he said.
Executive privilege is legally invoked only when Congress has subpoenaed the president, and the White House has refused all of Congress' efforts to make it comply. A White House aide insisted that Clapper was only using the phrase in a historic context, not suggesting at all that the battle over drone transparency was headed there. The aide also insisted that although Obama maintained to his colleagues in the Senate that he had a right to hold back such information, the president was in no way edging toward asserting executive privilege. The aide also downplayed the significance of the standoff, suggesting it was just a typical disagreement between the branches that would be worked out.
There was no sign Wednesday, however, that any agreement was anywhere in sight after the private caucus meeting, and Leahy has not withdrawn his subpoena threat.
Civil liberties advocates said the subject was significantly weightier than run-of-mill partisan squabbles, such as debates over Solyndra, or even the largely partisan Fast and Furious gun-running scandal, which resulted in the only time Obama has asserted executive privilege.
"It's as serious as it gets," said Raha Wala, a lawyer with the group Human Rights First. "The president promised more transparency on this in his State of the Union address and we're waiting. A stand-off with Congress on congressional oversight would be a big step backwards."
Wala believed there were no grounds for the White House to assert privilege, anyway, even in the unlikely event of a Democratic Senate pushing a Democratic president into a high-stakes legal showdown.
"What we're talking about is essentially the official legal and policy position of the government on when it thinks it can kill people suspected of terrorism," Wala said. "This shouldn't be the subject of an executive privilege claim. We're not talking about pre-decisional advice or interagency deliberations."
UPDATE: Obama was apparently sensitive to charges that he was dismissing Congress' oversight task in a fashion reminiscent of the previous White House, of which Obama was a critic when he was in the Senate.
According to a report by Politico, Obama told senators, "This is not Dick Cheney we’re talking about here," referring to the former vice president who was infamously secretive and hostile to Congress.
Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook.Jack Eichel and the Buffalo Sabres were once going to play the Minnesota Wild in downtown Rochester in late September. Those plans have been been scrapped, however, because the Sabres say the arena doesn't meet NHL standards. (Photo: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports)
The Buffalo Sabres say they wanted to bring an NHL preseason game to downtown Rochester for the first time in more than a decade, but an antiquated arena with inadequate facilities prompted them to take the game to Penn State University.
Instead of a Sept. 26 exhibition game between the Sabres and Minnesota Wild at Blue Cross Arena at the Community War Memorial, the teams will play at Pegula Ice Arena in State College, Pennsylvania.
“The game was going to be in Rochester but we don’t feel the facility is up to the standards to play an NHL game,” Russ Brandon, president of the Sabres and Buffalo Bills, said on Tuesday.
The Sabres will announce the Penn State site, along with their entire preseason schedule, on Wednesday.
Brandon said the issues with Rochester’s 61-year-old arena, which was renovated between 1996 and 1998 at a cost of $41 million, are “wide-ranging, from suite level all the way down to how we prepare our hockey team.”
He said since the Amerks are the primary tenant, and have been for 60 seasons, the Terry and Kim Pegula sports conglomerate would appreciate more input into operations and planning.
“Being the largest tenant, we would like to have more control and active discussion in how the dollars that come in are appropriated,” Brandon said. “We’re going to need some changes down the road to ensure viability.
“There’s exciting plans for the downtown corridor in Rochester and we want to be a part of it. The arena can be a real beacon for downtown, and right now it’s far from that.”
The city recently secured $10 million in state funding for arena improvements. Mayor Lovely Warren said earlier this month that the money would be used for what her administration hopes is the “first phase” of modernization.
A city consultant recommended $16 million be spent on “priority projects,” such as upgraded concessions and restrooms, party decks and restaurant with tiered seating.
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“It’s all part and parcel of what we’re trying to do for the city as a whole,” said James Smith, communications director for the city of Rochester.
He said a modernized arena is part of Warren’s vision for Rochester, where a vibrant downtown and safe neighborhoods will help attract new jobs and enhance the quality of life.
“A quality-of-life issue like an arena being upgraded is an important part of those objectives,” Smith said. “We’re proud of the facility but we realize we need to bring it up to date. We always wish we had more money; we always wish we had it yesterday.”
The War Memorial opened in 1955 and opponents to renovation say pouring millions more into the aging facility is nothing more than a temporary bandage.
Brandon believes the arena can be successfully upgraded, however. He pointed to renovation of Ralph Wilson Stadium for the Bills, a structure that opened in 1973.
“But that has been a pure partnership between the state, the county (Eric County) and the Bills,” Brandon said.
That’s why he said it’s imperative that the Sabres/Amerks have input on how money is spent on the arena. Smith said the city is certainly willing to listen.
“The city believes we have tenants that bring people into the facility and that obviously helps us pay for it,” Smith said, “so we’re interested in what their needs are.”
Brandon and Smith said the relationship between the team and city is very good, and negotiations regarding a new lease for the Amerks are on-going. Brandon said he expects to meet with city leaders when the Bills are in town for training camp (July 30-Aug. 22).
Since the city has yet to decide who will manage the arena — either current manager SMG or Philadelphia-based Spectra — the Amerks lease will be renewed for the 2016-17 season under terms of the previous lease, Brandon said.
SMG’s contract expires at the end of September. Smith said a decision on the management partner will have been made by then.
Two years ago during stalemated lease negotiations, the Sabres, under former president Ted Black, had explored the possibility of moving a portion of the Amerks regular-season schedule to Buffalo.
That plan didn’t go far. It also seems to go against the principles on which Terry and Kim Pegula have founded their sports enterprise: that teams belong in the city where they were born. Terry Pegula overspent on his bid to buy the Bills just to ensure the NFL franchise stayed in Buffalo.
“Our goal is to play every game in Rochester in an improved facility,” Brandon said.
The Sabres haven’t played a preseason game in Rochester since Sept. 30, 2005, when 5,019 fans watched Buffalo defeat the Wild 5-3. They also played the last of two regular-season NHL games in Rochester a month later, losing 3-2 to then-rookie Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals in front of 8,552 fans on Oct. 26, 2005.
The last time NHL teams visited the War Memorial was on Sept. 23, 2010, when a crowd of 4,729 watched the Rochester Americans’ parent team at the time, the Florida Panthers, defeat the Amerks’ parent team from the 1970s, the Boston Bruins, 3-2.
[email protected] Thursday afternoon, former two-term Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for a slew of corruption charges, including helping a friend illegally obtain $70 million in city contracts and using "over $840,000 cash, derived from the extortion/bribery/fraud conspiracy" for personal expenses.
There's no question Kilpatrick broke the law, disgraced his office, and screwed over Detroit. But locking him up for 28 years is a ludicrous solution.
For starters, it's a waste of resources. As of 2012, the annual per capita cost of housing an inmate in a minimum security federal prison was $19,325, up from $18,849 in 2011. Taking into account modest cost increases over the course of Kilpatrick's sentence, it's fair to say he'll cost taxpayers at least another half million, and possibly more. That's a lot of money. Not to mention, the federal prison system is 40 percent over capacity. So Kilpatrick will also be taking up space that could and should be used for violent felons.
It's not like Kilpatrick, if given a shorter sentence, will be able to sneak back into office and rob Detroit blind for a second time.
But Kilpatrick's sentence is also problematic from another perspective: It reflects just how crazy sentencing has gotten in the U.S., and shows why we have the largest actual and per capita prison population on the planet.
"Politicians have ratcheted up sentences so much that ten years in prison no longer seems like a long time," says Julie Stewart, founder of Families Against Mandatory Minimums and one of the most prominent advocates for sentencing reform. "This is all driven, of course, by the drug sentences Congress passed in 1986. And with drug sentences so high, punishment for other crimes had to be commensurate."Pothole repair = $3.25 million
After failing for years to address complaints about a pothole-laden thoroughfare in the Oakland hills, the city of Oakland will pay $3 million to a cyclist who suffered severe injuries after crashing on the street.
In a closed session Tuesday, the Oakland City Council agreed to a $3.25 million settlement with a cyclist who crashed while bicycling downhill on Mountain Boulevard between Ascot Drive and the Highway 13 onramp.
The cyclist, a 35-year-old Oakland resident, suffered severe injuries to her face, head, jaw, teeth, according to court papers.
A councilman stated. “This was a serious accident, and this settlement is a fair settlement. The real issue … is what more do we need to do … to make sure we fix the roads that need fixing before accidents like this happen. And that’s primarily a budgetary challenge.”
The city had received prior complaints about multiple potholes and ruts on the road but failed to fix them. The city will pay $3 million to the cyclist; its insurance company will cover the additional $250,000. The city fixed the potholes four months after the accident.
The settlement, scheduled for final approval by the council on April 1, is one of the largest awarded in recent city history. By comparison, the city has spent $1.86 million to settle claims filed by 14 people in Occupy Oakland-related cases.
“This was a serious injury,” said Carter Zinn, the cyclist’s attorney. “We commend the city for taking this seriously. … It’s our hope that the city can put money toward preventing these kinds of accidents by maintaining these roadways.”
Oakland has about 1,000 pending pothole repair requests.A handout photograph posted to a Web site with a racist manifesto appears to show Dylann Roof, the suspect in the Charleston church massacre, posing with a confederate flag and a gun in an unknown location, in this photo with a digital timestamp of April 27, 2015. Handout via Reuters
The killing of nine black churchgoers by a white gunman, Dylann Roof, in Charleston, S.C., sparked a nationwide debate over the Confederate battle emblem.
Some, including Gov. Nikki Haley (R), have argued that the flag should be removed from the Capitol grounds. The South Carolina Legislature followed suit, voting overwhelming to open debate on the removal of the flag. Others oppose its removal. For example, Mike Ryhal, a member of the South Carolina House, referencing “South Carolina history,” said, “I don’t think it should be removed.”
This debate is not new, nor limited to South Carolina. Much of the discussion revolves around the question of whether the flag represents “heritage or hatred” (see, for example, here, here, and here). Drawing on rare survey data on this subject, we can shed light on this question. We find that white Southerners who support the Confederate flag are actually less knowledgeable about Southern history; no stronger in their attachments to fellow Southerners (after racial attitudes are taken into account); less tolerant of interracial dating; and more likely to deny that blacks are discriminated against in the labor market.
Our data come from a survey of 522 white Georgians conducted by the Survey Research Laboratory at Georgia State University in 2004. This survey was designed to assess opinions about three different potential state flags that were being considered at the time: one of these flags prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem:
Knowledge about Southern history was measured with two questions: whether the respondent could correctly identify the famous Union general, William Tecumseh Sherman, and the number of Civil War battles the respondent could name. (In our analysis, no credit was given for additional battles named after the first two.)
The argument that respect for Southern heritage drives white support for the Confederate flag might lead one to think that flag supporters would be more knowledgeable about Southern history. We found exactly the opposite: whites with more knowledge about Civil War history are actually less supportive of the state flag prominently featuring the Confederate battle emblem:
Graph by Spencer Piston and Logan Strother
Of those whites who got all three answers correct (identified Sherman and correctly and named two Civil War battles), only 34 percent preferred the state flag with the Confederate battle emblem. Of those who got zero answers correct, 73 percent preferred the state flag with the Confederate battle emblem. Furthermore, this relationship is present even when we statistically control for markers of social class such as income and education. White supporters of the Confederate battle emblem are distinguished not by their knowledge of Southern history but rather their ignorance of it.
Of course, it is possible that one could feel an affiliation for the South without knowing much about the Civil War. We therefore also examined whether those whites who say they “feel close to Southerners” are more likely to support the Confederate flag. This question is tricky, though, because such whites are also disproportionately likely to express unfavorable attitudes toward blacks. After taking account of racial attitudes, we found no meaningful relationship between feelings of closeness to Southerners and support for the Confederate battle emblem.
In contrast, attitudes toward blacks were strongly associated with support for the Confederate flag. Among those whites who say they would object if their child dated someone of a different race, preference for the Confederate battle emblem is a full 20 percentage points higher than it is among those whites who would not object:
Graph by Spencer Piston and Logan Strother
Similarly, among whites who do not believe that blacks are discriminated against in the labor market, support for the Confederate flag is 30 percentage points higher than it is among those whites who believe there is continuing racial discrimination.
Of course, this survey is now over 10 years old. It is possible, though in our view improbable, that the factors affecting support for the Confederate flag have changed significantly.
Moreover, none of the above shows that the Confederate flag only represents racial intolerance. No doubt there are some whites who favor the Confederate flag for reasons that are not wholly reducible to racial intolerance.
But the results do suggest that in general, white support for the flag is associated not with a deep knowledge of Southern history or a kinship with Southerners, but with racism — that is, not with heritage but with hatred.
Spencer Piston is an assistant professor of political science at the Campbell Institute at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Logan Strother is a PhD Candidate in the department of political science at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.
For related posts, see:
Which is more taboo: the Confederate flag or the rainbow flag?
What happened the last time South Carolina debated the Confederate flag? Hate, but also hope.
Around the world, do symbols like the Confederate flag stand for hate or hope?
Yes, Amazon and eBay can ban sales of Confederate merchandise. Is that good or bad?
Republicans say goodbye to the Confederate flag — and hello to a new strategy?Another important feature requested by many of you. Introducing Asynchronous event wasn’t an easy thing, because we needed to keep backward compatibilty with existing events. We also wanted to leverage new asynchronous API in Java 8 to provide the most up to date approach in the spec.
The solution we choose was to introduce @ObservesAsync and add methods fireAsync() in the Event interface. So the exisitng observer (defined with @Observes ) will stay synhcronous and new observer defined by @ObservesAsync will be called asynchronously if the event was triggered with fireAsync() (and won’t be called from a classical fire() ).
The best is to re-read all the event chapter in the spec to get the details.
Why this double activation is needed?
For the producer ( fire() ) side it’s rather obvious : we cannot magically change all synchronous event call to async. We need an handle on the work in progress (so a new method signature with CompletionStage ), the payload mutation mechanism would break as all transactional events. So there’s no debate on fireAsync().
On the observer side, the reason is for backward compatibility. CDI events are a great way to cross boundaries of our own code and activate unknown code at runtime in another module of the app (i.e. another jar) that we don’t own. This other code can be a framework, a code developed by an other team in a big project or a legacy jar that we don’t want to touch.
Imagine the following use cases (all code running on CDI 2)
I’m compiling in CDI 1.x and one of the Jar (framework for instance) already migrated to CDI 2.0 firing async event where it use to fire sync events. Without activation on the observer side, I have all the chance to see my observer break. And if I decide to upgrade to CDI 2.0 I must have a way to activate / deactivate async call on given observers
I’m compiling in CDI 2.0 but use jar1 in CDI 1.0 and jar2 in CDI 2.0 coming from other teams. jar2 and jar1 are old related pieces of code communicating the event. The guys in jar2 had time to migrate to CDI 2.0 and switch most fire() to fireAsync(). Observer in jar1 will be called asynchronously if the default is to have async activated for all observers.Here's another triangulated outcrop: Technische Universität Dresden students Philip Modest Schambelan and Anton Fromm have designed a hotel for mountain bikers for the edge of a cliff in Pregasina, Italy.
Called Hiding in Triangles, the conceptual project would include continuous ramps from top to bottom so all parts could be accessed by riders on their bikes.
Here's some more information from the designers:
Hiding in Triangles
The new mountain bike hotel on the edge of Pregasina in Italy offers sports enthusiasts a unique place to stay, an unforgettable view and a fast connection to an impressive variety of routes, trails and single tracks.
Pregasina is located on a plateau 500 meters above the northern tip of Lake Garda. A hill is a line-of-sight obstruction to an extensive view of the Alps.
To totally exploit the panoramic view the new hotel is situated on a steep mountain ridge on the southeastern edge of the small town. This on the one hand dissociates the new building of the traditional architecture, on the other hand the unconventional construction can be guessed by a small protrusion.
The following principles determine the draft: complete access by mountain bike at all levels, maximum use of the panoramic view of Lake Garda and the mountain slopes of the Alps, no impairment of the view from Pregasina and a full and individual accommodation of riders and sports equipment in each residential unit.
To ensure the trafficability each access element has a tilt angle of 12 °. The angle of the access routes to each other changes both by the natural curve of the mountain, as well as by the decreasing distance between the building and the mountain in the vertical direction.
These two factors generate the fixed points in the front supporting framework, as well as spaces in the metal braiding. In these spaces, the residential units will be established.
The structure is stabilized by three cores, which provide access to the rooms. Thus, way and construction form a unit that defines the form.
The access routes form two different paths, which are connected on the top and bottom floor. This system of a contiguous band provides an optimal pathways in terms of trafficability and the access to each residential unit.
The main facade is oriented towards the north-east, which guarantees each unit a view of the northern tip of the lake. At the same time it allows shading of the living areas by the hill.
The communal areas such as coffee shops, snack bar, the sun deck and a media room are located on the top floor, Level 0, which looks out over the mountain easily. Here, the sunlight is desired and used.
The mountain bike hotel is an attractive residential experience, which captivates guests with its impressive design, access system and aesthetics, and will become the newest magnet for extreme sports enthusiasts in the Alps.
Click for larger image
Project Name: Hiding in Triangles
Diploma Architect: Philip Modest Schambelan (www.scham.be) + Anton Fromm (www.copypasters.com)
Click for larger image
Location: Pregasina, Lago di Garda, Italy
Use: Mountain Bike Hotel
Structure: steel / polycarbonate (residential units)
Constructed Area: 1500 m2
Design Period: 15.10.2009 - 30.1.2010
Construction Period: hopefully the future
See also:
.Getty Images
In July this year Qantas changed the way it calculates your allotment of frequent flyer points on each flight.
How many points you get now depends more on what you paid for your seat rather than the distance you will travel.
That’s not the full story because Qantas has more of a hybrid system with the fare level and the distance being taken into account.
But there is no question that discounted seats get fewer points while full fare or business class will get more.
US-based analysts IdeaWorksCompany reviewed how the frequent flier business is positioned for change due to moves made by key players, here and in the US, to revolutionise point accrual.
For example, a Qantas discount economy fare Sydney to Los Angeles will now deliver just 4,500 Qantas points, a 40% drop from the old distance-travelled method.
But an advance purchase business class seat on the same flight will get 20% more points at 13,500. A full fare business class seat will get 40% more at 15,750 points.
And then add tier points bonuses for senior frequent flyers in Silver, Gold and Platinum levels.
For many fliers, including those who use Delta and United in the US, the notion an economy class fare accruing points on the basis of distance flown is gone forever.
In Australia, Qantas modified rather than replaced its existing method.
“While points remain the currency of the program, these are no longer accrued on the basis of distance flown,” IdeaWorksCompany says.
“But under the new system, points are not linked directly to fares.
“Instead, Qantas offers a complex system of 15 travel regions, which must be combined with 8 fare categories, to eventually define how many points are accrued for a trip.
“The result is a bewildering array of 120 defined accrual levels.”
IdeaWorksCompany put together comparisons for two key markets in the following table:
IdeaWorksCompany says the airline is placing more accrual emphasis on higher yielding fares.
“There is no easy method to implement big changes, but Qantas seems to have designed an especially complicated path for their customers to comprehend,” IdeaWorksCompany says.
The challenge is the complexity of the new method and the fact that when searching for flights the various fare levels don’t initially display the frequent flyer points returns for each.
Frequent flier points are not displayed until the process continues with flight selection in the next step of the booking path.
“If revenue-based accrual is intended to encourage members to upgrade to a higher fare… that benefit has been lost with the lack of disclosure associated with this price display,” says IdeaWorksCompany says.
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David Mundell: The Scottish secretary insisted more powers will be heading to Holyrood. PA
David Mundell was unable to list exactly the powers the Scottish Parliament will receive after Brexit when he came in for scrutiny at Westminster on Wednesday.
The Scottish secretary was repeatedly questioned over the repatriation of powers from Brussels at the monthly session of Scottish questions at the House of Commons.
SNP MP David Linden described the Cabinet minister's answers on the subject as "fluff".
Both the Scottish and Welsh governments have raised concerns in recent months that they will lose control over current devolved areas which are jointly administered alongside the European Union once Britain's membership ends.
The UK Government insists the process will leave Holyrood with more powers.
Mundell told the House a "significant increase in the decision-making power of each devolved administration" was forthcoming and accused SNP MPs of taking "pantomime approach" to the issue.
SNP MP Patrick Grady, who represents Glasgow North in the Commons, asked: "We hear this all the time, this powers bonanza that's coming, but the Prime Minister was unable to tell us on Monday and it seems he was unable to tell the Scottish affairs committee yesterday.
"So let's give him another opportunity: can the secretary of state name one power that will definitely come to the Scottish Parliament as a result of Brexit?"
Mundell said the process of which powers go where will come about through talks with the Scottish and UK governments.
"That is where the discussions are going on in relation to the transfer of powers," he said.
"But I am absolutely certain that at the end of this process the Scottish Parliament will have more powers and responsibilities than it does right now."
He added: "This is about grandstanding, it's not about the substantive issue of ensuring a transfer of very significant powers from the 111 powers that were listed to the Scottish Parliament.
"I believe in devolution, I'm committed to devolution and I want to see the maximum number of powers transferred. The SNP don't believe in devolution."
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Download: The STV News app is Scotland's favourite and is available for iPhone from the App store and for Android from Google Play. Download it today and continue to enjoy STV News wherever you are.According to the insights from PWC’s 18th Annual Global CEO survey, 81% of CEOs view mobile technology as a strategic asset for the enterprise. 86% of the CEOs claim that to attain success with a clear competitive advantage, it is essential to have a clear vision on the investment and strategies related to digital technologies within the enterprise.
In the digital transformation era, the manufacturing industry is under the constant pressure to increase their output, and improve the standards & quality of their products. Expansion to reach newer markets and exceeding customer expectations are the objectives laid out by organizations within the manufacturing industry. If we combine their objectives with the business and digital needs, we would realize the need for strategic &innovative measures that manufacturing companies need to take in order to improve their asset utilization, overall efficiency and reduce the costs of the company.
With appropriate mobility solutions, the companies in the manufacturing industry can enhance their capabilities and make their resources mobile, thus bringing in critical improvement to business processes. Integrating mobility solutions with crucial manufacturing processes will definitely transform the industry, and bring forth more lean &agile processes.
According to 70% of the decision makers surveyed by Credencys, with mobility solutions downtime can be converted into productive time.
Let’s see the benefits that manufacturing industry can yield with apt mobility solutions
Benefits of Mobility Solutions in Manufacturing
Manufacturing organizations are looking for real-time visibility that can help improve asset utilization and shop-floor processes. The right mobile solutions will boost growth of the companies, and help them expand to newer markets. Here, we will take you through the benefits of mobility solutions in manufacturing industry
● Increases visibility of shop-floor processes, and reduces the gap between top-floor and shop-floor within an organization
● Gives real-time insights to key decision makers for immediate actions
● Greater accuracy and real-time shipment is made possible with mobile solutions
● Asset management and utilization is improved
● Improved quality and control over processes, which helps in managing demand-supply chain for the end products
● Helps prevent wastage of resources, and induces cost efficiency
● Automates the processes thus eliminating redundant processes, and improving the pace of processes
● Real-time monitoring and management
With such amazing benefits, it is necessary for manufacturing industry to adopt mobile solutions that can grant them the increased efficiency and reduced costs for better quality and standards.
Challenges that Enterprises Face
While there are several benefits associated with mobility solutions in manufacturing industry, it is only important to view the challenges that are posed in adopting mobile and how it can be overcome
● Information & data security when considering mobile solutions for the manufacturing processes poses to be a challenge for the enterprises. They need to adhere to the security compliance, and come out with a perfect security policy for the enterprise, so that even when the data and information is accessed, it does not hamper the security
● How the man and machine will interact and integrate within the enterprise needs to be determined with a governing policy, which needs to be defined at a time when the mobility solution is being determined for the enterprise. This can be challenging as the policy needs to take into account all aspects of interaction, and govern it, creating role-based policies
● Owing to diversity and fragmentation in the devices, the mobility solutions should be developed for the wide range of devices and operating systems. This can be challenging and can add to development cost and time. The enterprise will need to adopt solutions that
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A Centaur's Life, Hina Logic - from Luck & Logic, Gamers!, and Convenience Store Boy Friends on Tuesday. In addition, Funimation is listing Tsuredure Children's English dub premiere for August 16 at 4:00 p.m. EDT.
The cast for A Centaur's Life is as follows:
Kyle Phillips is directing the dub with ADR engineer Patrick Morphy, scriptwriter Bonny Clinkenbeard, and mixing engineer Neal Malley.
The cast for Hina Logic - from Luck & Logic is as follows:
The anime will premiere on July 31 and new episodes will stream on Mondays at 4:00 p.m. EDT. Tyler Walker is directing the dub with ADR engineer Domonique French, scriptwriter Niki Shults, and mixing engineer Gino Palencia.
The cast for Gamers! is as follows:
The anime will premiere on Thursday, July 27 at 4:00 p.m. EDT. Kristen McGuire is directing the dub with ADR engineer Nicholas Hernandez, scriptwriter Patrick Seitz, and mixing engineer Adrian Cook.
The cast for Convenience Store Boy Friends is as follows:
The anime will premiere on Thursday, August 3 at 4:00 p.m. EDT. Jad Saxton is directing the dub with ADR engineer Austin Sisk, scriptwriter Rachel Robinson, and mixing engineer Gino Palencia.
Thanks to Bryce Haskell for the news tip.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumer spending rose more than expected in September as households boosted purchases of motor vehicles and inflation increased steadily, which could bolster expectations of an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve in December.
A woman walks through a shopping mall in San Francisco, California January 5, 2012. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith/File Photo
The Commerce Department said on Monday that consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, increased 0.5 percent after dipping 0.1 percent in August. Last month’s rise in consumer spending offered a fairly strong handoff from the third quarter to the current quarter.
The report was published ahead of the start of the Fed’s two-day policy meeting on Tuesday. The U.S. central bank is not expected to raise rates at this meeting, which comes about a week before the Nov. 8 presidential election, but is expected to do so in December.
“The latest data should be of comfort to the Fed. Spending continues to underpin growth and, combined with positive developments on the labor market and inflation, should enable the Fed to tighten policy in December,” said Greg Daco, head of U.S. macroeconomics at Oxford Economics in New York.
Economists had forecast consumer spending rising 0.4 percent last month. When adjusted for inflation, consumer spending rose 0.3 percent after falling 0.2 percent in August.
The spending figures were incorporated into last Friday’s report on third-quarter gross domestic product. Consumer spending increased at a 2.1 percent annual pace after advancing at a robust 4.3 percent rate in the prior period.
A separate report on Monday showed factory activity in the U.S. Midwest hit a five-month low in October amid declining production and weak growth in new orders. The report from the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago suggests prolonged weakness in manufacturing as the sector continues to deal with the aftermath of a dollar rally and lower oil prices.
U.S. stocks were trading marginally higher as investors showed caution ahead of next Tuesday’s elections. The dollar.DXY rose against a basket of currencies, while U.S. Treasury yields fell.
INFLATION TICKING HIGHER
Consumer spending combined with a spurt in soybean exports and a turnaround in inventory investment to boost economic growth to a 2.9 percent pace in the third quarter. The economy grew at a 1.4 percent rate in the April-June quarter.
Rising wages due to a tightening labor market should help support consumer spending. With consumer spending firming, inflation continued to gain steadily last month. The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index increased 0.2 percent after a similar gain in August.
In the 12 months through September the PCE price index rose 1.2 percent, the biggest gain since November 2014, after advancing 1.0 percent in August.
Excluding food and energy, the so-called core PCE price index rose 0.1 percent after advancing 0.2 percent in August. In the 12 months through September the core PCE rose 1.7 percent after a similar increase in August.
The core PCE is the Fed’s preferred inflation measure and is running below its 2 percent target.
A shopper talks on her mobile phone in Beverly Hills, U.S., May 17, 2016. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
“Overall inflation is accelerating as energy prices and the U.S. dollar have stabilized since the spring. Stronger wage growth from the tight labor market will also help push up inflation over the medium term,” said Gus Faucher, deputy chief economist at PNC Financial in Pittsburgh.
Consumer spending last month was lifted by a 1.3 percent surge in purchases of long-lasting manufactured goods such as automobiles. Spending on services rose 0.3 percent.
Personal income increased 0.3 percent in September after rising 0.2 percent in August. Wages and salaries advanced 0.3 percent after edging up 0.1 percent the prior month. Savings fell to $797.8 billion from $820.5 billion in August.Sterling has fallen more than 2pc against the dollar and 3pc against the euro already this year, marking a departure from 2012 when it was one of the most stable major currencies.
Prime Minister David Cameron is under intense pressure from Conservative MPs to renegotiate Britain's 40-year old membership of the EU, as the 17 countries that use the euro move towards closer political union.
In a major speech expected this week, Mr Cameron is expected to stress that he would prefer Britain stays in the EU but will raise the prospect of the country exiting without significant changes.
"The pound ended up with a safe-haven status last year given Europe's problems were bigger than the UK's," said Shahab Jalinoos, an analyst at UBS, one of three largest currency trading banks in the world. "What's different this year, is that just as Europe's political risk is starting to fade, the UK's is rising."
After two years in which trading in the foreign-exchange markets were dominated by the potential break-up of European Monetary Union, Mr Jalinoos said that traders and investors have begun 2013 looking for new trends to bet on.
The Coalition government has been at pains to stress that political stability has been an attractive asset in the UK since the financial crisis even as the economy struggles to recover. The fear in foreign-exchange markets is that even if Britain remains in the EU, uncertainty over its role and a potential renegotiation of its membership could extend into next year.
A weakening in the pound may be welcomed by the government and the Bank of England, which are hoping that a weaker currency will help drive the country's exports this year. However, authorities will not want to see concern over the uncertainty surrounding Britain's future in EU trigger a sell-off in UK government bonds. Such a move would force up the Treasury's borrowing costs even as the recovery remains fragile.Homeland star Mandy Patinkin says this season of the acclaimed Showtime television drama shows that it is perhaps “the white men in government and the military establishment that are the bad guys,” rather than the Muslim community.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd this week, Patinkin said that society had “chosen the Muslim community” as a threat, despite the community making “contributions to the world of a monumental nature.”
Patinkin also said the show, which has been criticized by the left as “Islamophobic” for linking Islam with terrorism, has taken responsibility for this portrayal and has changed its content so they become “part of the cure rather than part of the problem.”
“[Homeland has introduced] a storyline that shows in this case, in this era, in this season, that maybe it is the white men in government and the military establishment that are the bad guys, not the Muslim community,” he continued.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h1xZSlfj8k
Patinkin, who plays the role of CIA operative Saul Berenson, has previously discussed the need for America to open up its doors to refugees from the Islamic world, as well as Homeland needing to take responsibility for its negative depictions of Muslims.
“In all kinds of entertainment – movies, television – there are always the bad guys; the cowboys and Indians, then the Russians were the bad guys, the Nazis were the bad guys. Now it seems like Muslim ‘terrorists’ are the bad guys,” he told the Associated Press in an interview this month. “So, inadvertently, because it’s an action show, it’s an on-the-edge-of-your-seat political drama that Homeland is, unintentionally we were not helping the Muslim community and we take responsibility for it. And I know I can speak for the writers when they want to right that error that happened because of storytelling.”
In a 2015 interview with Variety, the actor advised people to take in refugees and “bring them to your home for dinner,” adding that he simply wants “other people to know the kind of joy that I have in my life.”
Homeland, which aired its sixth season finale last Sunday, has been renewed by Showtime for a seventh and final eighth season.
You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at [email protected] By
NEW DELHI: Security was stepped up in and around Delhi Secretariat and the Chief Minister's residence after police received a call this evening in which a man threatened to "blow up" Arvind Kejriwal.
The police conducted a thorough check at both the locations and later declared it a hoax call.
"The control room received the call at around 4.30 PM and the caller told the police to do whatever they can to save Kejriwal and that he would blow him up in an hour," a senior police official said.
The alert was forwarded to Delhi Police's Central district, under which the Secretariat comes, and North district, under which the CM's residence comes. Security was heightened in both the places, the official said.
The call was made through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service and the details were later transferred to Delhi Police's Spcial Cell, which is trying to track down the unidentified caller, the official said.An Israeli soldier carries a shell as troops prepare ammunitions along the border between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. (Gil Cohen Magen, AFP)
Jerusalem - The Israeli army said on Thursday its air force had attacked a Hamas military position in the Gaza Strip overnight from which bullets had been fired at homes in southern Israel.
Shots from Gaza had on Wednesday hit a number of houses in Netiv Haasara, just north of the Palestinian enclave, causing damage but harming none, it said in a statement.
"In response to the shooting, an IAF (Israel air force) aircraft targeted a Hamas military post in the northern Gaza Strip, from where the shots were fired," it read.
The army could not say whether the shots from Gaza had been deliberate or stray fire from the Hamas position, identified in Israeli media as a training base.
There were no reports of casualties as a result of the Israeli attack..@CalStateLA releases statement in support of Claudia Rueda. Join us in demanding her release now #FreeClaudia https://t.co/u6cea8hIda pic.twitter.com/1todC9qXbD — DSA Los Angeles 🌹 (@DSA_LosAngeles) May 19, 2017
A 22-year-old college student was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection less than a month after her mother was taken into custody.Claudia Rueda was taken into custody while moving her family's car during a street sweep on Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Immigrant Youth Coalition, a group Rueda is active within.Her mother, Teresa Vidal-Jaime, was just released after being cleared of involvement in a drug bust. Jaime was detained by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department after they conducted a drug raid at the Boyle Heights complex where she lives.Deputies later said Jaime had no involvement with the drugs, but ICE detained her due to her immigration status.Rueda rallied on her behalf and Jaime was released on bond after being held for several weeks.The Los Angeles Immigrant Youth Coalition said Rueda has lived in the U.S. since 2001 and attends California State, Los Angeles, where she is majoring in Latin America studies.Cal State LA released the following statement regarding Rueda's detainment.The Los Angeles Immigrant Youth Coalition said Rueda qualifies for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and is urging the border patrol to release her from their Chula Vista offices so she may file her DACA application.The border patrol said a press release that seven people were detained in Los Angeles on Thursday as part of a "cross-border narcotics smuggling organization." Rueda was arrested for residing in the country illegally and violating the terms of her visa, according to the border patrol.Rueda's supporters called the move "retaliation" by border agents. Now, immigrant advocates fear a chilling effect on their ability to speak out."What bothers me about that is that people can't be safe in their home and their neighborhoods, if this is going to be happening," said Luis Serrano of the California Immigration Youth Justice.The Border Patrol links Rueda's father and others to the drugs, saying, "These targeted arrests should send a stern message to anyone linked to transnational smuggling."But there is no criminal allegation against Rueda. Her defenders say that while she was in the U.S. illegally, she had hoped to apply for protection under DACA.they maintain it was her high profile activism that made her a target.The Houston Rockets will be the second seed in the West and James Harden will win the MVP by less than a 10 vote margin. Mike D’Antoni will win Coach of the Year and redeem his legacy after disastrous turns in New York and Los Angeles.
The Spurs will knock off the Rockets in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs. The lack of skilled forwards who play inside, grab offensive rebounds and defend the paint for the Rockets will do them in. The Spurs will control pace and tempo and beat the Rockets in a 7 game series.
The Warriors will advance to the NBA Finals for the third straight year, joining the Lakers of 2007-2009 and 1999-2001 as the only Western Conference teams to appear in three straight NBA Finals.
The Philadelphia 76ers will have more wins than the Lakers, Suns and Orlando Magic. For the first time in five years they won’t be in the top-5 of the lottery.
The Pelicans will grab the 8th seed in the West and meet the Warriors who will beat them in 6 games.
The Lakers and not the Celtics (via Nets) will get the number one pick and draft local product Lonzo Ball. The Lakers will trade Julius Randle in the offseason.
Jim Buss will get his walking papers.
The New York Knicks will not make the playoffs. Pressure will be heaped on Phil Jackson to quit but he won’t. Pressure will be on Carmelo Anthony to relinquish his no-trade clause but he won’t.
The Pacers will be a one and done playoff team, as will the Hornets and Hawks and Bucks. The Wizards will shock everyone and get to the Conference Finals. The Celtics will lose in the Conference semi-finals.
The Clippers without Chris Paul will drop to the 7th seed and have another first round exit in the playoffs, courtesy of the Houston Rockets. Chris Paul and Blake Griffin will re-sign in the off-season. The Clippers will try to get rid of J.J. Redick but there will be no takers.
Rudy Gay will exercise his player option and be in Sacramento next season. Be careful what you ask for. Rudy wanted out of Sacramento but a torn Achilles changes everything.
The Miami Heat will miss out on the top three players in the lottery. Pat Riley karma. They will still get a good player and be forced to embrace rebuilding as there will be no impactful free agents to sign.
The Warriors will win 68 games. The Cavs will win 60 games. Both will meet in the Finals. The Cavs will repeat as champions.
LeBron James will appear in his seventh straight NBA Finals. With four NBA titles, James will cement his legacy as best player since Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson.
Kevin Durant will appear in his second NBA Finals. He will average 30 points per game but it won’t be enough to offset LeBron James and Kyrie Irving.
Kyle Korver will have a big impact for the Cavs in the playoffs.
All NBA first team: Russell Westbrook, James Harden, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, DeMarcus Cousins.
All NBA defense first team: Tony Allen, Patrick Beverley, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Draymond Green, Rudy Gobert
photo via llananba(Newser) – Liz "Daughter of Dick" Cheney's political ambitions have been well known for some time, but some in the party believe her designs on running for a Senate seat in Wyoming in 2014 are a bit premature, the New York Times reports. That's because the seat she wants is already held by Republican Mike Enzi, 69, who isn't ready to retire. It would be "the destruction of the Republican Party of Wyoming if she decides to run and he runs, too," says a former Republican senator from the state. "It's a disaster—a divisive, ugly situation—and all it does is open the door for the Democrats for 20 years." Party members don't want to have to choose: Enzi is a hard-working, well-liked incumbent, and Cheney is, well, a Cheney. To make things more awkward? Enzi is an old friend of Dick's.
Enzi says Cheney, 46, informed him this year that she was thinking of running for his seat—though she didn't ask him if he wanted to run again. She hasn't made any public criticism of him yet, though he thinks that when she does, it will be for supporting the Internet sales tax, and being willing to work with the Democrats—whereas Cheney once called Obama "the most radical man ever to occupy the Oval Office." Enzi is also in his third term—as long as any Wyoming senator has served in recent history. Also working in Cheney's favor is the support of her father. Enzi says he hasn't heard from his old fly-fishing pal Dick recently. (Read more Liz Cheney stories.)Posted on December 7, 2010 in Articles
Every holiday season, people open their hearts and wallets for family, friends, and charities alike, including the Salvation Army. Unfortunately, some large organizations who regularly solicit for money are often using funds for political motives or ‘overhead’ costs. In a series of posts, we’ll be investigating three popular charities that don’t deserve your charity.
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Everyone knows the Salvation Army. Whether it’s the secondhand goods at their thrift stores or their collection kettles outside department stores, the Salvation Army is ubiquitous to the holiday season.
However, the Salvation Army’s virulent opposition to gay rights both in public and through persistent legislative lobbying raises the question how donations intended for the needy are being spent. Many people forget that the Salvation Army is in fact an Evangelical church, and as such, it tends to have a hard-right social agenda.
In fact, the Salvation Army goes so far as to say gay people shouldn’t be having sex. You can find this nugget on their website: “Christians whose sexual orientation is primarily or exclusively same-sex are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life.”
Starting at the beginning of George W. Bush’s presidency in 2001, the Salvation Army began lobbying for an exemption to equal labor practices for government-funded faith-based organizations. Why? Because the Salvation Army wanted to continue to discriminate against gays and prevent them from being hired.
In 2004, the Salvation Army threatened to close all its soup kitchens in the New York City area—which would have ended $250 million worth of contracts with the city—if they were forced to offer benefits to same-sex couples. This move would have lost the Salvation Army around $70 million in direct funding from the city and endangered the lives of several thousand people reliant on the Salvation Army.
Was this supposed to be a principled stand? All the homeless people receiving care from the Salvation Army would be turned out on the street. What would have motivated The Salvation Army to make such a callous move? They said that, by offering benefits to same sex couples, they’d be supporting HIV/AIDS because HIV/AIDS is only the product of homosexual intercourse.
AIDS? How does AIDS factor in? Oh yeah, I forgot! Gay people don’t suffer from non-gay sex related maladies. If a same sex couple needs health benefits, it must be from all that AIDS they’re spreading around. Is there any way to construe this as anything but bigotry?Josh Miller/CNET
Last month, the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency published a dense document with guidelines for automakers on how to minimize the distractions caused by in-vehicle electronics. Buried among equations for determining optimal display viewing angles and testing procedures is the recommendation that navigation devices should only show static or near-static images, which would essentially eliminate their usefulness.
Section V.5.b of the document titled Visual-Manual NHTSA Driver Distraction Guidelines for In-Vehicle Electronic Devices says that "Dynamic, continuously moving maps are not recommended."
The section, which deals with photographs or videos, says that static or near-static maps for the purpose of driving directions are acceptable. Near static is defined as being updated every few seconds.
Every current installed navigation system uses the car as a fixed point, and shows the map moving around it. NHTSA wants that changed so as to keep the map fixed. Even showing the position of the car moving on the map could be considered a dynamic image. The recommendation seems to suggest that the position of the car could only be updated every couple of seconds. Likewise, the map could be refreshed once the car has left the currently displayed area.
This recommendation would essentially make navigation unusable. The system could still give an auditory warning for the next turn, but without being able to glance down at the map and see how close the next street is would likely lead to a lot of missed turns and resultant frustration.
And although NHTSA includes the results of driver distraction studies in the guidelines, it has no testing directly related to using a navigation system. Instead there are more general conclusions against any tasks that require looking at a device for periods of more than 2 seconds, or a series of glances that amount to more than 12 seconds at at time.
I would think that looking at a static map, and trying to find the particular street which you are on, would by much more time-consuming than seeing your exact position on a dynamic map.
30 characters or less
The NHTSA guidelines also conclude that drivers can not comprehend more than 30 characters of text with a quick glance. Here is an example of 30 characters of text: "The new NHTSA guidelines make navig".
Along with recommending that in-vehicle electronics display no more than 30 text characters at a time, the guidelines also take a position against scrolling text, so you could not read the rest of that sentence by having it roll on by.
Josh Miller/CNET
This screen on the right, from the 2012 Buick LaCrosse, would not meet the new NHTSA guidelines, as it shows more than 30 characters of text. Most people might merely glance down to read the current song title off the screen as they drive, but the NHTSA guidelines assume that when text is displayed, we drivers will be compelled to read all of it.
The NHTSA document cites a few studies to back up its recommendations, but none deal specifically with navigation system use. Two studies that were done to look at the problem of driver distraction were conducted from 2003 to 2007. The 100 Car Study and another from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration looked at phone use in cars and heavy trucks. The conclusion, cited by the NHTSA, is that using a hands-free phone was no more distracting than talking with a passenger in the vehicle.
Talking on a handheld phone was found to be not much riskier than merely driving, with actually dialing a handheld phone a degree more dangerous. Reaching for a moving object was found to be much more distracting, to a high degree, than talking on the phone, while texting on a handheld phone was the most distracting thing you could do.
The Auto Alliance
I asked representatives from Ford and Audi to comment on the NHTSA document, and each said their companies backed standards for in-vehicle electronics drafted by The Auto Alliance. This document, from 2006, lays out a number of principles for designing in-vehicle electronics systems with the intention of reducing distraction. Its guidelines include putting LCDs as close to the driver's line of sight as is practical.
The Auto Alliance is a private industry group with widespread support from such automakers as Ford, GM, Chrysler, BMW, Porsche, and Toyota. NHTSA also cites The Auto Alliance guidelines in its document, and lifts many of its recommendations directly from those standards.
In an earlier conversation with Jim Buczkowski, Ford's director of electronic systems engineering, he told me that there was an ongoing dialogue between the automakers and NHTSA. I assume people at Ford are studying the NHTSA guidelines and preparing a response.
Is distraction a big problem?
You hear about driver distraction a lot, and personally deal with it every time some bonehead holding a phone to his head swerves into your lane. But in real terms, how much of a problem is it?
The NHTSA document offers some figures that do not necessarily support the hours of work that must have been put in to come up with the guidelines. The document shows the number of accident reports for 2006 to 2010.
In 2010, the number of police-reported accidents amounted to 5,409,000. Of those, 17 percent were reportedly caused by driver distraction, an ample amount. However, only about half of one percent of the total crashes were caused by distraction from an in-vehicle system.
Clearly, there are many, many other things causing accidents than drivers using a navigation system or other vehicle electronics.
My recommendation to NHTSA would be to spend its work hours drawing up a good driver training curriculum. Good, well-trained drivers are the best way to minimize the number of accidents.Charles C. Johnson, a blogger who previously wrote for conservative publication The Daily Caller, and now runs the independent news site Got News, published on Sunday what he claims to be the name and photo of "Jackie," the woman at the center of Rolling Stone's story about sexual assault on University of Virginia's campus.
Last month, the magazine published a widely read story in which Jackie accuses U.Va. fraternity members of violently gang-raping her during a party on campus. Written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the article documents the university's subsequent investigation into the allegations.
Rolling Stone distanced itself from the story on Friday, after The Washington Post and other media outlets described problems with the reporting. In response on Friday, the magazine's managing editor Will Dana wrote, "In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account." (Later on, Rolling Stone quietly removed a portion of its apology that referred to Jackie — "our trust in her was misplaced" — without noting the change.)
Erdley's story, which was already a big talking point in the media and on Twitter before Friday's backtracking, has taken on new life, with Johnson revealing the unconfirmed identity and photo of Jackie. Users of infamous online community 4chan are also threatening to track down Jackie, and expose details of her personal life.
On Sunday, Johnson said via Twitter that he is giving Jackie until midnight "tonight to tell the truth," or else he will "start revealing everything about her past."
I'm giving Jackie until later tonight to tell the truth and then I'm going to start revealing everything about her past.— Charles C. Johnson (@ChuckCJohnson) December 7, 2014
Because I am merciful I always give my opponents an opportunity to do the right thing.— Charles C. Johnson (@ChuckCJohnson) December 7, 2014
His posts and Twitter threats have been met with widespread online condemnation.
Johnson was previously suspended by Twitter for posting the address of a person allegedly exposed to Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., who later died.
BONUS: What is 4chan? We break it downAdobe has issued new versions of Flash to patch a load of security flaws – one of which is being exploited in the wild.
Curiously, that particular vulnerability (CVE-2015-8651) was reported to the Photoshop giant by Kai Wang and Hunter Gao of Huawei's IT security department. Could the Chinese tech goliath have caught miscreants trying to exploit the bug to infect its systems? Adobe said the flaw is being used "in limited, targeted attacks."
People should upgrade their installation of Flash – whether on Windows, OS X, Linux or Chrome OS – as soon as possible before criminals start exploiting more of the bugs. Adobe normally emits security updates on the second Tuesday of the month, but has decided get this one out to folks early.
All the programming blunders can be abused to execute code on victims' computers – a stepping stone to fully hijacking vulnerable machines. An unpatched PC or Mac can be compromised by simply running a malicious Flash file on a webpage.
Here's the rundown of the software's 19 security flaws patched in the emergency APSB16-01 update:
A type confusion vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2015-8644). This was reported by Natalie Silvanovich of Google Project Zero.
that could lead to code execution (CVE-2015-8644). This was reported by Natalie Silvanovich of Google Project Zero. An integer overflow vulnerability that could lead to code execution (CVE-2015-8651). This was reported by the aforementioned Huawei peeps.
that could lead to code execution (CVE-2015-8651). This was reported by the aforementioned Huawei peeps. Use-after-free() vulnerabilities that could lead to code execution (CVE-2015-8634, CVE-2015-8635, CVE-2015-8638, CVE-2015-8639, CVE-2015-8640, CVE-2015-8641, CVE-2015-8642, CVE-2015-8643, CVE-2015-8646, CVE-2015-8647, CVE-2015-8648, CVE-2015-8649, CVE-2015-8650). These were reported by Ben Hawkes, Mateusz "j00ru" Jurczyk, and Natalie Silvanovich of Google Project Zero; an anonymous researcher working with HP's Zero Day Initiative; and Yuki Chen of the Qihoo 360 Vulcan Team.
that could lead to code execution (CVE-2015-8634, CVE-2015-8635, CVE-2015-8638, CVE-2015-8639, CVE-2015-8640, CVE-2015-8641, CVE-2015-8642, CVE-2015-8643, CVE-2015-8646, CVE-2015-8647, CVE-2015-8648, CVE-2015-8649, CVE-2015-8650). These were reported by Ben Hawkes, Mateusz "j00ru" Jurczyk, and Natalie Silvanovich of Google Project Zero; an anonymous researcher working with HP's Zero Day Initiative; and Yuki Chen of the Qihoo 360 Vulcan Team. Memory corruption vulnerabilities that could lead to code execution (CVE-2015-8459, CVE-2015-8460, CVE-2015-8636, CVE-2015-8645). These were reported by Kai Kang of Tencent's Xuanwu LAB; Jie Zeng of Qihoo 360; Hawkes, Jurczyk, and Silvanovich again; and Jaehun Jeong of WINS, WSEC Analysis Team working with the Chromium Vulnerability Reward Program.
If your Windows or Mac has Flash version 20.0.0.267 or 18.0.0.324 installed, then you are patched; likewise for version 20.0.0.267 for Google Chrome, 20.0.0.267 for Edge and Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10; 20.0.0.267 for IE 10 and 11 on Windows 8.x; and 11.2.202.559 for Linux.
If you haven't already enabled click-to-play for Flash in your browser – a healthy mitigation against future security bugs – now would be a good time as any. (Instructions for Google Chrome users are here, Firefox here, and Internet Explorer/Edge here.) ®Mission Reports
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Delta 4 rocket overcomes engine issue during launch
BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: October 6, 2012
Generating less than its normal 25,000 pounds of thrust because of a still unknown problem, the upper stage engine on the Delta 4 rocket had to fire for longer periods of time Thursday morning before ultimately delivering the GPS payload into the right orbit, overcoming the adversity to achieve success.
Credit: Pat Corkery/United Launch Alliance
See photo gallery
Delta 4 rocket-maker United Launch Alliance and RL10B-2 engine provider Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne have convened a review panel to look into the telemetry recorded during the ascent and determine what caused the low-thrust condition. Officials say it is too soon to know what, if any, impact the situation will have on plans to launch an Atlas 5 rocket with the Pentagon's X-37B miniature space shuttle using a Centaur upper stage equipped with a similar-yet-different RL10 powerplant Oct. 25. "Though the GPS 2F-3 mission was a complete success, ULA fully understands the challenges of launch and will thoroughly investigate and implement appropriate actions to reliably deliver our customer's critical capabilities to the orbital positions required," Jim Sponnick, ULA's vice president of missions operations, said in a press release Friday night. Thursday's voyage of the 20-story rocket set sail at 8:10 a.m. EDT (1210 GMT) from pad 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station topped with the Global Positioning System 2F-3 navigation satellite. A pair of strap-on solid-fuel boosters provided extra power for the first 95 seconds of flight, assisting the cryogenic first stage in climbing away from Earth. The RS-68 main engine finished its burn about four minutes after liftoff and separated, leaving the upper stage with the RL10B-2 to deploy its extendible carbon-carbon nozzle and ignite. The mission sequence planned three burns of the upper stage, initial reaching a low-altitude parking orbit, then a highly elliptical transfer orbit and eventually achieving a circular orbit in line with the GPS constellation 11,000 nautical miles up. That first burn was supposed to last nearly 8 minutes. However, it ran around a half-minute longer than expected as a consequence of the lower-than-planned thrust output, to reach the parking orbit of roughly 213 by 88 nautical miles, tilted 41.6 degrees to the equator. The rocket coasted over the central Atlantic for about 9 minutes before restarting the engine to run for a scheduled three minutes -- but went about a minute beyond the anticipated duration -- to inject itself into an orbit with a high point of 11,001 nautical miles, a low point of 129 nautical miles and inclined 43.3 degrees. Precise numbers on the actual burn durations and exactly how long the firings went overtime were not immediately available to the press Saturday. There was no official indication that the launch was in trouble as it unfolded live. Behind the scenes, however, there were worries about the engine's performance.
Animation of the upper stage firing. Credit: United Launch Alliance
A three-hour quiet coast period then began as the rocket motor and attached payload traveled away from Earth toward the high-mark of the orbit for one final firing. The third burn raised the orbit's low point and increased the inclination to ascend into the GPS network, then Delta released the satellite cargo into an approximate 11,047-nautical-mile perch tilted 55 degrees to the equator. Officials indicate the final burn produced the necessary boost to finish shaping the orbit for GPS 2F-3. Whether this firing also suffered the low-thrust condition or not has not been confirmed. But the satellite arrived in space exactly where it was intended to fly despite the engine situation that, remarkably, was not a detriment to the launch's end result. "The Delta 4's robust system design, flight software, vehicle margins and propellant reserves enabled the successful outcome for this mission," ULA said in a statement to reporters Friday night. "The unexpected signature was seen during second stage performance as evidenced by a reduced thrust level of the RL10 engine. The onboard inertial guidance and flight control systems compensated for the lower thrust conditions and the Delta second stage delivered the satellite to the proper orbit." The investigation team assembled by ULA and PWR will have oversight from major customers, the press release said. The panel will work to determine what caused the low-thrust and identify what actions should be taken to prevent a reoccurrence in the future. Fed with supercold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, the RL10B-2 is the latest in a long line of upper stage engines dating back a half-century. The original version of the RL10 debuted successfully on an Atlas rocket in 1963 and has been part of Centaur for more than 200 space missions. The RL10 has dispatched robotic expeditions to every planet in our solar system, plus multiple missions to the moon and countless military spacecraft and commercial communications satellites in orbits around Earth. This latest RL10 variant was introduced in 1998 as part of Boeing's Delta 3 program, which served as a stepping-stone to the Delta 4 rocket and development of its cryogenic upper stage. The engine has been fired in space 23 times to date. Its specs include a nominal thrust of 24,750 pounds, mass of 664 pounds, an overall length of 13.6 feet, including 7 feet just for the nozzle extension and a specific impulse of 465.5 seconds
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By Erick Erickson
I’m beginning to think this is a load of crap, given the feminist celebration of Chelsea Clinton.
I’m sure Chelsea is a wonderful person. She seems kind and caring and a good mother and loyal, loving daughter. But her singular accomplishment is being in the lucky sperm club.
Her father was President of the United States and her mother was a First Lady who rode her husband’s coat tails into the United States Senate before trying to ride her own accomplishments into the White House and failing spectacularly.
Now that Hillary Clinton has cratered and just as some Democrats are starting to admit her campaign was terrible, her speeches were terrible, her staff was terrible, and her strategy was terrible, the left is trotting out Chelsea Clinton as some sort of feminist hero to distract everyone no longer bitterly clinging to Russian conspiracy theories.
She has a book out for girls that liberals are falling all over themselves to buy.
She is now on the cover of Variety’s “Power of Women NY.”
https://twitter.com/Variety_Claudia/status/854075323314429952
This is not feminism, but aristocracy and cult. Chelsea Clinton has done nothing of her own merit. Even her hiring by NBC was more about her last name than her talent. She received ample critical reviews, but NBC renewed her contract and was paying her $600,000.00 in salary.
If Chelsea Clinton is some sort of feminist role model or hero, which she is being touted as, then feminism really is superficial victimology, readily worshipping at the door of the lucky sperm club so long as the right egg is fertilized and does not get aborted.A major trial in India has taken centre-stage at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago after it demonstrated that a simple test using vinegar has slashed the rates of cervical cancer mortality in the country.
The randomised study conducted among 150,000 women in India over 15 years revealed that biennial visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA), or vinegar, delivered by primary health workers, reduced cervical cancer mortality by nearly one-third. Speaking to journalists at ASCO, lead study author Surendra Shastri of the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai noted that cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women in many developing countries, where there is little or no access to Pap screening.
In the study, women aged 35-64 years with no prior history of cancer were randomly assigned to four rounds of VIA screening which involves the application of 4% vinegar to the cervix (75,360 women) over two years or no screening (76,178 women). The latter received one round of cancer education and were asked to report any symptoms they noticed on the basis of what they had learnt.
With the VIA test, after 60 seconds the cervix is examined with the naked eye using a lamp. Pre-cancerous tissue turns white when vinegar is applied, whereas healthy tissue does not change colour. The results are known immediately, a huge advantage in rural areas where women might travel for hours to see a doctor, and all trial participants were offered free cervical cancer treatment, if diagnosed.
Dr Shastri noted that the incidence of invasive cervical cancer was comparable in the two groups, suggesting that screening did not lead to overdiagnosis. Screening with VIA resulted in a 31% reduction in cervical cancer-specific death rates and the researchers estimate that this strategy could prevent 22,000 deaths in India and close to 73,000 in poor countries worldwide.
Cultural barrier overcome
Dr Shastri noted that this is the first trial to identify a cervical cancer screening strategy that reduces mortality and is feasible to implement on a broad scale. He told reporters that the healthcare workers who carried out the test were trained up after four weeks (with a one-week refresher) had to "pass through several barriers" to gain the trust of women and religious groups.
He went on to say that his team is working with the Indian government and state health authorities to make the scheme available to women throughout the country; implementation could come in the next two years.
Speaking about the study, Electra Paskett, an ASCO spokesperson and expert in gynaecologic cancers from Ohio State University, stressed that this approach is suitable for areas where Pap screening testing is not available. However, she said that this trial and other similar analyses "have demonstrated that the accuracy of these programmes is comparable".Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton will miss four to six weeks with a broken bone in his wrist, the team announced.
He was placed on the 15-day disabled list Saturday.
Stanton broke the hamate bone in his left wrist during the Marlins' 7-1 loss to the Dodgers on Friday night. He underwent surgery Sunday.
"From everything we've got, the surgery was a success," manager Dan Jennings said, "and now you just go through the healing process and the rehab process to have him back."
Giancarlo Stanton, MLB's leader in homers and RBIs, will miss four to six weeks with a broken bone in his wrist. AP Photo/J Pat Carter
The 25-year-old outfielder initially hurt the wrist on a swing and miss in the sixth inning of Friday night's game. Stanton's hand appeared swollen, and he said it hurt where he grips the bat. Stanton indicated the pain grew worse as the game progressed. He grimaced in pain with his final swing in the ninth inning and said that at-bat was "the icing on the cake."
Entering Saturday, Stanton led the majors with 27 homers and 67 RBIs. Last year he was in the thick of the home run race when a beaning ended his season Sept. 11, and he finished tied for second in the majors with 37 homers.
"It's very disappointing to see with the work he puts in,'' reliever A.J. Ramos said. "You see the year he's having, so you're definitely disappointed and you feel bad for him.''
Ramos said he went to dinner with Stanton on Friday night and that it was obvious the slugger was injured.
"His pain tolerance is ridiculous, so when you see him go down like that, you know something isn't right," Ramos said. "He had a pretty good idea [it was broken]."
Bad break This is the fourth straight year that a major injury will cost Giancarlo Stanton several weeks of action. Injury Games Out Knee surgery ('12) 25 Strained hammy ('13) 36 Facial fractures ('14) 17 Broken wrist ('15)? -- ESPN Stats & Information
The latest injury means Stanton will miss the All-Star Game. It's also a big blow to a team that is 15 games below.500.
The Marlins don't have anything close to Stanton ready to plug into his spot in right field. Ichiro Suzuki is expected to see a bulk of the action, but he is 41 and has little power (.275, one home run, 11 RBIs in limited duty prior to Saturday).
Miami also called up Cole Gillespie from Triple-A New Orleans. But Gillespie, 31, is a career.230 hitter in 113 career major league games, and he has never hit more than two homers in an MLB season.
The trade market is unlikely to yield much. The Marlins are more likely to dump salaries at this point than use a win-now approach.
"It's extremely disappointing," Marlins reliever Mike Dunn said. "He's one of the best players in the game. It's a big blow... You can't really replace that kind of guy and the numbers (he produces). You just hope someone can come in and help out a little bit."
Stanton has 12 homers in June, tying the franchise record for any month. Despite his power surge, the Marlins had been woeful lately, batting.201 and averaging two runs a game over the past nine games through Friday.
"Now it's upon us to pick it up, and we can't feel sorry for ourselves,'' Jennings said. "It would be easy to toss in the towel right now or we're going to find out what kind of fighters we have and how we step up.''
Stanton signed a record 13-year, $325 million contract in November. At age 25, he has 181 career homers but because of injuries never has played more than 150 games in a season.
Information from ESPN.com contributor Walter Villa and The Associated Press was used in this report.Anansi ( ə-NAHN-see) is an Akan folktale character. He often takes the shape of a spider and is considered to be the spirit of all knowledge of stories. He is also one of the most important characters of West African and Caribbean folklore.
He is also known as Ananse, Kwaku Ananse, and Anancy. In the New World he is known as Nancy, Aunt Nancy and Sis' Nancy.[1] He is a spider, but often acts and appears as a man.
The Anansi tales originated from the Akan people of present-day Ghana. The word Ananse is Akan and means "spider". They later spread to West Indies, Suriname, Sierra Leone (where they were introduced by Jamaican Maroons) and the Netherlands Antilles. On Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire, he is known as Kompa Nanzi, and his wife as Shi Maria.
Anansi is depicted in many different ways. Sometimes he looks like an ordinary spider, sometimes he is a spider wearing clothes or with a human face and sometimes he looks much more like a human with spider elements, such as eight legs.
Stories [ edit ]
Anansi tales are some of the best-known amongst the Ashanti people of Ghana.[2] The stories made up an exclusively oral tradition, and indeed Anansi himself was synonymous with skill and wisdom in speech.[3] It was as remembered and told tales that they crossed to the Caribbean and other parts of the New World with captives via the Atlantic slave trade.[4] In the Caribbean, Anansi is often celebrated as a symbol of slave resistance and survival. Anansi is able to turn the tables on his powerful oppressors by using his cunning and trickery, a model of behaviour utilised by slaves to gain the upper hand within the confines of the plantation power structure. Anansi is also believed to have played a multifunctional role in the slaves' lives; as well as inspiring strategies of resistance, the tales enabled enslaved Africans to establish a sense of continuity with their African past and offered them the means to transform and assert their identity within the boundaries of captivity. As historian Lawrence W. Levine argues in Black Culture and Consciousness, enslaved Africans in the New World devoted “the structure and message of their tales to the compulsions and needs of their present situation” (1977, 90).[5]
Stories of Anansi became such a prominent and familiar part of Ashanti oral culture that the word Anansesem—"spider tales"—came to embrace all kinds of fables. One of the few studies that examine the role of Anansi folktales among the Ashanti of Ghana is R.S. Rattray’s Akan-Ashanti Folk-Tales (1930). The tales in Rattray’s collection were recorded directly from Ashanti oral storytelling sessions and published in both English and Twi.[5] Peggy Appiah, who collected Anansi tales in Ghana and published many books of his stories, wrote: "So well known is he that he has given his name to the whole rich tradition of tales on which so many Ghanaian children are brought up – anansesem – or spider tales."[6] Elsewhere they have other names, for instance Ananse-Tori in Suriname, Anansi in Guyana, and Kuent'i Nanzi in Curaçao.
For Africans in the diaspora, the Jamaican versions of these stories are the most well preserved, because Jamaica had the largest concentration of enslaved Asante in the Americas. All Anansi stories in Jamaica have a proverb at the end.[7] At the end of the story "Anansi and Brah Dead", there is a proverb that suggests that even in times of slavery, Anansi was referred to by his Akan original name: Kwaku Anansi or simply as Kwaku interchangeably with Anansi. The proverb is: "If yuh cyaan ketch Kwaku, yuh ketch him shut",[8] which refers to when Brah Dead (brother death or drybones), a personification of Death, was chasing Anansi to kill him. Meaning: The target of revenge and destruction, even killing, will be anyone very close to the intended, such as loved ones and family members.
Origin [ edit ]
There is an Anansi story that explains the phenomenon of how his name became attached to the whole corpus of tales:
Once there were no stories in the world. The Sky-God, Nyame, had them all. Anansi went to Nyame and asked how much they would cost to buy.
Nyame set a high price: Anansi must bring back Onini the Python, Osebo the Leopard, and the Mboro Hornets.
Anansi set about capturing these. First he went to where the Onini the Python lived and debated out loud whether the python was really longer than the palm branch or not as his wife Aso says. The python overheard and, when Anansi explained the debate, agreed to lie along the palm branch. Because he cannot easily make himself completely straight a true impression of his actual length is difficult to obtain, so the python agreed to be tied to the branch. When he was completely tied, Anansi took him to Nyame.
To catch Osebo the Leopard, Anansi dug a deep hole in the ground. When the leopard fell in the hole Anansi offered to help him out with his webs. Once the leopard was out of the hole he was bound in Anansi's webs and was carried away.
To catch the Mboro Hornets, Anansi filled a calabash with water and poured some over a banana leaf he held over his head and some over the nest, calling out that it was raining. He suggested the hornets get into the empty calabash, and when they obliged, he quickly sealed the opening.
In one version of the story, instead of (or occasionally as well as) Onini the Python, Anansi must bring Mmoatia, a bad-tempered fairy who no one sees. First, he carved a doll out of the wood of a gum tree then covers it in his silk, making it sticky. Meanwhile, his wife Aso, pounded yams into a paste with eggs and oil to make ano, which fairies love. Anansi went to the land of fairies and placed the doll and ano in front of a tree, tied a string around the doll's head and hid behind the tree. After waiting, he heard Mmoatia ask the doll if she could have its ano. Anansi tugged the string to make it look like the doll is nodding. After saying thanks but getting no reply, Mmoatia slapped the doll in the face only to get stuck. She tried to push the doll off with her feet and they were stuck as well. Then Anansi came out of hiding to capture the fairy.
Anansi handed his captives over to Nyame. Nyame rewarded him by making him the god of all stories.
Variants of this story [ edit ]
There are many variants of this tale, both recorded from oral sources and published. Indeed, the number of children's illustrated book versions of this one tale demonstrates how successfully Anansi has made the transition into literature. The summary above is of an illustrated book version Anansi Does the Impossible, an Ashanti tale retold by Verna Aardema and illustrated by Lisa Desimini.[9]
Another picture book version is the Caldecott Medal-winning A Story a Story, retold and illustrated by Gail E. Haley,[10] which takes its title from a traditional Ashanti way of beginning such tales: "We do not really mean, we do not really mean that what we are about to say is true. A story, a story; let it come, let it go" and finishes traditionally with: "This is my story which I have related. If it be sweet, or if it be not sweet, take some elsewhere, and let some come back to me."[11]
There are many other children's adaptations of this story including:
Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti by Gerald McDermott [12]
by Gerald McDermott The Hat-Shaking Dance and Other Tales from the Gold Coast by Harold Courlander [13]
by Harold Courlander Ananse and the Box of Stories: A West African Folktale by Stephen Krensky [14]
by Stephen Krensky The Story Thief by Andrew Fusek Peters [15]
by Andrew Fusek Peters Spider and the Sky God: An Akan Legend by Deborah M. Newton Chocolate [16]
by Deborah M. Newton Chocolate Anancy and the Sky God: Caribbean Favourite Tales by Ladybird Books [17]
by Ladybird Books Ananse by Brian Gleeson [18]
by Brian Gleeson ANANSE in the Land of Idiots by Yaw Asare [19]
by Yaw Asare The Magic of Ananse[20]
Anansi and the dispersal of wisdom [ edit ]
Another story tells of how Anansi once tried to hoard all of the world's wisdom in a pot (in some versions a calabash). Anansi was already very clever, but he decided to gather together all the wisdom he could find and keep it in a safe place.
With all the wisdom sealed in a pot, he was still concerned that it was not safe enough, so he secretly took the pot to a tall thorny tree in the forest (in some versions the silk cotton tree). His young son, Ntikuma, saw him go and followed him at some distance to see what he was doing. The pot was too big for Anansi to hold while he climbed the tree, so he tied it in front of him. Like this, the pot was in the way and Anansi kept slipping down, getting more and more frustrated and angry with each attempt.
Ntikuma laughed when he saw what Anansi was doing. "Why don't you tie the pot behind you, then you will be able to grip the tree?" he suggested.
Anansi was so annoyed by his failed attempts and the realization that his child was right that he let the pot slip. It smashed and all the wisdom fell out. Just at this moment, a storm arrived and the rain washed the wisdom into the stream. It was taken out to sea and spread all around the world so that there is now a little of it in everyone.
Though Anansi chased his son home through the rain, he was reconciled to the loss, for, he says: "What is the use of all that wisdom if a young child still needs to put you right?"[21]
Relationship between Anansi and Br'er Rabbit [ edit ]
Anansi shares similarities with the trickster figure of Br'er Rabbit, who originated from the folklore of the Bantu-speaking peoples of south and central Africa. Enslaved Africans brought the Br'er Rabbit tales to the New World, which, like the Anansi stories, depict a physically small and vulnerable creature using his cunning intelligence to prevail over larger animals. However, although Br'er Rabbit stories are told in the Caribbean, especially in the French-speaking islands (where he is named “Compair Lapin”), he is predominantly an African-American folk hero. The rabbit as a trickster is also in Akan versions as well and a Bantu origin doesn't have to be the main source, at least for the Caribbean where the Akan people are more dominant than in the U.S.[22] His tales entered the mainstream through the work of the American journalist Joel Chandler Harris, who wrote several collections of Uncle Remus stories between 1870 and 1906.[23]
One of the times Anansi himself was tricked was when he tried to fight a tar baby after trying to steal food, but became stuck to it instead. It is a tale well known from a version involving Br'er Rabbit, found in the Uncle Remus stories and adapted and used in the 1946 live-action/animated Walt Disney movie Song of the South. These were derived from African-American folktales in the Southern United States, that had part of their origin in African folktales preserved in oral storytelling by African Americans. Elements of the African Anansi tale were combined by African-American storytellers with elements from Native American tales, such as the Cherokee story of the "Tar Wolf",[24] which had a similar theme, but often had a trickster rabbit as a protagonist. The Native American trickster rabbit appears to have resonated with African-American story-tellers and was adopted as a cognate of the Anansi character with which they were familiar.[25] Other authorities state the widespread existence of similar stories of a rabbit and tar baby throughout indigenous Meso-American and South American cultures.[26] Thus, the tale of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby represents a coming together of two separate folk traditions, American and African, which coincidentally shared a common theme. Most of the other Br'er Rabbit stories originated with Cherokee or Algonquin myths.[27] In the USA today, the stories of Br'er Rabbit exist alongside other stories of Aunt Nancy, and of Anansi himself, coming from both the times of slavery and also from the Caribbean and directly from Africa.
Mythology [ edit ]
Anansi is often depicted in popular tales interacting with the Supreme Being and other deities who frequently bestow him with temporary supernatural powers, such as the ability to bring rain or to have other duties performed for him. As Kwaku Anansi, he is sometimes also considered an Abosom(lesser-deity) in Akan spirituality, despite commonly-being recognized as a trickster. Thus, Kwaku Anansi is similar to Legba, who is also both a trickster and a deity in West African Vodun,[28] recognized as the Abosom of wisdom and even said to have created the first inanimate human body, according to the scholar Anthony Ephirim-Donkor.[29] Another alternative religious view of Anansi sees him as a Gede Lwa in Haitian Vodou, responsible for maintaining the connections between the deceased ancestors and the living.[30]
Anansi also has a family in several folktales involving him, consisting of his long-suffering wife Okonore Yaa; Ntikuma his firstborn son; Tikelenkelen, his big-headed son; Nankonhwea, his son with a spindly neck and spindly legs; finally, Afudohwedohwe, his pot-bellied son.[31] Yet, Anansi also has a beautiful daughter named Anansewa, introduced in the work of Efua Sutherland. In Efua's tale, he embarks on a scheme to ensure that Anansewa can have an appropriate suitor.[32]
References in popular culture [ edit ]
Books [ edit ]
Comics [ edit ]
In an arc of DC Comics' Justice League of America, the team faces Anansi. The character was first mentioned in Justice League of America No. 23, but was not named until Justice League of America #24. According to Vixen, he is the West African trickster god and "owns all stories". Anansi appears in several forms, the most common form being a large, other-worldly spider with supernatural powers. He has been manipulating the powers of Vixen and Animal Man. He initially appears to be villainous, but then reveals after he is "defeated" that his machinations were in fact intended to teach Vixen a lesson and prepare her for some coming disaster.
In the Marvel Comics series The Amazing Spider-Man volume 2 (2003), it is revealed by Ezekiel that Kwaku Anansi was the first Spider-Man. Anansi sold himself to Nyame the sky-god in return for wisdom, and passed his knowledge on to spiders.[33] In a story of the mini-series Spider-Man Fairy Tales, Spider-Man himself takes on the role of Anansi. He is on a quest to gain more power after feeling unappreciated. After encountering elemental aspects (the Fantastic Four), and a guardian of a sacred garden (Swarm), he realizes the greatest power is friendship.
In the Marvel comic Herc during the Spider-Island story arc, a man by the name of A. Nancy appears several times as a traveling storyteller. It is revealed that in fact, he is the Spider god of legend, and while Herc has Arachne occupied, he steals Arachne's mythical tapestry that got her bound to her cursed form, adding it to his collection. He then promptly disappears.
Anancy appears in Fables crossover Cinderella: Fables Are Forever issue 3, where he is shown as a tricker figure and is related to the spider.
Anansi is also a main character in Greg Anderson-Elysée's graphic novel series "Is'nana: The Were-Spider".[34] The first volume, "Forgotten Stories" was self-published on 2016, after a successful Kickstarter campaign,[35] under the imprint "Webway Comics". In the series, Is'nana is Anansi's son.
Music [ edit ]
The English rock band Skunk Anansie (1994–2001, 2009–present) took the name of the spider man of the West African folk tales, but with a slightly different spelling, and added "Skunk" to the name, in order to make the name nastier.[36]
Children's singer Raffi wrote and recorded the song "Anansi" for his 1978 Corner Grocery Store album. The song describes Anansi as a spider and a man. It tells a story about Anansi being lazy yet clever, using flattery to trick some crows into shaking loose ripe mangoes from his mango tree for Anansi to enjoy without having to pick them himself.
Television and film [ edit ]
Video games [ edit ]
In the PC game Shivers, Anansi appears in a music box that tells the tale of the spider tricking a lizard and the gods.
In Pandora's Box, Anansi is one of the tricksters that has to be captured.
In The Secret World, Anansi is one of the eight divisions of the Orochi group, a global corporation whose units are frequently encountered in the game. Anansi's sphere is personal technology like tablets and headsets.
Other names [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Sources / Further reading [ edit ]
Ishmael, Odeen (2010). The Magic Pot: Nansi Stories From the Caribbean. Xlibris. ISBN 978-1-4535-3903-3.[ self-published source ]
Zobel Marshall, Emily (2012) Anansi’s Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance. University of the West Indies Press: Kingston
Zobel Marshall, Emily (2018) “‘Nothing but Pleasant Memories of the Discipline of Slavery”: The Trickster and the Dynamics of Racial Representation.’ Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies. (Wayne State University Press).
Zobel Marshall, Emily (2010) ‘’And Always, Anancy Changes’: An Exploration of Andrew Salkey’s Anancy Stories’ in Watt, M. Evans, L. & Smith, E. (eds.) The Caribbean Short Story: Critical Perspectives (Peepal Tree Press).
Zobel Marshall, Emily (2010) ‘Anansi, Eshu, and Legba: Slave Resistance and the West African Trickster’ in Hoermann, R. & Mackenthun, G. (eds.) Bonded Labour in the Cultural Contact Zone: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Slavery and Its Discourses (Waxmann).
Zobel Marshall, Emily (2009) ‘Anansi Tactics in Plantation Jamaica: Matthew Lewis’ Record of Trickery’, In Wadabagei: A Journal of the Caribbean and its Diaspora. Vol.12. No.3.
Zobel Marshall, Emily (2008) ‘From Messenger of the Gods to Muse of the People: The Shifting Contexts of Anansi’s Metamorphosis’, in Jamaica Journal. Oct. Vol. 29.
Marshall, Emily Zobel (September 2007). "Liminal Anansi: Symbol of Order and Chaos An Exploration of Anansi's Roots Amongst the Ashanti of Ghana". Caribbean Quarterly. 53 (3): 30–40. JSTOR 40654609. (2012)
Zobel Marshall, Emily (2007) 'Tracking Anansi' in Caribbean Beat. Nov-Dec. Issue 88.
Zobel Marshall, Emily (2001) ‘“The Anansi Syndrome”: A Debate Concerning Anansi’s Influence on Jamaican Culture’. World Literatures Written in English, 39:1.NATO on Saturday pushed back on a report claiming the group’s secretary general said President Trump “has a 12-second attention span” following a meeting in April."
.@politico stop spreading this false quote. #NATO SG @jensstoltenberg did not say this, nor does it represent his views. Check your facts. — Oana Lungescu (@NATOpress) May 20, 2017
.@politico the quote attributed to #NATO SG @jensstoltenberg is false.He's never said this & it doesn't represent his views.Pls correct asap — Oana Lungescu (@NATOpress) May 20, 2017
Politico Magazine reported Friday that a former senior official claimed Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg criticized Trump's attention bandwidth.
“The president of the United States has a 12-second attention span,” Stoltenberg reportedly said, Politico reported.
The senior official, according to the report, added that the president appeared unprepared for his meeting with the Norwegian Stoltenberg. He reportedly brought up recent events surrounding North Korea, which does not involve NATO.
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Politico acknowledged in its published piece that a NATO spokesman denied Stoltenberg said this, telling the newspaper that "the secretary general never said this and it does not represent his views.”
"[W]e informed them that the Secretary General never said the quote attributed to him, and it does not represent his views," a NATO spokesperson said in a statement Saturday in response to the Politico report.
Trump repeatedly ripped NATO during his presidential campaign, complaining it depended on the U.S. too much while many other members fail to reach their financial commitments on defense funding.
During a White House press conference in April, Trump appeared to change his position after the organization began to combat terrorism.
“I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete,” he said.
Stoltenberg, during a CNN interview, said Trump has always been “very consistent” in his support of NATO.
“For me, the important thing is that [Trump] has been very consistent when it comes to NATO in all my interactions and conversations with him,” Stoltenberg said.
In the 28-member group, the U.S. is one of only five countries to meet the two percent GDP percentage target for NATO’s defense spending.
- Updated: 1:49 p.m.Space, Place, Nature: One Last Look
Friday, April 4 @ 3:30, 180 Science Hall
“I have been writing about “Space, Place, and Nature” for at least three decades. You’d think I am now able to say something about them that is authoritative, if not definitive. But-–thank God!-–not at all. “Space” and “place,” yes, I can sound professorial, but “nature” and “what is reality” completely elude me, making me feel like a beginner. And it is as a beginner that I wish to make this farewell speech to colleagues in Science Hall, but especially to students who, I hope, will-–even in their eighties-–remain as immature as I am.”
Yi-Fu Tuan announced that this Friday will be his last talk at the lecture series that bears his name.
We invite alumni and friends to to join us for the lecture and for a reception honoring Professor Tuan directly following in the Robinson Map Library.
Professor Yi-Fu Tuan initiated the Department’s lecture series shortly after his arrival here in 1983. Dr. Tuan even provided pre-lecture refreshments-–”Coffee & Coping”, a light-hearted counter to the graduate students’ “Beer & Loafing” tradition-–for many years. The series was named for him after his retirement in 1998. Since then, Dr. Tuan has been an annual guest at the lecture series.Copyright by KRON - All rights reserved San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) stands on the sideline during the second half of an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks in Santa Clara, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Copyright by KRON - All rights reserved San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) stands on the sideline during the second half of an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks in Santa Clara, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
SANTA CLARA (KRON) -- The San Francisco 49ers have agreed to trade quarterback Colin Kaepernick to the Denver Broncos, according to multiple reports.
ESPN's NFL Insider Adam Schefter is reporting that while the two teams have reached a deal, Kaepernick would have to still rework his contract with Broncos GM John Elway.
The 49ers would receive a mid-round draft pick if a deal between the Broncos and Kaepernick is reached, Schefter says.
Denver wants the 28-year-old QB to take a $4 million pay cut from his hefty $11.9 million base salary for 2016.
SF-DEN have parameters of trade agreement on Colin Kaepernick, but still need restructured deal to complete... https://t.co/93waYznrUa — Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 2, 2016
Kap reportedly met with Elway twice in the last two weeks. Kaepernick has been in Vail rehabilitating from surgeries on his right thumb, his left knee, and on his non-throwing left shoulder to repair a torn labrum, according to a KUSA-TV report.
The 2016 Super Bowl champs are scrambling for a new quarterback following the retirement of Peyton Manning and backup Brock Osweiler's departure to Houston in free agency. Denver had been considered a front-runner to land a trade for Kaepernick, and a deal this weekend would put him in Denver before the 49ers begin their offseason conditioning program on Monday.
For Kaepernick, a move to the Rockies would also give him a possible starting spot and a much needed fresh start with a new team. He lost his job last fall to 2011 first-round pick Blaine Gabbert.
Gabbert took over in November for the benched Kaepernick, who completed just 59 percent of his passes with six touchdowns, five interceptions and a 78.5 rating before losing his job.
Kaepernick went 2-6 in eight starts last season before being benched, raising questions whether the quarterback who guided the 49ers to a runner-up Super Bowl finish following the 2012 season was still the best option under center.
New coach Chip Kelly said two weeks ago he had spoken recently to Kaepernick and was hopeful the mobile quarterback would still be on San Francisco's roster when the offseason program begins this coming Monday. It's unclear whether Kaepernick will be in attendance on Day 1 - and the offseason program isn't required.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.When it comes to watching videos in India, bandwidth and connectivity are the primary concerns. You cannot just stream videos instantly, and watch videos on the go unless you are on a high-speed mobile network. Most of the time users will buffer videos and then watch, which is painful. Keeping this in mind, Google India is offering the Smart offline feature on YouTube.
What is YouTube Smart Offline?
It’s a part of YouTube Red, a paid program offered in the United States, Canada, and others parts of the world which gain the ability to save videos offline. YouTube already has “YoutTube Offline” which allows users to save videos, and Smart Offline is an extension to the program. This is currently being offered in India for free.
How does it Work?
Many mobile operators (and some broadband operators too) offer either cheaper data at night and some even return 50% of data during happy hours (12 AM to 6 AM). So when you choose to save a video for offline viewing, Smart Offline makes sure to download the video overnight to save the maximum possible data. The option shows up when you tap on the save offline button on the YouTube App. It works only on mobile data, and not on Wi-Fi.
Open any video on the YouTube App
to take a video offline. Tap on the familiar grey arrowto take a video offline.
A prompt will appear, giving you the option to select “Save overnight” using your mobile operator’s discounted night data plan.
When you select it, the YouTube app will smartly schedule your video to be offlined after peak hours that night.
Does Smart Offline work with All Operators?
As of now, the answer is no. For now, Google is rolling out this feature to Airtel and Telenor (Uninor) subscribers in India. Airtel, in particular, offers 50% off on data during night hours. You will need to update the YouTube App to the latest version in order to use this.
This is one of the many new “Made for India” features that Google and YouTube are bringing to the Indian audience. As we know, user behavior is unique in India, and Google has been quick to recognize the needs of Indian users.
Source:Google IndiaBrett Favre loved to improvise on the football field, letting his gunslinger instincts take over in many instances. And it looks like Favre is taking that play-it-by-ear approach to his Hall of Fame speech, which he will have to make in a little more than a month.
"At some point, I have to start preparing a speech — which I am not good at doing," Favre said, via ESPN. "It’s closing fast. As we get older, we find that time flies. That’s the case here. It seems like yesterday I was just preparing for [returning to] Green Bay this past summer. It’ll be here quick."
Favre, who did not reveal who would present him at his Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement Aug. 6, has reconnected with Green Bay Packers fans years after his bitter split with the franchise. He gave an emotional speech last July, when the Packers inducted him in the team’s Hall of Fame.
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Favre said he’s not stunned by how Packers fans have welcomed him back, citing the loyalty the city has for its sports teams.
"[The love] started coming back this past summer. It was a great welcome back," Favre said when asked about the "MVP" and "Go Pack go" chants he heard on the course Saturday. "Again, I am not surprised. The fans here, it’s a special place. I tell people all the time, ‘
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could we let go of what we know are our false and deadly dreams of individual success within this murderous system to construct a yet-unimaginable social world that is organized around people and care?
Even when we make other options transparent, verging on viable, most of us will continue to work to secure a life that is expensive to us (to our health, the planet, socially and financially), but that is familiar and comfortably uncomfortable. In the US, the cost of living is so high that to change our lives, to turn outwards towards the collective, towards protection, feels as if it would cost everything we have and know, even if what we have is mostly debt and what we know is mostly confusion and anxiety. It is a vicious cycle. In our individualized quests to use financial measures to secure our housing, healthcare, and education we have learned these lessons of self-sabotage: we are powerless, failures that can’t do anything right but maybe make money which will, after all, disappear.
Counter-Professional Surveying Practices for Observing Failure
Perhaps it was because I was always exploring financial crisis in my work that I contracted myself to become my own subject of study—deeply precarious in almost every direction, without stable housing, work, health care, family, culture, or community. Americans who experience a medical emergency or death of a loved one are the most likely candidates to file for bankruptcy or lose their homes to foreclosure. In 2015 when my dad died, I missed work and didn’t have any money for rent. I understood intellectually that my experience of his death and its repercussions were connected to a broader moment of political, social, and economic apocalypse. Still, the panic that arose from not having money in my bank account was a cry even louder than the loss I experienced. Rolled into my bank account was my tenuous access to my home, my sense of self-worth, my sense of being a failure or a success, my ability to function socially, and the start-up money I needed in order to get work.
I wanted to learn that I was not alone in my misery. I knew the precarity I experienced was common among other people in my life–though it was invisible. I wanted a way to get people to open up about things they felt too vulnerable to speak of, things that no one would ever even ask. I was afraid of talking, so I made a survey that could expose how friends deal with the growing lack of conceptual and material stability. I wanted to learn who else was as uncomfortable in the world as I was, and to hold them closer. This survey was not objective, planned, or designed to deliver useful results. It was a cry for help.
For today, we’ll look at responses to two questions:
How often do you run out of money? If you do run out, how do you feel, and what does it cause you to do? Internally and externally. What forms of economic self defense do you practice? From scams to jobs, how do you get money?
What the survey reveals is not quantifiable, nor does it provide any economic measurement. It reveals that survival is difficult because underneath a lack of material resources there is not a culture of meaningful participation in shared struggle. When the money is gone, or the work is unavailable, there is nothing safe to fall into. Every failure is a turning point at which the individual has to: pick up and leave town, hide at home, spend day and night hustling, or draw tarot cards to give them a vision of a new way to survive. Occasionally someone takes care of another one, but this is at their own risk–not distributed amongst a community. This mode of individual survival has come to seem so normal, so obvious.
But it’s not working. As each person describes their financial problems, inventions, and inner struggles, they describe how they have been working through the difficulty of material survival in relative isolation, going into economic defence as a lone soldier, or sliding into obscurity with only little sparks of assistance from others. In the cases of those who have not run out of money, it is a rare moment when they see their money as a resource to help others, or a collectively held asset.
I invited men from Fiverr, a website for contracting freelance services, to perform some of the responses to the two most blatantly economic questions in the survey. The decision to deliver the responses in this way was based in my own curiosity—I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to see men articulate economic or emotional vulnerability, or openly offer detailed advice, share experiences, or to express a desire for solidarity in this way. All in all, my request was rejected by five out of the twenty men that I requested to make testimonials. Their rejection came in one-to-two sentences. They kept it professional by saying that they simply do not perform “this type” of material.
The request I made to the men working on Fiverr acts as a survey with different significance than the original one. If the survey I gave to women and femmes inherently asked, “How are you surviving in this fucked up world, and are you as uncomfortable as I am?” then the survey for men said “Do you have the courage to allow someone else’s suffering to enter your body and your online profile?”
We need a different way to understand and value our world and culture; we need to centre life, not capital; we need to practice real solidarity. This is feminist economics, and the only way to find it will involve collective economic disobedience.
Revenge Fantasy
The body and mind are sensitive and reactive to regimes of oppression – particularly our current regime of neoliberal, white-supremacist, imperial-capitalist, cis-hetero-patriarchy. It is that all of our bodies and minds carry the historical trauma of this, that it is the world itself that is making and keeping us sick.
-Johanna Hedva, “Sick Woman Theory” (2016)
I want a feminist economics that acknowledges trauma and asks the undercommoners who are tired, hiding, scared, or in bed now, who have been stolen from, ignored and violated, what could be offered to repair what has been broken by power and finance–and how. I want it to offer the logic and support to stop the man who insists that the corporate healthcare model is working when, by all measures, exploitation, injustice, inequality and sickness are growing. We need a different way to understand and value our world and culture; we need to centre life, not capital; we need to practice real solidarity. This is feminist economics, and the only way to find it will involve collective economic disobedience.
Economic disobedience can take many shapes, and as an individual, you can do it alone as a way to train yourself to overcome the stigma of going against a mainstream ideology. It may help you develop a spinal fortitude to stop believing in and obeying the rules of capitalism. You may stop paying taxes or debts, and you can go off the grid. But any of these actions will result in repercussions that will cost you money, or land you an experience with the (very expensive) criminal justice system, unless you have a network of others supporting you, strategizing with you, and leveraging your personal actions into a meaningful political collective social intervention. The free market economy teaches you (and your family unit, if you have one) that you are the only thing you have, and the only thing that matters. It is only by overturning that idea in practice that you can really begin to restructure yourself and the economy. But there is almost nothing harder than coming up against the wall: financial capital and all of its laws, social cues, and morals. This coming up against the wall—alone, which keeps us from care, from home, and from each other—is making us sick.
My revenge fantasy goes like this: someone calls you, and they ask you if you want to be a part of The Hologram, the codename for a huge phone-tree shaped network of women, gender non-conforming and trans people, and femmes who are in touch, all the time. The shape of the phone tree is actually more like a rhizome, if you could see the conversation network from above. Its path is decentralized and untraceable, undercover in broad daylight, because it looks like we’re just on the phone, writing letters, sending postcards, Skyping, Google hanging, Facebooking, emailing, FaceTiming. You know, “women’s work.”
We are asking each other questions about what hurts and where, and taking notes. What are we doing? We are interviewing each other about the conditions of our health, our lives, what it’s like to be us. We don’t know why we are compelled towards these long and unwieldy conversations, but we can’t stop learning about what the others’ lives are like. It keeps us alive; it feels like a secret portal to the centre of the earth, and back to ourselves. We are asking about the relationships, the mental health histories, the workplace violences, the plants, the nail polish, the family dramas, the addictions, the anxiety, the type of peanut butter, and the political aspirations. We are taking notes and we are putting it into encrypted folders. We are following up and asking more questions.
We are Googling radical doctors with lower fees and finding out if a friend really needs the surgery. It feels like the most important work we’ve ever done, and it is completely invisible—we are here sitting on the couch and no one knows what we are doing unless they are doing it too. For new people, it is difficult and a bit frustrating to understand the degree to which there are no goals besides finding connections, trust, and solidarity. The point is that there is a very complex weaving of friendship and collective responsibility, a net that you can’t see but you can feel, and it feels strong.
Some people quit their jobs. Not because this is a paid gig, but because when we hear what is happening to those who we’ve grown to love just across the border, or across some pond, or across a racial divide, we are going to go there and be with them. In this network of phone calls and texts and viral conversations, we see that our problems are connected in varying degrees. And we look back and remember when we thought it was all our fault, that everything was in our head. But it wasn’t, and it’s not. We account for one another, we hold each other to account, and we hold each other, period.
To learn more about this plan, go to feministeconomicsdepartment.com/hologramIt may be true that an untidy cat box could beat sad sack John McCain this year.
But.
Senator Clinton, please shut up.
Every charge you angrily hurl at Barack Obama gives the Republicans a talking point.
On yesterday's 60 Minutes, you crossed an unforgivable line:
"You don't believe that Senator Obama's a Muslim?" Steve Kroft asked her.
"Of course not. I mean, that, you know, there is no basis for that. I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that," she replied.
"You said you'd take Senator Obama at his word that he's not...a Muslim. You don't believe that he's...," Kroft said.
"No. No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know," she said.
As far as I KNOW? What if the situation were reversed?
"Sen Obama, What about those smears that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian who likes to skinny dip with her Iranian 'assistant...' and 'gal pal.' What do you think about those rumors?"
"She is a heterosexual happily married to former President Bill Clinton, as far as I know," Obama responds.
Who are you, Senator Clinton?Quiet! The Immortals are back and they’re trying to be as silent as they can. They’re up in Alaska during The Gold Rush and they don’t want there to be an avalanche. Along the way, they also went back to the chicken shack to find some jamun, which was a weird choice. Then Pedro said we have to get our kicks on Route 66, which is not at all how you get to Alaska. It wasn’t until Adam suggested going on a bear hunt did we get close to our destination. The whole thing was almost as farcical as The Phil Silvers Show. Anywho, they review stuff this week!
Intro 0:00 – 4:30
The Gold Rush 4:30 – 28:02
Back at the Chicken Shack 28:02 – 33:24
Jamun 33:24 – 41:00
(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66 41:00 – 48:36
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt 48:36 – 58:10
The Phil Silvers Show 58:10 – 1:00:07
–Leave your own henge ratings at TheArtImmortal.com
–Be sure you leave an iTunes review so Pedro can give you a compliment on air.
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Join us Thursday next as we discuss more things. Until then, email or tweet us your thoughts, leave a review on iTunes and other crap every podcast asks you to do. (But we love that you do it!)
Artwork by Ray Martindale
Opening tune by Adam Lord
Edited by Sarah StaudtWith so many new series popping up on streaming services and DVD every day, it gets harder and harder to keep up with new shows, much less the all-time classics. With TV Club 10, we point you toward the 10 episodes that best represent a TV series, classic or modern. If you watch these 10, you’ll have a better idea of what that series was about, without having to watch the whole thing. These are not meant to be the 10 best episodes, but rather the 10 most representative episodes.
Greg Daniels had not been given an enviable task for his first foray into the world of live-action sitcoms. The co-creator of King Of The Hill and a former staff writer for a pair of venerated comedic institutions—Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons—Daniels might have been the only man in Hollywood with a résumé spotless enough to adapt what was, in the mid-2000s, the latest inductee to the TV comedy pantheon: The Office. An award-winning hit in its native U.K., Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s mockumentary about corporate drudgery had garnered a cult following after its DVD release in the U.S., marking the series as a shoo-in for an Americanized remake. But it was a tricky proposition: Any attempt at translating the awkward interactions and inappropriate workplace behavior of David Brent and company was bound to endure comparisons to the original article, not to mention echoes of NBC’s aborted attempt to bring Steven Moffat’s Coupling Stateside. So Daniels and his team went to work to counter the kneejerk skepticism, going so far as to clone Gervais and Merchant’s pilot for the U.S. Office’s first episode. But the cringe-comedy alchemy of the original proved difficult to reproduce within the constraints of U.S. broadcast standards and practices; losing nearly half of its viewership between its première and second episode and beset by tepid reviews, The Office was an unlikely candidate for a second-season renewal.
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Those first six episodes of The Office work best when viewed as an extended pilot, three hours of a television series finding its legs, vision, and, most importantly, what differentiates the series from its source material. When the show returned in the fall of 2005, its edges were softened: Boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell), was less of a caustic narcissist, supporting characters (many played by members of the writing staff) were progressing beyond their status as faceless drones, and there was a note of hope in the will-they/won’t-they between goofball salesman Jim (John Krasinski) and wallflower receptionist Pam (Jenna Fischer). These were exactly the type of sunshiny, tooled-for-American-audiences changes that fans of the British original may have feared, but they did nothing to dilute the show’s sense of humor. In the early years, the employees of Dunder Mifflin could still exasperate and offend one another, but at the end of a tough workday, they’d still gladly meet up for a drink. It was Michael’s “co-workers as family” vision come to life, a begrudging tolerance best exemplified by Jim’s eventual respect for his boss—a slow-growing esteem that no amount of raised-eyebrows-to-camera could undercut. It was also a perspective that the show could sustain for an episode count beyond the original Office’s 12 half-hours and two Christmas specials—200 episodes by the time of its 2013 series final, in fact.
The Office’s longevity brought about a few bum seasons and followed supporting characters down some deeply unsatisfying rabbit holes (Andy Bernard’s rise from short-fused nuisance to surrogate Michael Scott, for starters), but at its peak, the show used its 20-plus episodes per season to mix episodic belly laughs with engaging, long-term storytelling. Jim and Pam’s romance is the prime example of the latter, but when the heat of that storyline subsided, it developed a strange parallel in the relationship between sycophantic wannabe leader Dwight (Rainn Wilson) and office fussbudget Angela (Angela Kinsey). With each passing year, Carell ended up sharing more and more of the spotlight with his co-stars (this in spite of the fact that he found success as a cinematic leading man when The 40-Year-Old Virgin bowed between seasons one and two), but the major arc spanning The Office’s first seven seasons plays like a decades-delayed coming-of-age tale for Michael Scott.
Carell’s pending departure in 2011 restored the earlier verve to a series that had settled into a comfortable groove; his farewell to The Office, “Goodbye, Michael,” should’ve also been The Office’s farewell, but the commercial demands of broadcast TV (and NBC’s dearth of respected, long-running primetime programming in the 2010s) wouldn’t allow for it. Yet even in its old age, the show has served as a cornerstone of NBC’s Thursday night; its ratings diminished, but its 9 p.m. timeslot remained the one sure thing in a programming block that’s become an unpredictable mess after the end of The Office’s equally unassuming partner in sustaining the Must See TV legacy, 30 Rock. These series never delivered the blockbuster ratings of their Thursday-night predecessors (a fact that’s allowed CBS and ABC to horn in on a night The Peacock used to rule with an iron fist), but they did create a safe haven for smart, warm-hearted comedy. The Office’s six-episode, midseason test run even provided a blueprint for the shaky-yet-promising debut season for Parks And Recreation, the product of a team-up between Daniels and Office all-star Michael Schur. Not half bad for a show that once looked doomed to wither in its inspiration’s shadow.
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“Diversity Day” (season one, episode two): Working from a template set by the British original—but not reproducing it wholesale—The Office’s second episode goes to work establishing some key facets of the American remake: the rivalry between slacker Jim and model employee Dwight, mixed signals from Pam to Jim, Michael’s bad habit of hijacking other people’s presentations, and the terrifying prospect and comedic promise of the words “conference room.” The boss’ attempt at a workplace sensitivity seminar (“Diversity Tomorrow: Because today is almost over”) goes predictably awry, leading to the climactic slap that ends one of the series’ cruelest gags. Such outward brutality wouldn’t fit with the later conception of Carell’s character (unless it’s directed at Paul Lieberstein’s Toby), but as a representation of Michael’s stubborn insistence on “entertaining” his employees at all costs, it works here.
“The Client” (season two, episode seven): With the threat of downsizing looming over several episodes, it’s fitting that NBC ordered The Office’s second season piecemeal throughout the fall of 2005. That season turned out to be one of the strongest sitcom runs of the ’00s, its original six-episode order filled out by classics like “The Dundies” and “Office Olympics.” “The Client” makes good on the network’s investment, continuing the momentum of the proceeding set of episodes by sending Michael off-campus to land a major client, proving his worth to his boss—and future girlfriend—Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin). But the episode is most noteworthy for the after-hours activities at Dunder Mifflin Scranton, where Jim and Pam uncover Threat Level Midnight, a derivative bit of wish-fulfillment that re-imagines mild-mannered paper man Michael Scott as the super spy Agent Michael Scarn. Working with the limitations of the show’s main set and low-concept premise, “The Client” ekes another second-season classic from what’s basically a filmed table read—albeit one that sets time aside for Jim and Pam’s first “date” on the office-park roof, the sweet scene that launched a thousand ’shippers.
“Booze Cruise” (season two, episode 11): The main hurdle toward putting Jim and Pam together was wrapped around Jenna Fischer’s left ring finger: Like her British Office equivalent, Pam began the series in the middle of an engagement with no wedding date in sight. “Booze Cruise” fixes that right quick, delivering one of the show’s earliest emotional gut punches and forcing John Krasinski’s character to face up to his feelings for the receptionist—which, unfortunately, means confessing those feelings to the one person on staff not equipped to keep a secret: Michael. The Office emerged from “Booze Cruise” imbued with two new sources of tension, jettisoning recurring player Amy Adams in the process (a few weeks shy of her first Academy Award nomination) but gaining the hilarious image of Steve Carell delivering a motivational speech to the pounding rhythms of Sean Paul.
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“The Injury” (season two, episode 12): In which the peak of Michael Scott’s insane selfishness is located, thanks to a poorly placed appliance and some strange behavior on the part of Dwight. With a script credited to Mindy Kaling, “The Injury” is one of the The Office’s best-written half-hours, a sort of shaggy-dog story where Michael burns his foot on a George Foreman grill and his petulance overshadows the fact that something is very wrong with Dwight’s brain. The ultimate reveal is a slick piece of writing, but the performances from Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson put “The Injury” over the top. And the loopiness in Wilson’s line readings (“Part of my duties are to…”) betrays its true source only when all other explanations—and ludicrous requests from Michael—have been exhausted.
“Ben Franklin” (season three, episode 14): After nailing down its tone and establishing a healthy balance of pathos and humor in the second season, The Office split in two, adding “the state of New York” to the list of items keeping Jim and Pam apart. In the grand scheme of things, Jim’s seven episodes in Stamford, Connecticut, are a non-starter—his relationship with Karen (Rashida Jones) drives some season-three action, but the arc is mostly one, long, digressive way of introducing Ed Helms’ Andy Bernard. The “two offices” concept works better in micro, illuminating sides of the characters they’d never show to their co-workers or reveal in a talking-head interview—as in this episode, where the men and women of the Scranton Business Park throw midday bachelor and bachelorette parties. Some plot machinations are at play in “Ben Franklin”—primarily the growing fissures between Jim and Pam, necessary for making their season-four coupling truly mean something—but it’s best viewed as a prime example of a certain type of Office episode, one also defined by a perfect Jim prank: hiring a Benjamin Franklin impersonator (future podcast MVP Andy Daly, as always pitching his performance between hammy and creepy) as the stripper for the bachelorette party.
“Dinner Party” (season four, episode nine): Embracing the sweeter sides of its characters didn’t mean The Office abandoned cringe comedy entirely: Take the funniest episode of the show’s uneven, writers’-strike-shortened fourth season, for example. Under the guidance of director Paul Feig, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky’s script turns into something that’s a little bit Harold Pinter, a little bit Edward Albee, and completely the fiery dissolution of Michael’s relationship with Jan. Carell and Hardin’s barbed portrayal of a dying romance (that was doomed from the start) turns a pet name into a weapon one act in, and the viewer gets to witness the disaster alongside Jim, Pam, Angela, Andy, Dwight, and Dwight’s former babysitter (a well placed Beth Grant). It’s an important step for Michael, a reinforcement of why Jim and Pam are together (the latter also gets a great subplot where she’s worried Jan is trying to poison her), and a reminder that no one should stay with a partner who “relaxes” to a song about taking her former assistant’s virginity.
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“Goodbye, Toby” (season four, episode 14): No occasion at Dunder Mifflin Scranton is too small for an extravagant party, but the departure of Michael’s arch nemesis—human-resources representative Toby Flenderson—calls for a blowout that shakes the office’s squabbling party planning committee to its very foundations. It also requires an additional half-hour, a move that sunk the early parts of the fourth season, but feels right for the amount of action that takes place in “Goodbye, Toby.” The final episode produced during Greg Daniels’ original term as showrunner (he returned to oversee the ninth season), this super-sized installment pays testament to the ensemble show The Office grew into over the course of its first four seasons, planting important seeds for the show’s main characters—Toby’s replacement (played by Amy Ryan) will be a huge factor in Michael’s life; Jim nearly finds the right moment to ask a big question—while serving former background players like the eponymous HR rep well. “Goodbye, Toby” is a season-finale extravaganza that feels deserving of the hullaballoo Michael pays for with money pulled from his shoe.
“Cafe Disco” (season five, episode 25): At the end of a not-particularly-fruitful arc that only made partial use of Idris Elba’s considerable intimidation faculties, the office workers blow off steam in the utility space that housed Michael’s short-lived Dunder Mifflin competitor. (See what we mean by not particularly fruitful?) The scenes in Michael’s Cafe Disco put all of the office workers on an even playing field, an increasingly tricky bit of acrobatics given the expansion of the main cast through additions like Ellie Kemper’s Erin. One of the benefits of growing an ensemble, however, is turning up surprisingly great character combinations, which is exactly what “Cafe Disco” does with a weird little side plot where Dwight bonds with an injured Phyllis.
“Goodbye, Michael” (season seven, episode 21): The episode that should’ve ended The Office didn’t even end the show’s seventh season—but it still makes a fitting cap to Carell’s time on the show. The benefits of the show’s second-season makeover, and the time it was granted to cultivate its relationships truly pays off, as the Michael introduced in the pilot wouldn’t deserve a send-off this warmhearted. His co-workers wouldn’t have wanted to give it to him, either—the least of whom Pam, who plays hooky on what turns out to be Michael’s last day and must race to catch him at the airport. Carell’s final scene with Jenna Fischer is one for the highlight reels, as is his final, un-mic’ed utterance of an Office catchphrase. The character may have evolved over the course of seven seasons, but he still can’t bring himself to turn down a laugh that easy.
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“Work Bus” (season nine, episode four): The Office’s final season hasn’t been the return to form fans have hoped for; it has, however, proven to be adept at the art of saying goodbye. Turns out that’s an act that can be wrung for maximum emotional payoff when it’s performed among people who’ve spent much of the last nine years in the same room. After “Work Bus” humorously plays the mob mentality of Dunder Mifflin Scranton against itself, Jim and Dwight talk through the difficulties of moving on—even when the people being left behind are ones they occasionally don’t feel affection for. Regardless of dips in quality undergone by recent seasons of the show, it’ll still be tough to close the door on The Office—an achievement in and of itself.
And if you like those, here are 10 more: “Basketball” (season one, episode five); “The Dundies” (season two, episode one) “Office Olympics” (season two, episode three); “Christmas Party” (season two, episode 10); “Traveling Salesmen” (season three, episode 12) “Did I Stutter?” (season four, episode 12); “Frame Toby” (season five, episode eight); “Niagara” (season six, episode four/five); “Scott’s Tots” (season six, episode 12); “Michael’s Last Dundies” (season seven, episode 20)
Availability: The first eight seasons of the series are available on DVD and are streaming on Netflix; seasons five and later are available on Blu-ray.
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Next time: Will Harris presents 10 individual arguments for why The Middle is one of TV’s best ongoing comedies—even if preconceived notions about a family sitcom on ABC or about Patricia Heaton’s politics say otherwise.SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(RUSSELLVILLE, Ark.) -- Someone appears to have forgotten to read the rules about what's appropriate for the school yearbook at Arkansas' Russellville Middle School.
One of the categories that somehow slipped the attention of editors was "Top 5 worst people of all time." Those making the dubious list in order were Adolph Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Charles Manson, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Some parents discovered the list, which Russellville School Superintendent Randall Williams called "an oversight." Since it was too late to republish the books, the school put permanent tape over the list, although it wasn't so permanent since the tape can easily be removed.
As it turned out, the list originated from a website called Ranker.com, although the former president and vice president were ranked at numbers 22 and 26 respectively on that list, meaning someone had to have modified the list that appeared in the yearbook.
Williams says he's questioned the adult sponsor of the yearbook, who admits not scanning that particular page before it went to print.
Copyright 2011 ABC News RadioWhat could be happening in Batman Inc #8? Batman Incorporated #8 is expected to cause to media storm, and retailers have been advised by DC Comics to increase their orders. But what could it be? Here are are the solicitations for issue 8, and the subsequent issues. 12 will be Grant Morrison’s final issue, and the end of his long running arc on Batman.
There have been concerns that Death Of The Family may lead to a death of a regular Bat character… but is it possible we were looking in the wrong comic?
Most-Read Comic Stories Today – Death Of The Family, Spider-Man
So What’s Happening In Batman Inc #8 Anyway? Dot Joining…
Batman Incorporated #8 is expected to cause to media storm, and retailers have been advised by DC Comics to increase their orders. But what could it be? Here are are the solicitations for issue 8, and the subsequent issues. 12 will be Grant Morrison’s final issue, and the end of his long running arc on Batman. There have been concerns that Death Of The Family may lead to a death of a regular Bat character… but is it possible we were looking in the wrong comic?
A Few X-Men And Spider-Man Solicitations For May 2013
Courtesy of Newsarama and CBR, expect these to be all filled in next week.
Spider-Man… Or Camel-Man?A really decent illustration of Spider-Man and friends by Stephane Roux… but possibly a little too much attention paid to one specific area…
Most-Read TV/Film Stories Today
Watch: All Of The Nominees For The Best Animated Short Film Oscar – Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors
All of the films in contention for the Best Animated Short Film at this year’s Academy Awards are now online.
More Toys Hint At More Plot Points – Images Of Thor 2, Star Trek 2, Man Of Steel And Pacific Rim Tie-Ins
As the New York Toy Fair continues, the threat of spoiler-by-tie-in builds and builds. Here are images of Thor 2, Star Trek Into Darkness and Pacific Rim merch, some of which seems to suggest new info – if sometimes very slight – about the films in question.
X-Men Days Of Future Past May Get An All-CG Character – But Who?
Because he’s trying not to say too much, Bryan Singer‘s comments on plans to create an all-CG character for X-Men: Days of Future Past are open to interpretation.
Most-Discussed In The Forum Today – Orson Scott Card, Power Girl
Campaign To Get Orson Scott Card Fired From Superman Begins
So, yesterday I wrote an article in response to requests I’d had to promote an organised campaign to boycott DC, Superman and to get Orson Scott Card fired off the Superman Adventures book for being an anti-gay marriage activist and holding virulent homphobic views.
DC Cancels Firestorm, Ravagers, Hawkman, Deathstroke, Sword Of Sorcery And Team 7.
We mentioned there were big creative changes happening at DC. Well, they’ve now just been announced, ahead of this weekend’s DC Comics creative conference in Charlotte, North Carlolina.
“As Power Girl Returns To Her Classic Look” World’s Finest #12 Brings Back The Boob Window
One of comics’ ongoing costume controversies, the classic Power Girl costume and its “boob window”, returns for another round:
About Mark Seifert Co-founder and Creative director of Bleeding Cool parent company Avatar Press. Bleeding Cool Managing Editor, tech and data wrangler. Machine Learning hobbyist. Vintage paper addict.
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None foundYemeni army forces, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, have killed 24 Saudi soldiers in two separate attacks in retaliation to the relentless Saudi bombardment of the impoverished nation.
Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah news website reported that Yemeni forces on Friday managed to kill at least 23 Saudi soldiers in the northern Jawf province and destroyed three of their armored vehicles after repelling their push. The remaining Saudi soldiers fled the battlefield and left behind their dead comrades.
Separately, Yemeni snipers killed another Saudi soldier at a military base in the kingdom’s southwestern province of Jizan. Yemeni forces also managed to smash a personnel carrier with artillery fire in the province.
In the southwestern Asir province, Yemenis also destroyed a minesweeper in a missile attack.
Yemeni rescuers carry the body of a baby girl who was retrieved from the rubble of their home after the building was struck overnight by Saudi airstrikes on February 10, 2016, in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a. (AFP)
Saudi war machine breathes fire
Saudi artillery shelling on Friday claimed the lives of two children and inflicted injuries to a third one in a densely populated district in the southwestern Yemeni province of Ta'izz.
Another child was also critically wounded when Saudis fired shells towards a market in the southern province of Dhale.
Meanwhile, Saudi warplanes bombarded different locations in the capital Sana’a and northwestern Sa’ada province late on Friday. There were no immediate reports of possible casualties and the extent of damage.
Yemen has been under military attacks by Saudi Arabia since late March last year. The Saudi military strikes were launched in a failed effort to undermine the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and bring the former fugitive president back to power.
More than 8,300 people, among them 2,236 children, have been killed and 16,015 others injured since the start of the attacks. The strikes have also taken a heavy toll on the impoverished country’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories.According to a new poll from PPP, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s approval rating has plunged to unheard-of depths: 9%.
The same poll found that even Russian President Vladimir Putin had a higher approval rating than McConnell: 11%. As Allahpundit at HotAir points out, the 9% rating McConnell got is likely exaggerated, but it does jive with two other polls that show McConnell is hugely unpopular: a Kentucky poll by PPP showing McConnell at 18% in his home state, and a survey conducted by former Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio that showed McConnell at 27/44 nationally, down 25 net points since June.
Allahpundit notes that while the Senate elections hugely favor the GOP in 2018, as they will defend only eight Senate seats, while Democrats must defend 25, the fact that President Trump has attacked GOP senators Flake and Heller could be dangerous, causing the GOP to lose the Senate. Despite Trump’s anger at Flake for criticizing him, it’s especially dumb to attack Flake since he has voted with Trump almost 94% of the time.
Allahpundit also points out, “Things are continuing to look good for Democrats in 2018, as they lead the generic Congressional ballot 49-35. The 14-point lead for Democrats may be too good to be true though- it’s a function of a highly divided Republican base at this point. While Clinton voters say they’ll vote Democratic for Congress next year 90-4, Trump voters say they will vote Republican by only a 74-13 margin … how much of the dismal polling for Congress right now on the right is due to policy failures and how much is due to the personal pique between Trump and McConnell et al.?”
McConnell and Trump have been sniping at each other publicly recently; McConnell even said that Trump had “excessive expectations for GOP senators.” Yet they joined to support Alabama Senator Luther Strange, who was appointed to succeed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in the Alabama GOP primary.Congress’s lines are being redrawn, putting some longtime incumbents in a tough spot heading into next year’s election. Due to population shifts and partisan interests, some congressional districts are undergoing extreme makeovers, forcing their representatives to run in unfamiliar and sometimes inhospitable territory. Here are the five most vulnerable Democratic incumbents.
#5: Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.)
Missouri is losing a congressional district, and Republicans in control of the Missouri statehouse overrode
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aland West, Masvingo and Midlands. The CFU president blamed the invasions on a minority of figures close to Zanu-PF who were "using their offices to ensure ethnic cleansing can take place before the prime minister is able to stabilise the country". "This is being led by members of the old regime in Zanu-PF who are not willing to see the transition take place to a new unity government," Mr Gifford added. "Zimbabwe is facing a severe food crisis and we're in the midst of the agricultural season so the impact of this will worsen the catastrophe." More than half Zimbabwe's population is in need of food aid and inflation - estimated by some economists at 10 sextillion per cent - has left its currency almost worthless. Mr Gifford said there were about 400 functioning white-owned farms left in Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, Roy Bennett - the MDC's nominee for deputy agricultural minister - faces a bail hearing on Tuesday after he was arrested this month accused of terrorism on charges his supporters say are trumped-up.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionLabor is leading the two-party preferred race in Liberal MP Andrew Nikolic's northern Tasmanian seat, according to a new ReachTel poll.
The survey of 824 residents across the electorate of Bass, conducted on Tuesday, found Mr Nikolic received top billing with 44.1 per cent of first preference votes.
But on a two-party preferred basis Labor candidate Ross Hart tipped the scales with a narrow margin: 51 per cent to 49 per cent.
The poll, commissioned by lobby group GetUp!, focused on health services spending.
A majority of respondents backed Labor as better placed to manage health services, except those aged over 65 who gave the Liberal Party their support.
Former Army brigadier Mr Nikolic is serving his first term in Bass which he won in 2013 with a four per cent margin.
© AAP 2019Contributed by tj on 2016-03-29 from the early-fish-gets-the-iso dept.
The release of OpenBSD 5.9, previously scheduled for the usual May 1st, has just been officially announced!
We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 5.9. This is our 39th release on CD-ROM (and 40th via FTP/HTTP). We remain proud of OpenBSD's record of more than twenty years with only two remote holes in the default install.
The release page mentions most of the major improvements, and the detailed changelog has a much longer list. Here are some of the bigger things incorporated into 5.9 that we're excited about.
Pledge
With a great Hackfest presentation to lay out all the details, pledge(2) is one of the more prominent changes. We say prominent, but you actually shouldn't notice any difference with it enabled... assuming all your applications behave correctly. Much work has been done in this area, with around 70% of the OpenBSD userland being modified to use pledge within a single release cycle! A few ports also got the same treatment - something to expect more of as time goes on.
UEFI
Many new laptops come with UEFI now, some without an option to fall back to a traditional BIOS. With the 5.9 release, OpenBSD can now be booted on such machines.
GPT
Assuming you're on the amd64 platform, support for GPT has been vastly improved throughout the OS. The installer has been updated to accommodate as well, and it even works on softraid(4) volumes.
Rewritten less
The less(1) we're all familiar with has been completely rewritten. After importing a fork from illumos' Garrett D'Amore, OpenBSD continued to make improvements to the code. A safer and more modern tool was the end result, even if it's just for viewing text. Hopefully there will be less bugs now.
Xen domU
If running OpenBSD under Xen (such as on Amazon's cloud platform) sounds interesting to you, you'll be happy to know that 5.9 includes some pretty solid support for this.
Graphics
Laptop users rejoice, as 5.9 includes graphics support for Intel's Broadwell and Bay Trail GPUs!
Network SMP
Many improvements have been made to get the network stack running multithreaded. There's still plenty more to do in this area, but some exciting progress has definitely been made already.
802.11n
Another big one for laptop users: initial support for N wireless has landed in both the iwm(4) and iwn(4) drivers.San Antonio Spurs star Tim Duncan's million-dollar lawsuit in federal court today
Tim Duncan emerges from proceedings after he makes an appearance in federal court before U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez regarding his lawsuit against Charles Banks on June 10, 2015. Tim Duncan emerges from proceedings after he makes an appearance in federal court before U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez regarding his lawsuit against Charles Banks on June 10, 2015. Photo: Tom Reel, San Antonio Express-News Photo: Tom Reel, San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 32 Caption Close San Antonio Spurs star Tim Duncan's million-dollar lawsuit in federal court today 1 / 32 Back to Gallery
SAN ANTONIO — Spurs star Tim Duncan has usually fared well when he's had home court advantage in his 17 years of pro basketball.
But, a former financial adviser he's suing in Bexar County for more than $1 million wants a federal judge to force Duncan to arbitration in California, or to move a portion of the suit to Colorado.
RELATED: San Antonio Spurs star Tim Duncan files million-dollar lawsuit in Bexar County court
The Spurs superstar was in court Wednesday for a hearing before U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez to take up motions by defendant Charles Banks, who says the investment agreements Duncan signed specify that all disputes over Duncan's investments in hotel and winery businesses must go to arbitration in San Francisco or Los Angeles.
Duncan's issues over his investment in a sports merchandising company should be litigated in federal court in Colorado, Banks argued.
But after a lengthy hearing, the matter ended with no definitive winner.
RELATED: Tim Duncan selling $1.2 million home near Austin
Rodriguez instead gave Banks’ legal team 20 days to find more documentation, if available, showing that Banks or the company he worked for had provided Duncan with contracts for investments Duncan made with Banks. Once that is done, the judge said, he’ll decide whether to rule or set more hearings.
“A decision hasn’t really been made, but I just wanted to be here to kind of show that I’m serious about this, and to rebut some things that have been said by Charles Banks…that this is just a misunderstanding,” Duncan said after the hearing of the advisor he hired in his Spurs rookie season in the 1990s. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. There is something here. He’s acted, to put it as politely as possible, dishonestly in his representation as my financial advisor, and I was hoping to get this worked out.”
Banks moved Duncan's original suit out of state court in Bexar County and put it in federal court in February.
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Twitter: @gmaninfedlandA student has been accused of violating ‘safe space’ rules and faced being removed from a council meeting at the University of Edinburgh after she raised her hand during a debate.
Imogen Wilson, 22, a music student and vice-president of academic affairs at the Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA), was one of hundreds of students to have attended a student council meeting to debate Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS).
HuffPost UK reports how the student decided to “respond instinctively” at the meeting after being accused of failing disabled students by not responding to an open letter.
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Ms Wilson told the news site: “At that point, I raised my arms in disagreement, as we had contacted the writers of the letter and tried hard to organise a meeting.
“It was for that reason that a safe space complaint was made.”
EUSA’s safe space policy describes how members are expected to “respect the right” of all students attending meetings and staff to enjoy EUSA as a safe space environment, defined as “a space which is welcoming and safe and includes the prohibition of discriminatory language and actions.”
The policy goes on to highlight that members should refrain from hand gestures which “denote disagreement” or “indicate disagreement with a point or points being made.”
Having been accused of breaking the rules, a vote was cast to decide whether the student should have been removed from the meeting, However, after members voted 18 for and 33 against, Ms Wilson was allowed to remain. Shortly after, though, she almost had another complaint made against her - after she shook her head.
She told HuffPost UK: “I did not think that was fair and, had it gone further, I would have either left or argued against it.”
At the end of the debate, the BDS motion was passed with 249 votes for and 153 against.
Describing BDS as a “controversial movement” to boycott products, companies, and institutions that “profit from or are implicated in the violation of Palestinian rights,” Ms Wilson wrote in The Student that she believes the movement “promotes anti-Semitism, and is harmful to Jewish students.”
Ms Wilson described on Facebook how her arguments against BDS were mostly about “the growing anti-Semitism” on UK campuses and about “the costs of doing a review of our products when EUSA is already expecting a deficit budget.”
Shape Created with Sketch. The top 10 universities in the UK Show all 10 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. The top 10 universities in the UK 1/10 1. University of Oxford 2/10 2. University of Cambridge 3/10 3. Imperial College London 4/10 4. University College London 5/10 5. London School of Economics and Political Science 6/10 6. University of Edinburgh 7/10 7. King’s College London 8/10 8. University of Manchester 9/10 9. University of Bristol 10/10 10. Durham University 1/10 1. University of Oxford 2/10 2. University of Cambridge 3/10 3. Imperial College London 4/10 4. University College London 5/10 5. London School of Economics and Political Science 6/10 6. University of Edinburgh 7/10 7. King’s College London 8/10 8. University of Manchester 9/10 9. University of Bristol 10/10 10. Durham University
She continued: “My main concern, as a representative, is about the marginalisation of Jewish and Israeli students on campus, which is becoming a massive issue in lots of places around the UK.
One student at the institution, Charlie Peters, took to Twitter following the incident to say his university was “becoming pathetic” for censoring “inappropriate hand gestures.” He is the same student who recently started an online petition calling for EUSA to “reinstate free speech” which has gathered more than 1,100 signatures.
Writing about the incident on Facebook, Ms Wilson described how “a lot of things happened” at the student council meeting. She said: “About 400 people came which, in itself, is a win for campus democracy.
“However, a motion for EUSA to support BDS passed, despite my passionate speech against it. There was also a safe space complaint made about me for using disapproving arm movements.”
She also added: “EUSA just passed policy to support BDS, something I think will be very harmful and, unfortunately, contribute to the growing anti-Semitism problem that left-wing politics is experiencing in the UK.”
Speaking with the Independent, EUSA president, Jonny Ross-Tatam, said: “A student made a complaint about Imogen during a debate. The majority of students in the room duly dismissed the complaint and the meeting carried on as normal.”Before I entered the Jesuits in 1988, I worked for six years at General Electric in their finance department. Before that, I studied at the Wharton School of Business, where I majored in finance, which also meant taking courses in accounting, management, securities, bonds and real estate.Why am I telling you this? Not to brag, but to establish a bit of bona fides when it come to talking about the economy, about business and about work on this Labor Day. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, building on Catholic social teaching, which builds on the Gospels, has called us to work for a more just world, particularly in terms of income inequality.But the average person, who is neither an economist, nor the head of the World Bank, nor president of the United States, might ask themselves: How can I help?Here are few easy steps.Did you know that income inequality in the United States is getting worse, not better? Despite worldwide increases in technology and productivity, the gap has only widened over the last 40 years. Here’s a statistic that might shock you. Three decades ago, CEOs in the United States were paid 42 times as much as the average U.S. worker. Today they earn 354 times as much. The rich are getting much richer, the poor much poorer. Educating yourself with simple facts like these can help raise your consciousness, make you more alert to income inequalities in your workplace, and help you in the voting booth.That sounds pretty obvious. And most of us might say, “Pay me a just wage!” But if you are in any decision-making position in a company, you might ask yourself a version the Golden Rule. Are you paying your employees what you yourself would want to be paid for that job?What does that have to do with income inequality? A lot. You saw that figure about CEO’s earning 354 times as much as the average U.S. worker. From my experience in the corporate world, I can say that this disparity sometimes makes people on top feel that they’re 354 times better, or 354 times more valuable, or 354 times more important, than the average worker. From there, it’s an easy leap to treating the average worker like dirt. The vast majority of people in the corporate world (in the world in general) are good, decent, moral people. But in my few years in the corporate world I saw countless examples of people being treated like trash, with less of the dignity that they deserve as children of God. The person may work for you, but they belong to God.Finally, pray. Pray to understand the plight of the poor, the unemployed, the underemployed, and the overworked. Pray for a reduction in income disparities. Pray for a just world.---Looking for news you can trust?
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Apparently this is the latest Republican thing. They can’t show that Obama has been actually involved in the IRS scandal—or in any of the other squabbles currently roiling Washington DC, for that matter—so now they’ve gotten together and agreed on a new party line: Obama is responsible for all of this stuff anyway because he’s relentlessly stoked a “culture of intimidation” against his adversaries. “The president demonizes his opponents,” Mitch McConnell said with a straight face on Sunday, and this is at the root of all our problems.
Paul Mirengoff correctly suggests that this sounds whiny—”the kind of thing I’d expect from Democrats.” But he agrees with the basic premise that Obama demonizes his opponents, and points us to an NRO piece by Eliana Johnson that provides the proof. I was curious, so I clicked the link. Just what has Obama done to strike fear into Republicans’ hearts?
Well, only three things apparently. First, he dissed Fox News and then tried to exclude them from the network pool. Second, at an explicitly partisan DNC fundraiser following the Citizens United decision, he castigated “groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates all across the country.” AFP, of course, is supported by the Koch brothers. And apparently Obama has also said some uncomplimentary things about Rush Limbaugh. This is the full bill of particulars.
I’ll give them the Fox thing. Trying to keep Fox out of the press pool was bush league nonsense. But really. Kicking back at the rancid bile that spews out of Rush Limbaugh’s mouth on a daily basis? Telling a bunch of rich Democratic donors that they’re up against lots of rich Republican donors, so please open your wallets? This is a culture of intimidation?
Conservatives, of course, have fostered a culture not of intimidation, but of rank hatred so insane you can practically see the spittle flecks every time they talk about Obama. And yet, when Obama returns fire, even with his trademark restraint, it’s time to bring out the smelling salts. It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.Christina Voelzing, the 24-year-old woman shot on Easter Sunday died overnight and Ottawa police are investigating the city’s sixth homicide of the year.
“The … shooting victim succumbed to her injuries overnight,” Ottawa police said in a release. “The Major Crime Section is now investigating the homicide of Christina Voelzing.”
The woman lost vital signs on Easter Sunday after being shot in the neck and had been on life support.
Homicide detectives said Tuesday that the shooting that sent Christina Voelzing to the hospital with critical injuries around 5 a.m. Sunday was not random, but that she might not have been the target. Other people were inside unit D of 11 Sonnet Cres., a four-unit building near Old Richmond Road and Moodie Drive, when Voelzing was shot. Police are probing whether any of those people were the intended targets of the shooting.
Voelzing was found unconscious inside the home after neighbours heard several gunshots and a loud bang hours before the gunfire. She had no vital signs once at hospital. Voelzing was revived and taken into surgery. She was on life support at her family’s request but was not expected to recover from her injuries.
In a statement to Postmedia, the coordinator of Voelzing’s graduate victimology program at Algonquin College said Christina “is kind, compassionate and loves caring for others.”
Benjamin Roebuck said Voelzing “is full of life, has an amazing sense of humour and inspiring resilience.”
“She is loved by many people,” he said.
Voelzing was set to graduate from the program in mere weeks and hoped to use her education to work with youth offenders and victims of crime.
Her mother, Sherryl Fraser, is the chair of general arts and sciences at the college.
Related
According to her own social media profiles, Voelzing also studied hospitality at Algonquin in 2012, and most recently worked as a server at Fitz Classic Grill.
Co-workers at the Bells Corners restaurant expressed their shock and disbelief when contacted Monday.
In 2010, as a then-18-year-old interested in Canadian politics, Voelzing wrote a letter to the Citizen shaming former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff for suggesting former prime minister Stephen Harper would attempt to restrict women’s access to safe abortions.
“It seems to me that Ignatieff is simply using this issue as a political football to gain points and to trap Harper into bringing this divisive issue back into the political discussion,” the teen wrote. She applauded Harper for “not taking the bait.”
Voelzing’s was the 17th shooting in a year that has seen 18 reported incidents of gunfire in city limits. In 2015, police investigated the same number of shootings by mid-year.
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twitter.com/shaaminiwhyThere are legitimate reasons to criticize the GOP tax plan. Here, on the other hand, is a very illegitimate reason I've heard countless times from liberal Christians: The Bible wants us to pay higher taxes in order to help the poor. By receiving a tax cut, we are taking money away from the poor. Especially by cutting entitlements, which is supposed to be the next step for Republicans in Congress, we are shirking our Christian responsibility to care for the least of these. This is the "Christian" argument for Socialism, and Christian socialists have been making it for decades.
It hasn't gotten any better with age.
As I see it, there are two very serious problems with the idea that we fulfill our Biblical duties by paying high taxes in order to fund a vast and wasteful Welfare State:
1) The people most likely to make this kind of argument in favor of high taxes are also the most likely to reject this kind of argument in favor of any other law. But if we are required to shape our tax policy according to Our Lord's divine edicts (sounds good to me), then it follows that we must shape other public policies by the same standard.
So, goodbye abortion. For the Ten Commandments clearly forbid the taking of innocent life. Jeremiah 1:5 explicitly affirms the humanity of the unborn, as God declares, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart." And the Incarnation makes the issue as plain as can be. Our Lord became a "fetus" Himself. He was conceived in His mother's womb and He developed through every stage just as every other child in history. Liberal Christians claim that Jesus never said anything about the unborn. Nonsense. He didn't need to say anything about them. He became them. He elevated and sanctified human life at every stage by taking its form. End of discussion.
Also, goodbye gay marriage. For Genesis tells us that God made woman to be man's partner. Christ, in Matthew 19, affirms this arrangement and explicitly defines marriage as between a man and a woman: "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh.'"
The list goes on.
Think of this like a court of law. If you say that a certain piece of evidence — in this case, the Bible — is inadmissible, then you cannot use it to argue your own case. The moment you pull it out, you have admitted it back into the discussion. Now you must argue for the legalization of baby murder and homosexual "marriage" on Biblical grounds, which, of course, is impossible. What you cannot do — what I won't allow you to do — is fling the Bible around when it suits you, and then start shouting about "theocracies" when it no longer does.
2) The only thing Jesus says about taxes is that we should pay them ("give to Caesar what is Caesar's"). He never voices an opinion about how high or low they ought to be. He does command us to give to the poor, but let's take a look at how he phrases these commands:
“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” — Matthew 25:40
"Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you." — Matthew 5:42
“Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” — Luke 12:33
“Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” — Luke 21:1
"He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” — Luke 14:12
"And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” — Luke 3:11
Christ obviously had quite a lot to say on this subject. But, as you skim through the above verses, notice what words do not appear: "government," "State," "policy," "law," "tax." He is not merely telling us to submit passively to some third-party administrator who will see to it that all of the tunics are evenly distributed, and all of the banquets diversely attended, and that a certain mandated portion is given to the beggars and the borrowers and the needy. Christ never established or suggests or endorses any State-sponsored system by which these things will be achieved. He makes it much simpler for us. He puts the onus not on politicians or bureaucrats but on someone else entirely: you.
Christ wants you to take your own money and give it to the needy in your community. No matter the tax rate, this obligation is not fulfilled — it does not even begin to be fulfilled — by paying your taxes. It especially is not fulfilled by sitting to the side while your neighbor pays his taxes and shoulders more of the "charity" burden than you.
I can't help but note that, so often, the Christians who advocate higher taxes and higher welfare spending are also the Christians who will not be affected by it. They want "the rich" to help the poor, and they imagine that their personal responsibility to give to the poor has been alleviated this way. It hasn't. Regardless of taxes, if you're keeping nearly 100% of your income for yourself while your neighbor goes without, you are disobeying Jesus Christ and rejecting your duty as a Christian. It doesn't matter what Bill Gates is doing. Don't worry about him. His money is none of your concern. You have your own money, don't you? You live comfortably, in relative luxury, while the homeless freeze to death on the streets. Stop blaming "the rich" for this problem and go out and do something about it, you hypocrites.
Now, why does Jesus advocate personal charity rather than government charity? Why does he put the onus on us as individuals instead of the State? I think the reason is this: love. The goal is not to eradicate poverty, like poverty is some kind of disease. The goal is simply to love each other. This is why Christ especially commends the old woman at the temple who gave comparatively little. It was, for her, an act of great love. And that is what Christ wants from us. He wants us to love each other.
There is no love in the Welfare System. There is no love in taxation. It is bureaucratic, impersonal, disinterested, dehumanizing. A man is not experiencing the fruits of love when he cashes a monthly check sent to him by some government office. Rather, he is being treated like a number, a statistic, a problem that must be solved. This does not appear to be what Jesus had in mind.
Indeed, we are doing the opposite of what Christ commanded when we neglect the poor in our own communities, trusting that the government will keep them adequately fed.The food is not the point. Not the whole point, anyway. The whole point is to love our fellow man. Paying your taxes, as you are compelled to do, is not love. Cheering the Entitlement System, funded mostly with other people's money, is not love.
To love is to go on your own, personally, and give. Give what you have. Give of yourself. Give your own money. That's what Jesus wants.Monday in Hanahan, SC, while discussing his opponent Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) claiming he is against the Second Amendment and pro-choice, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump threatened to sue over Cruz’s eligibility to run for president if he did not cease with the “lies” on that topic.
Trump said, “Well, he’s printed lies. He’s said I’m pro choice and I’m pro life. look, what he did with Ben Carson was terrible. I’ve never seen anything like that. It was a total lie. And by the way, 10 minutes after the election was over, the caucus, he went and said, ‘oh, I’m sorry.’ He called Ben. And Ben didn’t accept that apology, the way I look at it. Didn’t accept the apology. So I don’t want to be in a position where it’s Saturday evening and I get a phone call from him, you know, ‘I’m really sorry about that. My staff did something.’ He did three or four things. For instance, he talks about me being against the Second Amendment. I am the strongest person running in favor of the Second Amendment. I’m a member of the NRA, my sons have been long-term members of the NRA and their extraordinary shots. The whole thing is incredible.”
He continued, “What he does is he’ll walk up and say something. He said, I will appoint liberal judges. Donald Trump is going to appoint liberal judges. I named two judges that are — and I named them during the debate. I was the only one that named two judges that I would appoint. now, it could be somebody else, but those two judges are highly respected, conservative judges. They would be great judges to appoint. But he just gets up and says, if Donald Trump gets in, he’s going to appoint liberal judges. Just the opposite. But the only way I can fight it is all the press here. Most people can’t fight it but he’s a liar. Henry, who is lieutenant governor, said I can’t believe the things he’s saying because he understands the views on everything, and he just comes out and boom, boom, boom. Absolute lies. He’ll apologize but I don’t want an apology after the election, I want an apology before. If he doesn’t, I’m going to bring a lawsuit because in my opinion based on what I’ve learned over the last two or three days from top lawyers, he doesn’t even have the right to serve as president or even run as president. He was born in Canada. So I will bring that lawsuit if he doesn’t apologize.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNENVasquez out, Crash Hethcox in at Ritual Third chef in 4 months announced at Heights hotspot
A burger at Ritual in the Heights A burger at Ritual in the Heights Photo: Yelp/Irene C. Photo: Yelp/Irene C. Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Vasquez out, Crash Hethcox in at Ritual 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
Ritual, the new meat-centric restaurant at the high-profile corner of Studewood and White Oak, has hired its third executive chef since opening in June. Crash Hethcox will take the reins as interim executive chef and Culinary Director for all of restaurateur Ken Bridge's Delicious Concepts brands, including Pink's Pizza,Republic Diner, Lola and Shepherd Park.
Albert Vasquez, who took over from opening chef Jordan Asher in August, stepped down last week, according to Delicious Concepts' Ken Sheppard. Ritual has already seen the departure of award-winning brewmaster Eric Ogershok of Hill-Country-based Real Ale, who was supposed to help open a brewpub in the Ritual space. After superintending the beer menu for Ritual, Ogershok moved on last month, citing conflicting visions for the brewpub he was working to open in another space.
That's a dizzying degree of change for such a young restaurant.
Hethcox brings both chef and pitmaster chops to Ritual, his first assignment in his new Culinary Director post. He has worked his way across the Southeast, starting under the tutelage of James Beard winner John Currence in Oxford, Mississippi — where he studied international business at Ole Miss — and going on to kitchen stints in Charleston, New Orleans and Memphis.
In Houston, he has worked for the F.E.E.D restaurant group — which for a too-brief period operated El Cantina Superior for Delicious Concepts in what later became the Ritual space.
Hethcox has worked the BBQ cookoff circuit, and among other media appearances, was named "Late Night King of Memphis" by Last Call Food Brawl, a late-night eats show on the Food Network.
His brief stay at Delicious Concepts will include updating existing menus, developing future menus and jumping into the mix right away at Ritual. I've only eaten there once, so far, but I came away impressed by the formidable house burger — which includes smoked short rib and a bone marrow glaze —plus the array of 40 taps. So here's hoping Hethcox will steady the ship.Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common brand of two German family owned discount supermarket chains with over 10,000 stores in 20 countries, and an estimated combined turnover of more than €50 billion.[1][3][4] Based in Germany, the chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946 when they took over their mother's store in Essen, which had been in operation since 1913. The business was split into two separate groups in 1960, that later became Aldi Nord, headquartered in Essen, and Aldi Süd, headquartered in Mülheim.[5][6] In 1962, they introduced the name Aldi (a syllabic abbreviation for Albrecht Diskont),[7] which is pronounced [ˈaldiː] (). In Germany, Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd have been financially and legally separate since 1966, although both divisions' names may appear as if they were a single enterprise with certain store brands or when negotiating with contractor companies. The formal business name is Aldi Einkauf GmbH & Compagnie, oHG.
Aldi's German operations consist of Aldi Nord's 35 individual regional companies with about 2,500 stores in western, northern, and eastern Germany, and Aldi Süd's 32 regional companies with 1,600 stores in western and southern Germany.[8] Internationally, Aldi Nord operates in Denmark, France, the Benelux countries, Portugal, Spain and Poland, while Aldi Süd operates in Ireland, Great Britain, Hungary, Switzerland, Australia, China, Italy, Austria and Slovenia. Both Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd also operate in the United States with 1,600 stores as of 2017.[9]
History [ edit ]
Albrecht grocery store in Essen-Schonnebeck (1958)
Aldi's original store in Essen, still in operation
The earliest roots of the company trace back to 1913, when the mother of Karl and Theo Albrecht opened a small store in a suburb of Essen.[9] Their father was employed as a miner and later as a baker's assistant. Karl Albrecht was born in 1920, Theo Albrecht in 1922. Theo Albrecht completed an apprenticeship in his mother's store, while Karl Albrecht worked in a delicatessen.
Karl Albrecht took over a food shop formerly run by F. W. Judt who already advertised that they were the "cheapest food source". Karl Albrecht served in the German Army during World War II. In 1946, the brothers took over their mother's business and soon opened another retail outlet nearby.[9] By 1950, the Albrecht brothers owned 13 stores in the Ruhr Valley.[10]
The brothers' idea, which was new at the time, was to subtract the legal maximum rebate of 3% before sale. The market leaders at the time, which often were co-operatives, required their customers to collect rebate stamps, and to send them at regular intervals to reclaim their money. The Albrecht brothers also rigorously removed merchandise that did not sell from their shelves, cutting costs by neither advertising nor selling fresh produce, and keeping the size of their retail outlets small.[9]
When the brothers split the company in 1960 over a dispute whether they should sell cigarettes,[11] they owned 300 shops with a cash flow of DM90 million yearly. In 1962, they introduced the name Aldi—short for Albrecht-Diskont. Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd have been financially and legally separate since 1966, although both divisions' names may appear as if they were a single enterprise with certain store brands or when negotiating with contractor companies.
The individual groups were originally owned and managed jointly by the brothers. Karl Albrecht, who died in 2014, retained ownership of Aldi Süd with a personal wealth of €17.2 billion that made him the richest man in Germany. The co-owners of Aldi Nord, Berthold and Theo Albrecht Jr. came close behind at €16 billion. Dieter Schwarz, owner of Lidl and Kaufland came in third, with a fortune of €11.5 billion.[12]
Aldi started to expand internationally in 1967, when Aldi Süd acquired the grocery chain Hofer in Austria;[13] Aldi Nord opened its first stores abroad in the Netherlands in 1973,[14] and other countries followed. In 1976, Aldi opened its first store in the United States in Iowa,[a] and, in 1979, Aldi Nord acquired Trader Joe's.[9] After German reunification and the fall of the Iron Curtain, Aldi experienced a rapid expansion. The brothers retired as CEOs in 1993; control of the companies was placed in the hands of private family foundations, the Siepmann Foundation (Aldi Süd) and the Markus Foundation (Aldi Nord, Trader Joe's).[4]
Business organization [ edit ]
Germany [ edit ]
Aldi in Germany
The Aldi Nord group currently consists of 35 independent regional branches with approximately 2,500 stores. Aldi Süd is made up of 31 companies with 1,600 stores. The border between their territories is commonly known as �
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process, the lack of freedom of expression and association, and the arbitrary manner by which the government acted, which continues to be a hallmark of Equatorial Guinea in 2009. There are no independent human rights organizations in the country. In fact, there is very little civil society in Equatorial Guinea at all. There are signs that the country is opening up somewhat under pressure to meet Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative criteria from the World Bank, the US and EU governments, and companies. However, these are very nascent efforts, and it is far from clear that the government will allow independent civil society to function in regard to EITI or in general. A United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-led initiative, the Technical Support Project for Social Investment and Capacity Building in Equatorial Guinea (TSPSICB), is tasked to engage in nongovernmental organization capacity building. In its design and implementation plan TSPSICB highlighted that “existing capacity of civil society is extremely underdeveloped and requires a significant amount of investment and support to enable them to reach a level to be effective actors for Equatorial Guinea.” The following chapters detail endemic governmental corruption and financial mismanagement, and how these have contributed to widespread poverty and deprivation, in some cases violating human rights under the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The government’s dereliction in allocating funds for crucial social services such as primary health care and primary education, in large part because of corruption and maladministration, is in breach of its obligations under articles 12 and 13 of the ICESCR. The government of Equatorial Guinea has also violated its treaty obligations to report on its compliance with the ICESCR: compliance reports under the ICESCR were due in 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005; to date, Equatorial Guinea has yet to submit even one. The lack of transparency and accountability in oil revenue management impedes Equatoguineans’ right to access information, in violation of article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The government of Equatorial Guinea has also failed to meet its treaty obligations to report on its compliance with the ICCPR. An initial compliance report was due in 1988; absent this report, the Human Rights Committee issued provisional concluding observations on the situation of civil and political rights in Equatorial Guinea in November 2003, calling on the government of Equatorial Guinea to submit its initial report by August 1, 2004. To date, this report has not been submitted. The Onset of Oil Equatorial Guinea is emerging as one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. After the discovery of massive oil reserves in the 1990s, it has become the fourth-largest producer of oil in sub-Saharan Africa, after Angola, Nigeria, and Sudan. Oil revenue climbed in value from US$3 million in 1993 to $190 million in 2000 to $4.8 billion in 2007. Recent discoveries of oil were expected to increase production of hydrocarbons to about 465,000 barrels per day (b/d) in 2008. However, unless there are further significant discoveries oil production will start to decline in 2009. From 2003 to 2008 Equatorial Guinea’s real annual gross domestic product grew on average by 14.9 percent per year. The International Monetary Fund estimated that the oil sector accounted for nearly 74 percent of the country’s GDP and that oil revenues comprised approximately 82 percent of government revenue in 2007. By 2008, the country’s GDP was estimated at $18.5 billion—an increase of 5,272 percent between 1992 and 2008—almost completely from oil revenue. US oil companies, such as ExxonMobil, Hess, Marathon, Chevron Corporation and Vanco Energy Corporation, are the principal investors in the country. The country has become one of the main destinations of US investment on the continent (over $12 billion to date), the fourth-highest in sub-Saharan Africa (after South Africa, Angola, and Nigeria). Companies in the oil business have been anxious to improve the image of the country and so underplay how politically unstable the country has become. They avoid political discussion or meeting the opposition directly. According to opposition leader Plácido Micó, oil has had a “negative impact” on the democratic process and has managed “to strengthen the dictatorship” in the country. He argued that oil wealth has also made Equatorial Guinea more resilient to international pressure to improve its human rights record.
III. The Equatoguinean Economy: Corrupt, Mismanaged, and Non-Transparent Corruption Defining the Oil Boom Government corruption and nepotism, along with the lack of a civil society or human rights advocates, have defined the conditions under which businesses operate and the population lives and works in Equatorial Guinea. Since the discovery of oil in the mid-1990s, internationally there have been numerous allegations of corruption against the government, particularly against President Obiang and his family. Most recently, in late 2008 a human rights group in Spain accused President Obiang and other current and former Equatoguinean government officials of siphoning US$26 million from an Equatorial Guinean state-owned oil company and using it to buy houses in Madrid, Asturias, and the Canary Islands. Other questionable practices include ownership by government officials of land that is rented or sold to foreign companies or governments; contracting with companies in which government officials have significant ownership stakes; scholarships or other services paid to relatives of government officials by foreign investors; and transactions by government officials involving tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals or the purchase of luxury items such as mansions or exotic cars. Corruption and mismanagement do not go unremarked upon inside the country, but their pursuit appears highly selective. Two months after being installed as prime minister, Ricardo Mangue Obama Nfubea stated on October 20, 2006, “My Government will not permit any shred of corruption and we will fight for transparency.” Nfubea introduced a telephone hotline, ostensibly for oil companies to report corrupt practices, but although five government officials were sentenced in November 2006 to prison sentences ranging from 6 to 12 months for embezzling $380,000 of public funds, Nfubea’s initiatives had little discernible impact on government corruption. Moreover, in accepting the Nfubea government’s resignation on July 5, 2008, Obiang reportedly called it “one of the worst ever formed,” accusing it of corruption, irregularities, and mismanagement. As noted above, however, half of the old cabinet was reinstated in the government installed a month later. Nepotism Equatorial Guinea does not keep updated statistics on employment but has an estimated unemployment rate of about 30 percent. Contracts of employment in Equatorial Guinea are generally done verbally and are not expressed in a document. Only in the oil industry are they formalized in writing, but because this is done through subcontracting, contracts of employment are made between workers and intermediary contracting agencies. According to a report published by Fundación Paz y Solidaridad Serafín Aliaga and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in 2006, these agencies, or “business centers,” include: AMILOCASER (owned by Armengol Ondo Nguema, the president’s brother, army general, and national delegate for security), NOMEX (owned by Gabriel Mbega Obiang Lima, the president’s son and mining and energy secretary of state), MSS (owned by Antonio Mba Nguema, the president’s brother, army general, and minister of defense), ATSIGE (owned by Manuel Nguema Mba, the president’s uncle, army general, and minister of security), APEGESA (owned by Juan Oló Mba Nseng, the president’s father-in-law, former minister of mining and hydrocarbons, and Atanasio Elá Ntugu Nsa, currently minister of mining and energy) and BOMDEN (owned by Julian Ondo Nkumu, army colonel and director general of presidential security). USAID noted in a January 2007 report that in Equatorial Guinea’s economy “small contracting agencies are frequently owned by persons with close ties to [the government] and therefore unreliable in their capacity to provide quality personnel rather than political favourites.” Equatorial Guinea Indications of Corruption The bulk of information on governmental corruption has emerged from official investigations by the US Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a body that has considerable investigative power (including subpoena power), of the US-based Riggs Bank, as well as from civil lawsuits filed against government officials for failure to pay for luxury goods or services rendered. The following is a sample of such instances. The Riggs Bank scandal In May 2002 Human Rights Watch learned that hundreds of millions of dollars of oil revenue were deposited in at least one account held by the government of Equatorial Guinea at Riggs Bank in Washington, DC. In January 2003 the Los Angeles Times provided further details of the Equatorial Guinean government’s use of funds deposited at Riggs, including allegations of corruption. Following that exposé, the US investigative television news program 60 Minutes aired a story on the misuse of oil revenue in Equatorial Guinea and the connection to Riggs Bank. Those disclosures prompted the Democratic minority staff of the US Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to undertake in 2004 an investigation into the role of Riggs Bank in hosting the Equatorial Guinean government’s funds. According to Riggs Bank, the accounts in question operated from 1995 until 2004 and totalled as much as $700 million. Offshore accounts are common among oil producers in order to receive payments in dollars, but, importantly, President Obiang and his close relatives maintained signatory authority over many of the Riggs accounts and had complete discretion over the use of those funds. In 2003 Obiang told a British journalist, “I am the one who arranges things in this country because in Africa there are lots of problems of corruption. If there is corruption, diversion of funds, then I’m responsible. I’m 100 percent sure of all the oil revenue because the one who signs is me.” Since the late 1990s the International Monetary Fund has consistently advocated to the Equatorial Guinean government that all such accounts be merged into one treasury account with the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), the regional bank for central Africa. This has never happened. In his book My Life For My People,Obiang explained why he ignored IMF advice: I can understand economic and financial conditions but reasonable deadlines must be established and the local situation must be taken into account. There were additionally, purely political conditions that had to do with the alleged human rights violations and the so called lack of transparency in our political life. At the time I clearly said what I think about this. There was also an additional demand: we had to designate an auditor for payments and budget, a responsibility that I have always performed myself because it is so important for the development of the country. The IMF wanted me to entrust the responsibility to others, which I refused. If the Equatorial Guinea people had entrusted me with this responsibility, it was not up to the IMF staff to say the opposite. Despite Obiang’s claims that his decision to ignore the IMF was based on his concern for the welfare of the country, it is clear that some of those funds were actually used for his own personal gain. In its January 2003 article the Los Angeles Times reported that Riggs helped Obiang finance two mansions, then worth approximately $1.2 million and $2.6 million, in an affluent Maryland suburb of Washington, DC. Property records show that those houses were purchased under the president’s name, with a Riggs Bank branch listed as his mailing address. Such transactions highlight the opaque nature of the budgetary process in Equatorial Guinea and the potential for the diversion of state revenue into personal hands. The Senate investigation report, released publicly on July 15, 2004, clearly detailed the extent of the misuse of public funds by individuals in the Equatoguinean government. The amounts of money deposited at Riggs were so large that by 2003 the government of Equatorial Guinea was the largest client of the bank. One account, set up in January 1996, was in the name of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea General Treasury. It received funds mostly from oil companies, primarily ExxonMobil. This account needed two signatures, one from President Obiang and the other either from his son Gabriel Obiang Lima, then deputy mines and hydrocarbons minister, or his nephew Melchor Esono Edjo, secretary of state for the treasury. Any one of those same signatories could withdraw funds from another account, which held balances of up to $500 million at a time. Riggs subsequently allowed wire transfers to two companies that were unknown to the bank and had accounts in jurisdictions with bank secrecy laws. The subcommittee concluded that at least one of these recipient companies is controlled in whole or in part by the president of Equatorial Guinea. In 2004, when Riggs asked the president about these accounts, he declined to provide further information except to confirm the transfers of funds to them had been authorized. In addition to the accounts already discussed, five more accounts and three certificates of deposit at Riggs were held in the name of Constancia Mangue Nsue Okomo, Obiang’s senior wife. ExxonMobil made several payments into these accounts. Additional accounts were also opened in the names of other friends and relatives of Obiang. In 2000 Riggs helped to create a Bahamas-registered shell company, Otong SA, for the president using the confidential address of “The Presidential Palace, Malabo.” On two occasions Riggs accepted without due diligence $3 million in cash deposits for this account. According to the Senate investigation report, from 2000 to 2002 Riggs accepted a total of $13 million in cash—often packaged in “unopened plastic-wrapped bundles” and carried in suitcases by the Riggs account manager for Equatorial Guinea—“with few questions asked.” Government officials in Equatorial Guinea are required to declare their personal assets before a National Commission for Ethics. However, efforts by Human Rights Watch in 2003 and 2004 to gain access to this register failed. Human Rights Watch was told that this information was “confidential and only for the president to see.” Riggs was clearly aware of the corruption in the Equatorial Guinean government, as well as the human rights concerns in the country. In an internal document produced by the bank for a 2002 loan to Equatorial Guinea, the following observations show how the bank saw the country: The World Bank and IMF are under pressure to engage with Equatorial Guinea.... Although the government recently announced a program to improve transparency and accountability, any changes are unlikely to meet IMF criteria. With the establishment of a state oil company, GE Petrol, later in 2001, management of the oil sector may even become more opaque, and standards of governance are likely to remain poor.... The government cash-flow situation improved considerably during 1999-2000 reflecting growing oil revenue, but fiscal policy performance continued to weaken, as evidenced by the lack of control over government financial operations.... The [EG] President has at least partly overcome US State Department concerns about human rights abuse and corruption.... Allegations of human rights abuses followed the announcement of the coup in March have been well documented, and have elicited international condemnation. However, any hesitancy on part of the US or European countries towards Equatorial Guinea will be temporary, due to the rising importance of the oil sector.... Human rights have been an endemic problem in Equatorial Guinea. The Human Rights Commission voted to keep Equatorial Guinea under scrutiny; however, it is believed that the government’s increasing capacity to buy diplomatic influence has caused several African countries to insist on softening the criticism. In January 2005 Riggs Bank pleaded guilty to violating the US Bank Secrecy Act by hiding millions of dollars controlled by senior officials from Equatorial Guinea (as well as funds controlled by Chilean former president Augusto Pinochet). In addition to agreeing to pay a $16 million fine, the bank agreed to five years’ probation and to cooperate in ongoing investigations of former Riggs officers. The fine is the largest ever assessed under the Bank Secrecy Act. This criminal penalty came on top of an earlier $25 million civil fine levied by the Office of the Comptroller for the Currency in May 2004 for Riggs Bank’s handling of accounts held by diplomats and officials of Equatorial Guinea and Saudi Arabia. The US Federal Reserve also issued a cease and desist order requiring Riggs National Corporation, the parent company of Riggs Bank, to improve its oversight of the bank, internal controls, and risk management.[77] On April 27, 2005, the Federal Reserve approved the acquisition of Riggs National Corporation by PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., for some $643 million. The bank’s embassy and international banking operations were shut down. On June 3, 2005, federal prosecutors indicted Simon Kareri, a former Riggs Bank vice president, and his wife on charges of bank fraud, money laundering, wire fraud, and conspiracy, among others, in connection with his alleged embezzlement of funds from Equatoguinean accounts. Kareri was the manager of the African and Caribbean division of Riggs Bank’s international and embassy banking department until he was fired in January 2004; he had been responsible for the Equatorial Guinea accounts. According to the government of Equatorial Guinea, “The transfer of one million US dollars from the Equatorial Guinea account to Mr. Kareri’s account is explained as payment to the construction company which built the industrial agricultural conservation plant in the Equatorial Guinean city of Bata.” In November 2006 Simon Kareri pleaded guilty on fourteen counts, including five counts of bank fraud and six counts of money laundering. He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment on each count. His wife pleaded guilty on seven counts, including three counts of money laundering; she was sentenced to twenty-one months of supervised release. They jointly paid $631,000 in restitution. Companies owned by government officials and the role of multinational oil companies The US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report detailed how the pervasive role of companies controlled by members of the ruling family or their close associates in the country’s economy is another manifestation of suspect practices by government officials, their family members, or close associates. Regarding the Riggs Bank scandal the report concluded, among other things, that “[o]il companies operating in Equatorial Guinea may have contributed to corrupt practices by making substantial payments to, or entering into business ventures with, individual Equatorial Guinea officials, their family members, or entities they control, with minimal public disclosure of their actions.” The subcommittee’s investigation showed that Chevron; CMS Energy Corporation, whose Equatorial Guinea interests were purchased by Marathon in 2002; Devon Energy Corporation, which sold its assets to GEPetrol in 2008; ExxonMobil; Triton Energy Corporation, which was acquired in 2001 by Amerada Hess Corporation (now Hess Corporation); and Vanco all were engaged in such activities. The records examined by the subcommittee showed that most of the payments made by these oil companies went to Equatorial Guinean government accounts, including those at Riggs Bank. They also showed that Marathon made a number of payments to Equatorial Guinea’s accounts other than the oil account, while Hess made some 33 different transfers to Equatorial Guinean government vendors. According to the report, “[s]ome oil companies have also entered into business ventures with Equatorial Guinean officials, members of their families, or ventures they control.” Due to the pervasive role of the government and individuals with ties to government officials and their family members in the country’s economy, oil companies doing business in Equatorial Guinea often end up entering into a variety of business agreements and relationships which result in their contributing substantially to the Equatorial Guinean government’s funds. These relationships include various joint ventures, the lease or purchase of land, the purchase of security services, and contributions to scholarships for Equatorial Guinean nationals, usually awarded to relatives of government officials. Lease and purchase of land Between March 19, 1996, and June 22, 2001, ExxonMobil’s Equatorial Guinea subsidiary, Mobil Equatorial Guinea, Inc. (MEGI), leased the buildings and land that comprise the “Abayak Compound” directly from President Obiang’s wife. After June 22, 2001, MEGI continued to lease the property through Abayak S.A., a company owned by President Obiang and actively managed and administered by his wife. This relationship continues. Marathon paid the president over $2 million for the purchase of two plots of land at Punta Europa, a peninsula on the northwest corner of Bioko Island that is the closest point to the offshore Alba field. The purchases—one valuing $1.4 million—were negotiated through Abayak S.A., which was acting as the agent of President Obiang. In a letter to Human Rights Watch on April 28, 2009, Marathon stated that when it acquired CMS Energy’s stake in the Alba field in 2002, Marathon made significant investments that required the construction of additional plants and therefore the acquisition of additional land. From every logistical, engineering, operational, economic and other reasonable perspectives, Marathon and its partners had no alternative than to build new plants adjacent to the existing facilities [on Punta Europa]. President Obiang had the title of the record to the Punta Europa land, having acquired it in 1984, long before any land was acquired for oil and gas operations.... Marathon negotiated a price of approximately $2,900 an acre which was within a price [sic] within the market price indicated by its analysis. The acquisition was then completed through an expropriation process which included the opportunity for public comment, including the public identification of the seller and purchaser of the property. Since the release of the Senate report in 2004, Marathon and its partners have not purchased any additional land in Equatorial Guinea. According to the Senate investigation report, “Amerada Hess... paid Equatorial Guinea officials and their relatives nearly $1 million for building leases.” In 2000 Triton was involved in negotiating and leasing one such property from a 14-year-old boy, a relative of President Obiang. Triton and subsequently Amerada Hess paid the boy and his mother (his representative) $445,800 under the lease. In a letter dated May 5, 2009, from Hess to Human Rights Watch, Hess stated that they no longer retain this lease. However, Hess disclosed that it still maintains one lease inherited from Triton with a person who has since been appointed minister of foreign affairs; according to Hess, “This lease is believed to be at a fair market rate and is not material to our activities.” Security services ExxonMobil and Amerada Hess told the subcommittee that they purchase their security services through Sociedad Nacional de Vigilancia (Sonavi), a company owned by the president’s brother, Armengol Ondo Nguema, as Sonavi has a monopoly on security services in Equatorial Guinea. Four other oil companies told the subcommittee that they were able to shop around for their security services. Hess paid approximately $300,500 to Sonavi between January 2000 and May 2004. Since moving its operations to Bata in 2004, Hess has had no further business relationship with Sonavi. As far as Human Rights Watch is aware, ExxonMobil continues its relationship with Sonavi, arguing that this relationship is “at arm’s length and that payments had been consistent with market rates.” From August 1997 to October 2000 an ExxonMobil subsidiary paid Sonavi $683,900 for security services; between 2000 and 2003, another ExxonMobil entity paid Sonavi $26,400 for security. Scholarships According to the subcommittee investigation, six oil companies made significant payments—in excess of $4 million—for the expenses incurred by more than 100 Equatoguinean students seeking education outside the country. In some cases, payments to an Equatorial Guinean government account for training of Equatoguinean citizens were required by clauses within the production sharing contracts (PSCs) the companies signed. According to the investigation’s report, “Many and perhaps all of these students were the children or relatives of EG officials, but the evidence is unclear regarding the extent to which each of the oil companies was aware of the students’ family status.” In letters to all six oil companies mentioned in the Senate report, Human Rights Watch inquired about the current nature of the payments made to support Equatoguinean student training. Of the five companies that have responded at this writing, no company specified funding students who were relatives of Equatoguinean government officials. Between 2001 and 2004 Chevron provided $150,000 each year for student training expenses. According to a letter dated June 3, 2009, from Chevron to Human Rights Watch, information contained in PSCs regarding payments for expenses incurred by Equatoguinean students seeking training or education is “confidential.”
ExxonMobil did not provide the subcommittee with information on any scholarship payments made but Riggs documents stated that along with Marathon it funded between 28 and 35 Equatoguinean students in 2003.
Vanco made two payments of $158,000 between 2000 and 2001, and two payments exceeding $190,000 between 2002 and 2003, for student training.
From mid-2003 through mid-2008, the period Devon Energy operated in Equatorial Guinea, Devon supported the educational training of Equatoguinean students in three ways: To fulfil a clause in Devon’s PSC with the Equatorial Guinean government, Devon made lump-sum payments of $200,000 per year toward Equatoguinean educational training. These payments, which were made directly to the Ministry of Mines and Energy, began in 2003 with a pro-rated payment of $150,000 and ended in 2007. Between 2004 and 2007, Devon donated $125,000 per year to GEGEO, a program administered by the University of South Carolina that provides support to students at the University of Equatorial Guinea. According to Devon, “In 2008, Devon was required, under the EG Hydrocarbon Law and an agreement between the government of EG and its PSC operators (including Devon), to pay approximately $350,000 to support a training program administered by... an affiliate of Marathon Oil Corporation.”
Hess between 2001 and 2003 made payments totalling $1.9 million for Equatoguinean students studying in the US and Canada.In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Hess wrote that they currently provide “significant financial support for a comprehensive education program in EG, managed by the Academy for Educational Development. This is a multi-year, $40 million dollar program which has established 40 model schools, trained over 1,100 teachers, and established new course work curricula throughout the country.”Hess also selects and sponsors four Equatoguinean students to study in the United States. According to Hess, “Funding for these programs is given voluntarily by Hess as part of our social responsibility program and is outside of the contractual obligations in our PSCs.”
According to the Senate report, “Marathon is obligated under its PSCs to pay almost $300,000 per year for Equatorial Guinean student training.” In 2002 Marathon paid $150,000 to the Equatorial Guinea student account at Riggs, and it expected to make $590,000 in similar payments for its 2003 and 2004 obligations.In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Marathon stated that it “has made large investments in the training of Equatoguineans; some in conjunction with the government, but mostly on our own.” Such investments include vocational training programs and support for Equatoguinean employees to study at universities in the United States, as well as participating in the development of a National Institute of Technology for the Hydrocarbons sector. Joint business ventures The subcommittee investigation also found a few instances where oil companies entered into business ventures with companies controlled by senior Equatorial Guinean officials or their families. Although the Senate report asserted that Marathon had entered into two joint ventures with Guinea Equatorial Oil and Gas Marketing, Ltd. (GEOGAM), a state-owned company established in 1996 that is 25 percent owned by the Equatorial Guinea government and 75 percent owned by Abayak S.A., the company owned by President Obiang, Marathon stated in a letter to Human Rights Watch that it never had a business relationship with GEOGAM. According to Marathon, upon learning GEOGAM was a partner in two joint ventures Marathon inherited from CMS Energy and receiving documentation that GEOGAM was in fact partially owned by Abayak, Marathon insisted that GEOGAM’s interests in the two projects be transferred to a “wholly-owned government entity.”
Further, Marathon told the subcommittee that it obtained workers through APEGESA, an Equatoguinean company that was partially owned at the time by Juan Olo, a prominent Equatoguinean figure closely connected to the president. According to the report, “Marathon reimburses APEGESA for the compensation paid to the workers and also pays a fee of approximately 20 percent of the salaries of the workers. Since 2002 Marathon has paid APEGESA about $7.5 million.” In a letter from Marathon to Human Rights Watch, Marathon stated that Juan Olo had “transferred his interest in APEGESA in 2005.... [and that] our contract with APEGESA, which we inherited from CMS, is clearly a market-based, arms-length arrangement.”
Mobile Oil Guinea Ecuatorial (MOGE) is an oil distribution business venture between Abayak S.A. and ExxonMobil’s subsidiary Mobil International Petroleum Corporation. The US Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also embarked upon an investigation to assess whether US companies operating in Equatorial Guinea had broken the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977. Under the act, US companies can do business with foreign government officials but are not allowed to provide anything of value to anyone who can misuse a position of power to help them obtain or retain business. Letters from the SEC to US oil companies Hess, Marathon, and Chevron were received in mid-July 2004. ExxonMobil and Devon received letters in early August 2004. All the companies have denied any wrongdoing and say they have cooperated fully with the SEC inquiry. Human Rights Watch inquired about the current status of the SEC investigation in letters sent in early 2009 to Hess, Marathon, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Devon. Marathon, Hess, and Devon have been informed by the SEC that they are no longer subject to any ongoing investigation on Equatorial Guinea, while ExxonMobil stated that “[t]here has been no allegation or charge by any enforcement authority of any illegal activity by ExxonMobil or its affiliates in EG.” According to Chevron, its “policy is not to discuss governmental inquiries.” At this writing, the SEC has not issued any findings related to this investigation. Multinational oil companies and FCPA compliance Many of the oil companies that responded to Human Rights Watch’s request for information about their current business dealings with Equatoguinean government officials or entities they control detailed myriad practices to ensure compliance with the FCPA. These practices include holding in-country seminars on the FCPA, performing internal and external annual audits of FCPA compliance, adopting company anti-corruption compliance guidelines, and providing for management accountability and disciplinary action for non-compliance.[127] Human Rights Watch welcomes these efforts and believes they comprise a key step toward combating corruption. However, as pointed out by ExxonMobil in a letter to Human Rights Watch, there are “practical realities” to doing business in a country in which “[m]any businesses have some family relations with a government official, and virtually all government officials have some business interests of their own, or through a close relative.”[128] Given these “practical realities,” it is imperative that government law enforcement agencies act aggressively to expose and curtail corruption. In particular, the US government should provide more resources to the SEC and the Department of Justice to aggressively investigate violations of the FCPA, in order to ensure that companies do not become part of the cycle of corruption that plagues so many resource-rich countries. Indications of corruption by President Obiang’s eldest son Perhaps the most brazen and troubling examples of corruption are repeated instances involving the president’s eldest son, Teodorin Nguema Obiang, whose globetrotting and extravagant lifestyle is filled with purchases of multimillion-dollar houses and exotic sports cars throughout the world. Teodorin Obiang’s official title is minister of forestry, and from that position he earns a salary equivalent to approximately $4,000 per month. Nonetheless, Teodorin Obiang has been able to buy mansions in Los Angeles and Cape Town, and there have been press reports that he has purchased homes in Buenos Aires and Paris as well. From 1998 to 2006 Teodorin Obiang owned a 15,000 square foot property on a 16-acre estate at the Serra Retreat in Malibu, Los Angeles, through his company Sweetwater Mesa LLC. In April 2006 he transferred ownership of this property to a second company of his, Sweetwater Malibu LLC. Incorporation records filed at the time indicated that the house was worth some $35 million. According to Forbes Magazine this was the sixth most-expensive sale of a private house in the United States in 2006. In March and April 2004 Teodorin Obiang purchased two luxury homes in Cape Town worth a total of $7 million and also spent approximately 10.2 million rand (approximately $1.45 million) on three luxury cars. The purchase of the Cape Town houses came to light because George Ehlers, owner of South African construction firm Engineering Design and Construction Company, claims that he is owed nearly $7.8 million for a breach of contract to build an airport on the island of Annobon for the Equatorial Guinea government. In order to recoup the funds, Ehlers identified these assets in South Africa and has been trying to gain ownership of the two mansions as collateral. Elhers secured an attachment order from the Cape Town High Court in February 2006 for the properties, and this case has now gone to appeal. At this writing, the case is ongoing. Ehlers claims that Teodorin Obiang could not have afforded the houses on his minister’s salary of $4,000 per month, and therefore they must have been purchased with illicitly obtained government funds. In 2006 Teodorin Obiang filed a notarized affidavit in which he affirmed that the property is his and not the Equatorial Guinea government’s and, therefore, could not be seized as payment for government debts. In his affidavit, he provided a disturbing explanation of how he obtained the funds to purchase these houses and vehicles: Cabinet Ministers and public servants in Equatorial Guinea are by law allowed to owe [sic] companies that, in consortium with a foreign company, can bid for government contracts and should the company be successful, then what percentage of the total cost of the contract the company gets, will depend on the terms negotiated between the parties. But, in any event, it means that a cabinet minister ends up with a sizeable part of the contract price in his bank account. It is in the context, therefore, of the law of Equatorial Guinea that my owning a company should be viewed by this Court, and not in terms of the South African law. Teodorin Obiang also noted that he did not want his name to appear on the Cape Town property deeds because he “did not wish my names to be associated with the properties in any way.... I insisted on this because I did not want the newsmakers, journalists, and photographers to know where I lived in Cape Town, for the simple reason that I did not wish to be pestered by photographers, etc., invading my privacy whenever I was in Cape Town.” Government of Equatorial Guinea’s Response to Corruption Allegations The government of Equatorial Guinea’s responses to allegations of corruption and mismanagement are in general characterized by the same denials and attempts to limit public access to information that Teodorin Obiang exhibited in the above-mentioned case in South Africa. Government officials deny the involvement of personal interests in the management of government finances, launch counter-attacks against those levelling allegations, and persecute those in the press who attempt to get to the bottom of these allegations. The Equatorial Guinea government’s handling of the Riggs Bank investigation was indicative of this general approach. The Equatorial Guinea government was not caught unaware by the subcommittee inquiry. On February 23, 2004, Riggs officials met in Washington, DC, with President Obiang and other officials to discuss their accounts and certain transactions. Riggs subsequently advised the Equatorial Guinea government that the bank had decided to close the accounts. They were closed in June and July 2004, and the balances were transferred to the Bank of Central African States. According to the government, the Riggs deposits were “only transitory accounts meant to deal with local constraints and speed up payments of foreign oil companies to the Treasury of Equatorial Guinea.” The government responded to the controversy in July by admitting that “[t]he Equatorial Guinea Treasury, as an official institution of the state, holds an account at Riggs Bank in Washington to facilitate operations with various oil companies which operate in the country.” A government spokesperson added, “The investigation that led the American Senate to Riggs Bank has nothing to do with our government nor our dignitaries... consequently, there is no problem between the state of Equatorial Guinea, the Senate, and the Congress and the United States of America.” In an interview in June 2005 President Obiang claimed that the Riggs issue “was the result of lobbying work by the mercenaries to undermine the legitimate government of Equatorial Guinea.” The sensitivity of the Riggs issue for the government was evident through its handling of the affair at home. On May 12, 2004, a government minister threatened to imprison the members of an Australian television news crew from that country’s 60 Minutes television program, who were investigating the allocation of Equatorial Guinean oil revenues, unless they left the country. At the airport, the director of national security supervised a search of the team’s baggage and confiscated their computer memory cards. On July 22, 2004, Information Minister Alfonso Nsue Mokuy announced that his government would file “criminal and civil suits” against “the foreign press in general, and the Spanish press and television service in particular, for tendentious comments and the manipulation of the truth on the pretext of broadcasting” about the links between President Obiang and Riggs Bank. He also announced that the government would sue Riggs for “the harm done to leading people in the country,” adding that “[n]obody says anywhere that the state treasury’s account with Riggs was manipulated by personal or private interests.” Beyond their response to the Riggs Bank scandal, the Equatorial Guinean government
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Multiple cores allow handsets to maximise battery life by only using all of the cores when they are carrying out processor-intensive tasks, but switching some of them off at other times to save energy.
Intel said it had instead used a technique it called hyper-threading which allowed its single core to carry out two tasks in parallel. It said this allowed it to complete calculations more quickly, and thus shut down the processor down faster.
"Not all cores are created equal," said Mr Reid.
"It's really about what the architecture can do and how you do it in the most efficient fashion.
"We found with the Atom processor we can deliver performance on our processor that actually beats many of the dual core processors on the market today."
Motorola said it had also included its own Smart Actions software to help the device achieve about a 20-hour lifespan between charges. The utility is not offered to other Android device makers.
Image caption Motorola's top-end Razr Maxx uses a dual-core CPU made by Qualcomm
The software studies how each owner uses their handset and then suggests times it can automatically switch off functions such as bluetooth connectivity and GPS location functionality.
"You might get up to 15% to 20% more battery life out of our devices as a result," Mr Wicks said.
Mid-range mobiles
One industry watcher said it was noteworthy that Intel had deliberately decided not to target its chip at Motorola's top-end handsets.
"It may look strange that a computing company like Intel would position itself with a mid-range device," said Malik Saadi - principal analyst at Informa Telecom.
"But there is less competition in that segment, and many of the other device at that price point are lower performance, so it will get noticed.
"Intel is trying to enter the mobile market in a modest way... We expect it will launch a more expensive multi-core processor in 2013, although we don't know the partner."
Mr Wicks confirmed that Motorola planned to offer further Intel-based handsets over the coming years, but would not discuss whether they would also be restricted to markets outside the US.
Mr Reid added that Intel planned to announce further tie-ups with manufacturers before the end of 2012.Trump: No 'big' vacations, no salary as president
CLOSE Following a meeting with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill Thursday, Donald Trump said his first priorities will be border security, health care and job creation. (Nov. 10) AP
Donald Trump is pledging no long vacations and no presidential salary during his time in the White House.
"There's just so much to be done," Trump told CBS' 60 Minutes in an interview broadcast Sunday. "So I don't think we'll be very big on vacations, no."
As for the president's $400,000-a-year pay, the New York businessman said: "No, I'm not going to take the salary. I'm not taking it."
Republicans have regularly criticized President Obama for his fondness for playing golf and his family vacations in Hawaii.
CLOSE The president-elect appeared on CBS' "60 Minutes" to talk about promises made throughout the campaign season. Newsy
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2fpc6SAIn less than an hour yesterday, Florida Governor Rick Scott denied the right to vote to hundreds of thousands, maybe as many as a million, Florida citizens, turning back the clock decades and making Florida the most punitive state in the country when it comes to disenfranchising people with criminal convictions in their past.
The Florida constitution denies the right to vote for life to anyone with a felony conviction, unless he is granted clemency by the governor. Essentially it gives the governor, an elected official, the power to decide who will (or won't) be allowed to vote in the next election.
The new clemency rules not only roll back reforms passed by former Governor Charlie Crist, they are far more restrictive than those in place under former Governor Jeb Bush. Under the new rules:
People with even nonviolent convictions must wait five years after they complete all terms of their sentence before even being allowed to apply for restoration of civil rights.
they complete all terms of their sentence before even being allowed to apply for restoration of civil rights The clock resets if an individual is arrested for even a misdemeanor during that five-year period, even if no charges are ever filed.
Some people must wait seven years before being able to apply, and must appear for a hearing before the clemency board.
A provision allowing people to apply for a waiver of the rules, in place under Bush and Crist, was eliminated.
Everyone applying for clemency must provide various documents with their application - Bush and Crist had made an exception for those applying for restoration of civil rights.
All of this has to happen just to have the opportunity to ask for one's rights back. Even after the waiting period, the application, and the hearing, anyone could be summarily denied with no reason or explanation. And if that happens, he would have to wait another two years before he can start the process all over again.
Governor Scott is playing three-card Monte with one of our most fundamental rights and steering his state straight back to Jim Crow. Florida's disenfranchisement law is a relic of a discriminatory past, enacted after the Civil War in response to the Fifteenth Amendment, which forced the state to enfranchise African-American men. The voting ban was a direct attempt to weaken the political power of African Americans, and it continues to have its intended effect today. Even prior to yesterday's change, African Americans were excluded from the polls at more than twice the rate of other Florida citizens. Not counting those currently serving a criminal sentence, 13% of the voting-age African-American population in Florida has lost the right to vote. Nearly a quarter of those who are disenfranchised in Florida are African-American.
These numbers are sure to go up under the new rules. The new "arrest-free" waiting period requirement will undoubtedly increase the disproportionate impact on minorities. Government statistics show that nearly 35% of all arrests, and 43% of drug arrests, in Florida in 2009 were African-American, even though African Americans make up just 16% of the state's population.
By shutting the door of democracy in the face of those trying to rejoin the community, Governor Scott ignored broad consensus among law enforcement and criminal justice professionals that allowing people to vote when they are back in the community encourages participation in civic life and helps rebuild ties to the community that motivate law-abiding behavior. The country's premier law enforcement organizations, including the American Correctional Association, the American Probation and Parole Association, the Association of Paroling Authorities International and the National Black Police Association have all passed resolutions supporting automatic restoration of voting rights.
Florida's law is now the most restrictive in the country. Since 1997, 23 states have either restored voting rights or eased the restoration process; nine of these states repealed or amended lifetime disenfranchisement laws. These changes have occurred under both Republican and Democratic governors. There has been a national recognition that harsh criminal disenfranchisement laws are a relic of a discriminatory past, are antithetical to the fundamental principles of our democracy, and do nothing to protect public safety or promote successful reentry.This piece comes to us courtesy of The Hechinger Report's Community College Spotlight blog.
University education is free in Switzerland, but most students choose vocational training, Time reports.
Take Jonathan Bove. This spring, after he completed his three-year business training at an insurance company, the 19-year-old was hired by a telecommunications firm; his job as a customer care representative offers a starting salary of $52,000 a year, a generous annual bonus, and a four-week paid vacation – no small potatoes for the teenager who is still living at home and has no plans to move out. “The idea of university never appealed to me,” he says. “The vocational training is more hands-on and the path to a good job is shorter.”
After completing nine years of required schooling, two-thirds of 15 and 16 year olds choose Vocational Education and Training (VET), which combines three years of part-time classroom instruction with training at a company. The youth unemployment rate in Switzerland is less than 3 percent.
VET apprentices generate more revenues than they cost in salaries and instruction, so most companies profit from VET participation, even if they train more apprentices than they need. On average, VET graduates start at $50,000 a year.
Most young Americans won’t earn a college degree, says Nancy Hoffman of Jobs for the Future in a Nation interview with Dana Goldstein. A Swiss-style apprenticeship system would motivate young people and qualify them for good jobs, she argues.
Volkswagon is starting a European-style apprenticeship program in Tennessee, but for high school graduates.... You probably have to start with more internships and apprenticeships at the community college level than in high school, because most people in this country just don’t believe that 16-year-olds can be productive workers—though there is plenty of evidence they certainly can be.
Goldstein asks: Should we worry if the vocational track really is the track for working-class kids?
America’s system — College for all but failure for most — provides less economic mobility than the apprenticeship model, Hoffman argues. “The really strong countries have pathways from vocational education straight through to technical colleges,” she adds. In Switzerland, 42 percent of the highest-scoring students enter the vocational system. “If you want to be an engineer, work in IT or any of these high-tech jobs, you’re going to be much more likely to get a job after real work experience.”A hot tub's faulty wiring ignited one of California's most destructive wildfires, a blaze that killed four people, sent four firefighters to the hospital and destroyed more than 1,300 homes last year, officials said Wednesday.
In addition, a fifth Northern Californian who was last seen in his home before it was destroyed by the fire is missing and presumed dead.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection released a detailed, 500-page report into the cause of the 310-square-kilometre wildfire that devastated a large portion of rural Lake County and parts of Napa County about 145 kilometres north of San Francisco in September 2015.
The wiring of the hot tub on residential property owned by John and Cindy Pinch in Cobb, Calif., "was not installed according to building code," investigators found.
The property owners are now being investigated for possible criminal charges and whether they are responsible for any of the $57 million US it cost to extinguish the 2015 fire.
The Pinches didn't return a call seeking comment Wednesday.
Cal Fire Chief Ken Pimlott said a building permit was required when homeowner John Pinch installed the used hot tub in 2009.
"We have not found a permit on file," Pimlott said Wednesday at a press conference in Lake County.
Pimlott says investigators are discussing with the state Attorney General whether the homeowners will be sued.
Lake County District Attorney Don Anderson said at the press conference that he is reviewing the report and launching an investigation to determine if criminal charges should be filed.
"That's very difficult to answer mainly because I haven't read the report," Anderson. "We are involved with four deaths and that could be a whole range of criminal activity. Obviously there was destruction of a lot of property."
Burned for more than 2 weeks
The fire was the state's third most destructive blaze and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents and businesses.
The blaze burned for more than two weeks and dry, windy condition made the initial days especially harrowing. The first confirmed fatality was Barbara McWilliams, 72, who suffered from advanced multiple sclerosis and used a wheelchair.
The report says it appears McWilliams tried to escape the flames that engulfed her Lake County home on Cobb Mountain by crawling into her fireplace.
In addition to McWilliams, firefighters found the remains of three other people.
Robert Lichtman, 61, has not been seen since the fire destroyed his Lake County home and no remains have been found. He was last seen in his home.
State officials say the cost of the damage will exceed $1.5 billion.
"It's pretty upsetting that a stupid little mistake like that could have caused so much devastation. It actually floors me," said Gary Herrin, who had sobbed as he walked through what little remained of his destroyed childhood home days after the fire past through his old neighbourhood.
Lake County Supervisor Rob Brown said Wednesday he doesn't want people distracted by the cause of the fire. He wants to stay focused on rebuilding the community.
"I can't help but think the people who are responsible for this must be going through hell themselves," he said. "It's awful all the way around."Saturday evening in Cary was special.
North Carolina FC played host to Premier League side Swansea City AFC. Earlier in the week, the club showed off their #919toMLS bid (we have a full recap of the rally here). But this was an exciting weekend and a chance to put all the MLS expansion talk aside.
I took my nine year old neighbor to the game with me so I had some company. We left for the game early so we could tailgate and buy some merch before the game, so we got out to WakeMed Soccer Park around 6:15. I walked to the Oak City Supporters tent to hang out; it’s always a blast to go and meet new friends and talk soccer. We walked in the gates once they opened… the lines were long, but Circle K had a tent at the entrance to win some free prizes (who doesn’t like free stuff?).
Once we made it in, the North Carolina Education Lottery had a booth with a prize wheel with a ton of prizes on it. I won a free t-shirt and three $50 scratch off tickets.
I walked around and sat in the North Stand and was able to watch the Swansea players warm up and stuff. It’s not everyday that an EPL team comes to the Triangle, so I was a bit star struck at how they were able to move the ball around.
Lukasz Fabianski played in goal for the entire first half. Fabianski! Many of the fans in the North Stand were shocked at how good he really was.
And throughout the entire match, almost everyone was talking about Tammy Abraham, the famous 19 year old footballer who is currently on loan from Chelsea. Even though he is only 19, the way he was playing made him looked like he’d been a pro for 15 years already.
Tammy Abraham. (Photo Credit: Gloria Korlou)
The game was amazing. Yes, it was a 0–0 draw, but sitting in the sold out North Stand with some amazing fans made it great. There were several times when NCFC forward Matt Fondy would come down into the box and everyone would just start going crazy. The atmosphere was incredible.
During the second half, Swansea City held the possession most of the time, so we got a lot more action on our end that half. Brian Sylvestre only played one half, so we got to watch Macklin Robinson in goal too. The Swans had one really good attack from a nice cross, and they were able to beat a NCFC defender and head the ball to the bottom right corner, but Robinson made what seemed like an impossible save and everyone in our section went crazy. You would've thought it was a goal by the way everyone was cheering… it was incredible.
During the second half, not only were we able to watch some of the incredible Swansea players play, we were able to watch the future of NCFC: Manny Perez, Aiden Foster, and George Acosta. Perez and Aiden both played really well considering their opponents were EPL-level talent. Both players play for the U-18 CA Railhawks Academy and you would've thought they were on the NCFC starting roster. They didn’t have their names on their backs, but fans were still cheering them on. The support these fans gave these young guns was top notch.
I don't have any major complaints about the game, except the line to get a hot dog was long, but that’s never a bad thing when you go to a packed stadium. Parking was a pain, but thats what happens when 7,268 people show up to WakeMed Soccer Park.
For me, it was an awesome Saturday night, full of action… a goal would have been nice though. If you went to the game, let us know how it was for you!
Make sure to follow Soccer ‘n’ Sweet Tea and myself on Twitter for all things Carolina soccer.The FBI’s "top priority" in 2013 is to modernize surveillance law so authorities can monitor in real time the Web activities of Americans suspected of committing crimes, the FBI’s general counsel said.
At a luncheon for the American Bar Association in Washington last week, Andrew Weissman said that a 1994 federal law designed to help law enforcement conduct lawful surveillance was not keeping up with modern forms of communication.
The law, known as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, applies to telecommunications companies, but does not fully apply to Web-based companies. Weissman said this distinction has prevented law enforcement from conducting surveillance on Web-based services such as Google’s Gmail service, Google Voice or the file-sharing service DropBox. He referred to law enforcement’s inability to monitor such communications as "going dark" and said it was preventing the FBI from fighting crime.
"We're making the ability to intercept communications with a court order increasingly obsolete," he said. "Those communications are being used for criminal conversations."
He added: “This huge legal apparatus…to prevent crimes, prevent terrorist acts is becoming increasingly hampered and increasingly marginalized the more we have technology that is not covered by CALEA, because we don’t have the ability to just go to the court and say 'You know what, they just have to do it.'"
Weissman said it was the FBI’s “top priority this year” to create a proposal that modernizes the law to allow law enforcement to obtain such data with a court order. His comments were also reported by Slate and other outlets.With the international space station going up, and Russia’s Mir space station coming down, it’s a good time to “get down” about gravity. Understanding weightlessness is important not only for space exploration, but for everybody who gets satellite TV.
Instead of “What goes up, must come down,” you might say, “What goes up is always coming down. Sometimes it’s just going up faster than it’s falling.”
A rocket flying into space, or a vehicle orbiting the earth, never escapes gravity. Gravity is always pulling on it. Vehicles that achieve weightlessness are just flying away from the earth at precisely the same rate that gravity is trying to pull them back down.
How gravity works
Let’s start from the top. Gravity is a rate of acceleration. That’s why falling objects fall faster and faster, until they reach terminal velocity, when friction and surface resistance keep them from accelerating any more. Gravity’s rate of acceleration is 32 feet per second per second.
For a NASA rocket to achieve escape velocity — the speed necessary to get far enough away from the mass of the earth so gravity is weak enough that a spacecraft can settle into orbit — it has to be going seven miles per second, or 25,800 mph!
How about a pebble, or a feather? Same speeds apply. The rate of gravity is constant. If you vary the weight of the object, you just have to vary the power necessary to get it going fast enough.
Since it’s the mass of an object that gives it gravitational pull, as you get farther from that mass, gravity weakens. The farther you get from Earth, the weaker gravity gets. For example, a mountain climber who gets to the summit weighs less than he did at base camp, and not just because of all the calories he burned getting there. He’s farther from the center of the earth, so there’s less gravitational effect. Mountain climbing isn’t much of a way to diet, though. Even at the top of Mount Everest, you will only weigh an ounce or two less than you do at sea level.
So spacecraft out in orbit, hundreds of miles away from Earth, aren’t being tugged by gravity as much as you are. But while the gravitational pull may be reduced, it’s not gone completely. It’s still pulling spacecraft down. To stay in orbit, they have to move at just the right speed and angle to pull away from the curve of the earth precisely as fast as gravity is pulling them down. Travel too slowly, and the orbiting craft will drop. Travel too fast, and the spacecraft will outdo the pull from below, flying off into space.
'Escaping' gravity
Astronauts “escape” gravity because they’re moving, inside the spacecraft, at just the right speed and angle so that their flight away from the curve of the earth counteracts the gravity pulling them down.
The higher a spacecraft orbits, the weaker the gravitational pull on it, and the slower it has to go to match that reduced gravitational pull.
Like any other object in low Earth orbit, NASA’s space shuttle travels about 17,500 mph to remain in orbit. The exact speed depends on the altitude, which ranges from 190 miles to 330 miles.
Most of the communications satellites that provide you with satellite TV — or the readings for those Global Positioning System receivers that tell you precisely where on Earth you are — fly at 22,500 miles above the earth, in what’s called geosynchronous orbit. At that height, the speed they need to match gravity is 5,968 mph. At that speed, they are travelling along at the same speed that a spot on the spinning earth below them is moving. In effect, they stay over the same spot all the time, so terrestrial transmitters and receivers always know where to aim, and you can watch your ballgames or movies under the firm effect of gravity holding you down in your couch.
David Ropeik is a longtime science journalist and currently serves as Director of Risk Communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.Please share this page:
Update: Unfortunately, the original video was blocked by YouTube. As a substitute we can offer you these 7-episode series by CCTV:
http://cctv.cntv.cn/lm/journeysintime/special/storyofpaper/
Even today many printers use only paper hand made in selective province’s in China, this special paper is made using an age old technology. The paper is called jade paper, it begins with bamboo and hemp being ground into pulp. After this, workers lie a very fine bamboo sieve vertically into the solution and let the sieve sit in this manner to collect the fibers.
The fibers are then carefully smoothed out on a wooden board until they take shape, dehydrate and become a thin piece of paper. After it is completely dried, it becomes a sheet of paper. The water used in every step from grinding the hemp and the bamboo to sieving the fabric comes from nearby mountain springs. Tap water is never used. As a result, this paper, perfectly absorbing the ink is ideal for block printing.
The paper has three wonderful properties: nice ink absorption, smooth surface, and strength to last for a long time.
Chinese people have a long history of paper use, in 1990 parts of an ancient paper sheet with characters that date back over 2000 years during the late western Han dynasty was discovered. It’s discovery, proved with certainty, that Chinese people were using paper even then. But at that time it’s use was limited only to members of high society simply because of the cost. In later years the paper making technique was improved to use inexpensive materials such as tree bark and bamboo and thus paper became affordable for the general public. Lowering the cost made it a popular material for writing and book printing.
Another thing required by printing and no less important is the ink. No printed matter can be made without ink, even today. Without it, printing is impossible. It is a necessary condition just like paper.
Ink is first brushed onto the plate, and then a piece of paper is placed on top of it. With the right pressure, the ink will be transferred onto the protruding characters. Thus ink is as important as anything else in the printing process.
Back in the neolithic age, Chinese people had already begun to use ink which was found on the inscriptions found on the tortoise shells, animal bones and strips of bamboo and even on some pottery items for decorative purposes. A unique ink called, pine soot, appeared around the 3rd century AD. It became indispensable to the block printing of later era’s. The Tiangong Kai Wu or “exploration of the works of nature”, a Ming dynasty publication, authored by a man named Song Yingxing, documented the process of making this ink in great detail. A reference on this document reads “pine wood is cut into small pieces before being burnt in a kiln for several days for its soot“.
The ink used at many traditional printers, comes from the soot collected from the chimneys at porcelain making factories in nearby provinces. But the soot has to go through a complicated series of steps before it is suitable for use in printing.
Tobacco leaves, alcohol, perfume and mint leaves are added to many special inks in China to help make the inks last longer on printed books and to stop pests like insects or worms from destroying the books.
4 Steps are involved when making block printing: Copying, carving, printing and binding.
In ancient China, copying was a trade that involved more prestige than many others. Anybody who wanted to print a book had to hire people with good handwriting to copy the original. Even today, in many printers in China, copying is done by hand with writing brushes – a method that is over 1000 years old.
Due to the varying softness of each brush tip the resulting output differs slightly from copier to copier.
A piece of classic calligraphy produced before the Sung dynasty might have been good to look at but it was difficult to read. Later in the Sung dynasty a standardized style for block printing was developed. The style features thin horizontal strokes and thick vertical strokes.
With this prescribed style, no matter who wrote it, the handwriting would always be the same. Because the style first appeared in the Song period it is commonly referred to as the Song Style Characters. The most common style used before it was developed was called Kai.
The birth of the Song Style boosted the popularity of block printing.
After the discovery of the ‘Diamond Sutra‘ (author Aurel Stein), a large piece of paper almost perfectly written Buddhist text, many scholars believe the the origins of Chinese block printing could be pushed back from the earlier estimates by at least 200 years to around AD 868. It is known as the world’s earliest dated printed book
Long before the appearance of printing during China’s bronze age and over 1000 years before the Christian era, craftsmen already had a way to transfer written characters and decorative patterns onto a piece of bronze.
Impressions were first made in positive on a piece of pottery to be hardened by firing, this was then offset printed onto a cast as a negative. This negative would then become a printed positive on the final moulded bronze. This process was in fact very similar to present day block printing.
In 1973 a large amount of silk artefacts were unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb No.1 in Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan Province (more info here). The tomb dated back to the Han Dynasty over 2000 years ago. All the images on these works of silk were imprinted by a pre-made plate, showing at the time that carving and printing skills were fairly mature. Another form of imprinting appeared at the same time and was equally mature, it was called seal carving.
Personal seals are an age old practice, common even in the present day and seen in almost all aspects of life. Most of the personal seals we see today have three or four characters, but in ancient times some might have more than 200. Seals are, actually, a miniature form of the block printing technique. They function similarly, one plate, one impression at a time.
The knives used for plate carving are made from hardened steel. Contemporary people prefer to make their own knives from sword blades. Whether ancient or contemporary, carvers tend to hold their knifes in their fists, because of this they are commonly referred to as ‘Fist Knives’.
The original inking on paper is pasted onto a wooden board in reverse to show up the characters. Carvers then hollow out the white part and keep the brush strokes and ink, this is known as reverse carving.
But how can the carvers ensure that the characters stay faithful to the original? The answer is with great skill. Workers first cut off the empty space to the left of the character, this is known as first delivery. After first delivery, workers turn the board upside down and use the tip of the knife to remove the bank part on the left neatly. This process is called removal.
If the board has scars on it or damage caused by worms or a carving mistake occurs, workers have to repair the board by filling in the hole or covering the dent with wood of the same size before re-carving. A skilled worker can carve only around 100 characters per day.
When the plates are done, printing begins with a small broom made of palm fibre to brush ink onto the plate. However, ink applied in this way was often uneven, leaving gaps in the strokes, this happens often when brushes are old.
Ancient workers changed the shape of their brushes by rolling up the brush hair and applying ink by dabbing as opposed to stroking; this change bought for a very satisfactory result. No more gaps were seen and the ink was much fuller than it had been previously.
Brushing ink onto the plates requires just the right strength applied by hand. If the pressure is too light the ink will be uneven, if it is too heavy the plate will suffer unseen damage, rendering a smaller print run that what would have otherwise been possible.
After the ink is applied, a sheet of paper is laid on the plate. A worker will brush it repeatedly with a palm brush. The hand pressure at this point is heavier than what was required for the ink. This is to ensure that the paper absorbs as much ink as possible and make the impression distinct on the paper. Brushing and imprinting are thus combined to give birth to a new term: printing.
Please share this page:Photo: TwitterAs we talked about on Monday, there’s been some controversy surrounding efforts to name a bridge for Bishop Joseph Walker, though weirdly not the kind of controversy you’d expect. As a result, Metro Councilman Jeremy Elrod is proposing an ordinance that would put in place a process for naming city things after people.
His proposal does four things I think are important. One, it puts the matter of naming things under the umbrella of the Metropolitan Historical Commission. So the people with the job of knowing about history will be the ones evaluating claims of historic significance to the city. Great.
Second, it directs the historical commission to have a “specific mechanism for soliciting and measuring public input.” So, if we wanted to name a building for local sweet transvestite, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the public would have a chance to say, “Wait, I know for a fact that’s not Dr. Frank-N-Furter, but instead, is long-lost menace to society, Dr. Frankenstein!” Or controversies more mundane than that, but you get the drift.
Third, it stops us from naming things for living people, with some important exceptions — like people who’ve made significant contributions or given huge gift of land or money to the city (so, if you donate land for a park, they can name the park after you). In other words, we still could name something for Diane Nash and/or John Lewis while they’re still alive to appreciate it (Hint, hint).
But the other crucial thing it does — and this I think will be somewhat controversial, but I hope not — is that it limits naming honors to current or former Nashville and Davidson County residents. There are probably bunches of reasons why this is important, but the reason I think it’s important is that we have named things in Nashville to make broader, problematic points. These range from truly ugly things — like changing the name of Line Street to Jo Johnston Avenue as that neighborhood became blacker as a not-so-subtle reminder to black Nashvillians that they ought not to stop looking over their shoulders for trouble from Confederates — to mixed blessings, like getting a street named for Rosa Parks (Hurray!), who never lived here, when we have so many of our own civil rights heroes we haven’t honored (Boo!).
So I think this is a good way of protecting ourselves from some of our past excesses. Hopefully the rest of the city council agrees with Elrod.For the first quarter of 2017, the Singapore economy grew by 2.5 per cent on a year-on-year basis, easing from the 2.9 per cent growth in the previous quarter.
SINGAPORE: For the first quarter of 2017, Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 2.5 per cent compared to the same period a year ago, advance estimates from the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) showed on Thursday (Apr 13).
That is higher than the median forecast of 2.4 per cent in a Reuters poll but marks a pullback from the previous quarter's 2.9 per cent growth.
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On a quarter-on-quarter, seasonally adjusted annualised basis, the economy shrank 1.9 per cent during the January to March period, coming in line with expectations. While the annualised GDP reading is a stark reversal from the stellar 12.3 per cent rebound last quarter, economists said it is not a cause for worry.
“The quarter-on-quarter figure tends to be very volatile. A mild pullback shouldn’t be a surprise given the manufacturing surge last quarter,” said Maybank Kim Eng economist Chua Hak Bin, referring to the strong turnaround in factory output towards the end of 2016 which provided a surprise lift to the overall economy.
For the first three months of 2017, Singapore’s manufacturing sector contracted 6.6 per cent on a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted annualised basis, reversing from the 39.8 per cent surge in the previous quarter.
On a year-on-year basis, the sector moderated from growth of 11.5 per cent to 6.6 per cent, which according to Dr Chua is still a “very healthy reading”.
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In other sectors, construction continued to underperform by shrinking 1.1 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter, extending the 2.8 per cent decline in the previous quarter on the back of a slowdown in private sector construction activities. On a quarter-on-quarter seasonally adjusted annualised basis, the sector expanded by 5.4 per cent, accelerating from the 0.8 per cent growth in the preceding quarter.
The services producing industries grew 1.5 per cent on a year-on-year basis in the first quarter, improving from growth of 1.0 per cent in the previous quarter. However, on a quarter-on-quarter basis, the sector shrank at an annualised rate of 2.2 per cent after expanding 8.4 per cent in the last quarter.
Such mixed figures show that the local services sector, which accounts for about two-thirds of the economy, continues to “punch below its weight”, said Mizuho Bank’s senior economist Vishnu Varathan.
“Anything related to the property or banking sector is not in high gear and with these uncertain (components), any recovery is not going to come as quickly as what we’ve seen in the manufacturing sector,” he told Channel NewsAsia. “Services will remain a lingering drag.”
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MTI will release the revised GDP data for the first quarter, including performance by sectors, sources of growth, inflation, employment and productivity, in its Economic Survey of Singapore in May.
The advance GDP estimates are computed largely from data in the first two months of the quarter - in this case, January and February. They are intended as an early indication of GDP growth in the quarter and are subject to revision when more comprehensive data becomes available.
Private sector economists had forecast Singapore’s first-quarter GDP to be 2.6 per cent, according to the latest quarterly survey by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in March. For the full year, economists raised their GDP forecast to 2.3 per cent - a sharp hike from the previous estimation of 1.5 per cent.
That marks a pick-up from the 2.0 per cent growth recorded in 2016, and would be in the upper half of the Government's official 2017 GDP forecast range of 1 to 3 per cent.
Noting the growth figures, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that Singapore's economy "did quite well in Q1" and that the "outlook is encouraging".
In a Facebook post on Thursday evening, Mr Lee added that he met labour movement leaders during the week to find out "how things are in their different industries".
"They spoke about the challenges they are facing, the changes they foresee, and how they are helping workers cope," he wrote.
Mr Lee added that he will talk about Singapore's economy and job situation at the upcoming May Day Rally.Karl Rove's op-ed on polls this morning in the WSJ reminds me of something I've been meaning to write for a few days.
I often get emails asking why I'm not posting this poll favorable to Obama or that poll that shows McCain closing. Thanks to Drudge's cherry-picking, these are increasingly coming from Republicans who are looking for a glimmer of hope in what is shaping up to be a tough year.
First off, I'm not very interested in national polls at this point. Yes, they can be broadly instructive to show trends. And, indeed, some have shown McCain moving up in recent days.
But the presidency isn't decided by a national vote.
So it's state polls that are most relevant, and especially in those battleground states that will decide the race.
In these places, I look to and tend to post those surveys from papers and pollsters that have a track record of work in states year after year, in downballot races and the presidential campaign. Examples include, but are not limited to, the Iowa poll, the UNH Survey Center in New Hampshire, Franklin & Marshall in Pennsylvania, the Washington Post and Mason Dixon in Virginia, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in Missouri.
As Rove notes, there are a lot of outlets now polling both nationwide and in key states. I put the most stock in state polls from reliable outfits.
One last note: McCain's campaign is pointing to public polls and their own internal surveys to make the case that this race is fluid and that the trend lines are moving their way. I asked McCain's chief pollster Bill McInturff to share data about what their state polls were showing, knowing that they're in the field every night and often have fresher numbers than the public outfits. He declined, saying that was too specific.
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permalinkHell on Wheels may be spinning its wheels for a little while. John Shiban, the showrunner of AMC’s birth-of-the-transcontinental railroad drama, has stepped down, prompting the network to put Monday’s third-season renewal on hold,
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Mexico, leaving at least two dead.
Far out in the Atlantic, Hurricane Jose, a Category 2 storm, having brushed past the Caribbean also poses a potential threat to the US east coast.
Last month, Hurricane Harvey, one of the worst storms to hit the US mainland in 12 years, led to unprecedented flooding in the southern US state of Texas.
'Moral responsibility'
Francis is one of the world's most high-profile campaigners on environmental issues, actively supporting efforts to combat climate change and its consequences.
He said individuals and politicians had a "moral responsibility" to act on advice from scientists, who had clearly outlined what must be done to halt the course of "catastrophic" warming.
"These aren't opinions pulled out of thin air," he said. "They are very clear. They [world leaders] decide and history will judge those decisions."
WATCH: State of denial - Trump vs climate change (24:38)
Recalling last month's news that a ship crossed the Arctic without an icebreaker for the first time, Francis said: "We can see the effects of climate change, and scientists clearly say what path we should follow."
While regularly criticising politicians, the pope has made caring for the environment a hallmark of his papacy.
He wrote an entire encyclical (a letter from the pope disseminated to the bishops of the Church) about how the poor in particular are most harmed when multinationals move in to exploit natural resources.
During his visit to Colombia, Francis spoke out frequently about the need to preserve the country's rich biodiversity from overdevelopment and exploitation.
Among world leaders, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly made a case sceptical of the existence of climate change.
In June, Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement, which binds countries to national pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.DON’T get me wrong. I am all for trying to teach household finance in schools, starting as early as possible. And when it comes to high school, I think learning about compound interest is at least as important as trigonometry or memorizing the names of all 50 state capitals. If we try enough approaches, and evaluate what works, we may improve such programs’ effectiveness. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that adding a household finance class to a high school curriculum will in itself create knowledgeable consumers who can understand today’s wide array of financial products.
In some ways, the finding that financial education doesn’t provide long-term payoffs is hardly surprising. After all, how much do you remember from your high school chemistry class? Unless you use chemistry at work, you probably don’t recall much about ionic bonding. In the meta-analysis, even the most time-intensive programs — those with more than 24 hours of education and training, almost the length of a college course — had no discernible effects just two years later.
It would be premature to conclude that all efforts at improving financial literacy are futile. But it is a fair conclusion that simply doing more of the training commonly used now will not produce significant results. So what else might we try? Although no approach offers a panacea, three types of efforts seem worthy of more attention.
The first is what Professor Lynch, one of the authors of the meta-analysis, calls just-in-time education. Because learning decays quickly, it’s best to provide assistance just before a decision is made. High school seniors should receive help in how to think about a student loan, and how to make sure that the education bought with the loan offers good prospects for repayment. Just-in-time education can be offered at other crucial moments — when taking out a mortgage or figuring out when to retire. But unless such education is compulsory, many of the consumers most in need of help don’t take advantage of it. And we need to be sure not to confuse self-serving marketing with objective advice.
Another approach is to offer simple rules of thumb to help people cope. Because few people can calculate how much they need to save for a comfortable retirement, it might help to offer simple guidelines like “invest as much as possible in your 401(k) plan,” “save 15 percent of your income” or “get a 15-year mortgage if you are over 50.”
One example comes from a field experiment involving microentrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic. Of those who expressed an interest in receiving help, some were offered training in basic accounting principles while others were given simple rules of thumb. The accounting education did not have apparent effects, but simple rules — like keeping personal money and business money in separate drawers — led to better outcomes. This seemingly trivial concept helped small-business owners keep better track of how their businesses were faring.
The third approach, and the one I believe offers the best prospects of immediate help, is to make our financial system more user-friendly. You don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a smartphone. If we made choosing a suitable mortgage as easy as checking the weather in Timbuktu, fewer households would find themselves underwater when real estate markets tumble.Description
Mariner 6 and 7 comprised a dual-spacecraft mission to Mars, the sixth and seventh missions in the Mariner series of spacecraft used for planetary exploration in the flyby mode. The primary objectives of the missions were to study the surface and atmosphere of Mars during close flybys to establish the basis for future investigations, particularly those relevant to the search for extraterrestrial life, and to demonstrate and develop technologies required for future Mars missions and other long-duration missions far from the Sun. Mariner 6 also had the objective of providing experience and data which would be useful in programming the Mariner 7 encounter 5 days later. Each spacecraft carried a wide- and narrow-angle television camera, an infrared spectroscope, an infrared radiometer, and an ultraviolet spectroscope. The spacecraft were oriented entirely to planetary data acquisition, and no data were obtained during the trip to Mars or beyond Mars.
Spacecraft and Subsystems
The Mariner 6 and 7 spacecraft were identical, consisting of an octagonal magnesium frame base, 138.4 cm diagonally and 45.7 cm deep. A conical superstructure mounted on top of the frame held the high-gain 1 meter diameter parabolic antenna and four solar panels, each measuring 215 x 90 cm, were affixed to the top corners of the frame. The tip-to-tip span of the deployed solar panels was 5.79 m. A low-gain omnidirectional antenna was mounted on a 2.23 m high mast next to the high-gain antenna. Underneath the octagonal frame was a two-axis scan platform which held scientific instruments. Overall science instrument mass was 57.6 kg. The total height of the spacecraft was 3.35 m.
The spacecraft was attitude stabilized in three axes (referenced to the sun and the star, Canopus) through the use of 3 gyros, 2 sets of 6 nitrogen jets mounted on the ends of the solar panels, a Canopus tracker, and two primary and four secondary sun sensors. Propulsion was provided by a 223 N rocket motor mounted within the frame which used monopropellant hydrazine. The nozzle with 4-jet vane vector control protruded from one wall of the octagonal structure. Power was supplied by 17,472 photovoltaic cells covering an area of 7.7 square meters on the four solar panels. These could provide 800 W of power near Earth and 449 W at Mars. The maximum power requirement was 380 W at Mars encounter. A 1200 W-hr rechargeable silver-zinc battery was used to provide backup power. Thermal control was achieved through the use of adjustable louvers on the sides of the main compartment.
Three telemetry channels were available for telecommunications. Channel A carried engineering data at 8 1/3 or 33 1/3 bps, channel B carried scientific data at 66 2/3 or 270 bps and channel C carried science data at 16,200 bps. Communications were accomplished via the high- and low-gain antennas via dual S-band travelling wave tube 10/20 W amplifiers for transmission and a single receiver. An analog tape recorder with a capacity of 195 million bits could store television images for subsequent transmission. Other science data was stored on a digital recorder. The command system, consisting of a central computer and sequencer (CC&S), was designed to actuate specific events at precise times. The CC&S was programmed with a standard mission and a conservative backup mission befire launch, but could be commanded and reprogrammed in flight. It could perform 53 direct commands, 5 control commands, and 4 quantitative commands.
Mission Profile
Mariner 6 was launched from Launch Complex 36B at Cape Kennedy on 25 February at 01:29:02 UT (24 February, 8:29:02 p.m. EST - Mariner 7 was launched 31 days later). It represented the first mission launched on the Atlas/Centaur, (AC20, spacecraft 69-3) consisting of a 1 1/2 stage Atlas SLV-3C and a restartable Centaur stage. The main booster was jettisoned 4 min. 38 sec. after launch followed by a 7.5 minute Centaur burn to inject the spacecraft into Mars direct-ascent trajectory. After Mariner 6 separated from the Centaur the solar panels were deployed. A midcourse correction involving a 5.35 second burn of the hydrazine rocket occurred on 1 March 1969. A few days later the explosive valves were deployed to unlatch the scan platform. Some bright particles released during the explosion distracted the Canopus sensor, and attitude lock was lost temporarily. It was decided to place the spacecraft on inertial guidance for the Mars flyby to prevent a similar occurrence.
On 29 July, 50 hours before closest approach, the scan platform was pointed to Mars and the scientific instruments turned on. Imaging of Mars began 2 hours later. For the next 41 hours, 49 approach images (plus a 50th fractional image) of Mars were taken through the narrow-angle camera. At 05:03 UT on 31 July the near-encounter phase began, including collection of 26 close-up images. Due to a cooling system failure, channel 1 of the IR spectrometer did not cool sufficiently to allow measurements from 6 to 14 micrometers so no infrared data were obtained over this range. Closest approach occurred at 05:19:07 UT at a distance of 3431 km from the martian surface. Eleven minutes later Mariner 6 passed behind Mars and reappeared after 25 minutes. X-band occultation data were taken during the entrance and exit phases. Science and imaging data were played back and transmitted over the next few days. The spacecraft was then returned to cruise mode which included engineering and communications tests, star photography TV tests, and UV scans of the Milky Way and an area containing comet 1969-B. Periodic tracking of the spacecraft in its heliocentric orbit was also done.
As a historical note, 10 days before the scheduled launch of Mariner 6 while it was mounted on top of the Atlas/Centaur booster, a faulty switch opened the main valves on the Atlas stage. This released the pressure which supported the Atlas structure, and as the booster deflated it began to crumple. Two ground crewman started pressurizing pumps, saving the structure from further collapse. The Mariner 6 spacecraft was removed, put on another Atlas/Centaur, and launched on schedule. The two ground crewman, who had acted at risk of the 12-story rocket collapsing on them, were awarded Exceptional Bravery Medals from NASA.
Science Results
The total data return for Mariners 6 and 7 was 800 million bits. Mariner 6 returned 49 far encounter and 26 near encounter images of Mars, and Mariner 7 returned 93 far and 33 near encounter images. Close-ups from the near encounter phases covered 20% of the surface. The spacecraft instruments measured UV and IR emissions and radio refractivity of the Martian atmosphere. Images showed the surface of Mars to be very different from that of the Moon, in some contrast to the results from Mariner 4. The south polar cap was identified as being composed predominantly of carbon dioxide. Atmospheric surface pressure was estimated at between 6 and 7 mb. Radio science refined estimates of the mass, radius and shape of Mars.
Total research, development, launch, and support costs for the Mariner series of spacecraft (Mariners 1 through 10) was approximately $554 million.There are several ways to make biryani each style loyal to its local gastronomic history. Here are the India specific ones that every rice or biryani lover should know aboutThe masses love it, politicians woo voters with it, and festivals are incomplete without it -the delicious biryani is the favourite of all.India has a wide variety to choose from when it comes to this royal dish.Top chefs talk about the distinctive features of each biryani, and what makes them special...Hyderabadi biryani is one of the most popular dishes in south India. For many home cooks and chefs, this dish from Mughlai cuisine is quite a challenge to make, and each has his unique way of spicing it up. What makes it stand out is the usage of saffron and coconut. This biryani is cooked in layers the most challenging part in its creation. While most other biryanis are always dominated by mutton and chicken gravy, here the saffron mixed-rice takes over.Serve it with brinjal gravy.This one's a favourite in Chennai with many outlets dedicatedly serving just Dindigul biryani.The rice used in it is very different jeera samba rice instead of Basmati, giving it an entirely new flavour. The biryani also uses cube-sized muttonchicken pieces instead of big chunks. Apart from the usual masala, a lot of pepper is used.It's hard to miss out on the Ambur biryani if you are in Tamil Nadu.Take a trip to the sleepy little town of Ambur and the first thing that'll strike you is the in numerable biryani stalls dotting the Chennai-Bengaluru highway. There's chicken, mutton, beef and prawn as options, with the flavour of mint and coriander standing out. The highlight of this biryani is the fact that chefs soak the meat in curd be fore adding it to the rice, which imparts a unique taste to the dish. Have it with onion raita and brinjal gravy.Coastal Karnataka: Though low on spice, the Bhatkali biryani has the right amount of flavour. This particular style originated from the Nawayath Mus lim community of Bhatkal, in coastal Karnataka. They use a lot of onions, green chillies in their style of cooking also in the layered format. Unlike Ambur biryani, in which mutton pieces are soaked in curd, Bhatkali biryani chefs cook mutton chicken pieces in curd. This eventually makes the biryani less spicy.Uttar Pradesh: Based on the Persian style of cooking, the Lucknowi biryani is made with the use of a completely different method known as dum pukht. As is the norm with most Persian formats, the meat and gravy are partially cooked and then layered in the dum pukht style. Served in a sealed handi, Lucknowi biryani is light on the stomach as it is low on spices.West Bengal: Kolkata biryani has its roots in the Nawabi style biryani of Lucknow. The chefs from Awadhi kitchens brought the signature biryani recipe to Kolkata, which later got tweaked into the unique Kolkata biryani that we know today. The Kolkata biryani is unique, thanks to its subtle use of spices combined with ghee, Basmati rice and mutton. The addition of potatoes and boiled eggs also lends a different flavour to the d dish. Use of nutmeg along with saffron and kewra gives this biryani its signature aroma.Kerala: Malabar biryani, famous in Kozhikode, Thalassery and Malappuram areas of Kerala, is characterised by the unique variety of rice called khyma rice, the rich flavour of spices, and the generous usage of cashew nuts and raisins.Chefs in Kerala add these ingredients generously while preparing the biryani.The key difference lies in the method of preparation. The rice is cooked separately from mutton gravy and mixed well only at the time of serving.Pakistan: Sindhi biryani, which originated in Sind, Pakistan, is quite spicy and zesty.Sour curd, generous use of spices and chilli mark this form of biryani. Usage of kewra or mitha ittr is another differentiating factor. Sindhi biryani recipes also use potatoes and prunes.Maharashtra: What makes Bombay biryani special is the use of potatoes in it.Be it vegetarian or non-vegetarian biryani, potato is a must. The preparation uses a layered method, where half-cooked basmati rice and cooked meat are put on dum-style.Jeera Samba rice: 1 kg (for 10) I Mutton: 1.5 kgOnion: 400 gmTomato: 400 gmMint leaves: 1 bunchCoriander leaves: 1 bunchGinger-garlic paste: 6 tsp (approx 30 gm)Cinnamon: 4Cloves: 4Star anise: 4 piecesMarati moggu (type of caper): 4Jathipathri: 4Curd: 250 mlOil: 200 mlGhee: 50 mlChilli powder: 5 tspCoriander powder: 7 spPepper powder: 4 tspCut the mutton into small pieces and soak it in curd for 20 minutes. Wash the rice and soak it in water for half an hour. Keep the biryani vessel in the stove and add oil, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, star anise, marati moggu, jathipathri, mint leaves (50%) and coriander leaves (50 %). Then add sliced onions. Saute well until it turns transparent. Add ginger-garlic paste, followed by sliced tomatoes. Mix well until it merges together. Add the mutton pieces along with the curd, coriander powder, chilli powder and then add a glass of water. Add the required amount of salt at this stage and cook the mutton. Once it is cooked, add the pepper powder, soaked jeera rice, the remaining mint and coriander leaves. When it starts bubbling, put the lid on the fire and add the weight (in dum style). Leave it for about 20 mins and then add ghee.Serve it with raita or brinjal curry.(Inputs by Chef Damu, R Rajesh and Hushmoin K Patell)(Recipe by Chef Damu)Khezu are Flying Wyverns introduced in Monster Hunter.
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Physiology
Khezu are large, pale Wyverns with a flabby, rubbery hide which they constantly keep damp, similar to that of an amphibian. Many of their blood vessels and veins can be seen through their pale skin. Their tail features a specialized orifice which bonds to the ground during electrical attacks and helps them cling onto cave ceilings. Their mouth features rows of sharp teeth. Khezu feet lack claws, and instead have suction pad-like toes to assist them in climbing and hanging from cave walls and ceilings. Spending most of their lives in the dark, their eyes have regressed greatly, though they make up for this with a superb sense of smell. A layer of fat helps to keep them warm and prolong the time they can spend hunting for food. Khezu have an extendable neck which allows them to grasp and ambush prey from afar, such as from a cave ceiling. Khezu are hermaphrodites, which means an individual is both male and female. To reproduce they paralyze a creature and inject their young, known as Whelps. The Whelps grow inside their victim until it dies, or when they are strong enough to leave.
Behavior
Although Khezu are cave dwellers, they go out when they please, or when food inside grows too scarce. While Khezu outside a cave are vulnerable to larger Wyverns like Tigrex, inside caves Khezu have the advantage. In addition to being unhampered by the dark, they can cling to the ceiling and attack from above.
Habitat
A Khezu's habitat is often located near active sources of water; some sources claim this is because the water is excellent for conducting electricity into their prey, while others speculate that Khezu may need the dampness for their moist skin. Such areas include the Swamps and Frozen Seaway.
Other Non-Subspecies Forms
Hard Core (HC) Khezu
HC Khezu has a slew of new attacks; it can now fire multiple lightning balls across the ground that scatter widely, and is also capable of firing these same lightning balls upon landing. It occasionally covers itself in electricity after performing an electrical ball attack as well. Lastly, it also has a much shorter but stronger roar that paralyzes hunters without earplugs for a longer time.[1]
HC Khezu appears to have a brownish coloration on certain parts of its body and large, visible blue veins. It also has new attacks and behaviors. It can create an onslaught of electricity that can fatally paralyze any hunter caught in it while generating short bursts of electricity on its body at the same time. Additionally, hunters have observed that it will perform a new screaming behavior where it rises up tall and screams briefly to stun hunters, while quickly following up with a shock wave. This deadly combination of attacks leaves no escape for the unprepared.
One of its most confusing attacks may be when it hovers with a thunder ball in its mouth around a targeted hunter then releases it with pinpoint accuracy upon landing with an electric barrier active at the same time.
Zenith Khezu
Main Article: Zenith Khezu
A Zenith Species of Khezu first appearing in Monster Hunter Frontier Z.
Game Appearances
In-Game Description
Monster Hunter Freedom 2 / Monster Hunter Freedom Unite Loathsome wyverns that live inside caves. Near blind, they detect their prey by smell. They are capable of generating electric shocks, which they use to paralyze their prey. Monster Hunter 4 主に洞窟などの暗所に生息する不気味な飛竜。 目は退化しており、その分嗅覚が発達している。 体内に発電器官をもっており、体から発する電気で獲物を麻痺させ、壁や天井から襲いかかる。
Threat Level (危険度): ★★★★ Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Loathsome wyverns that dwell in caves and other dark places. All but blind, Khezu hunt by smell, using electric shocks to paralyze their prey before pouncing from high walls and ceilings.
Threat Level (危険度): ★★★★ Monster Hunter Generations Loathsome wyverns that dwell in caves and other dark places. All but blind, Khezu hunt by smell, using electric shocks to paralyze their prey before pouncing on them from the walls or ceiling.
Threat Level (危険度): ★★★★ Monster Hunter Stories Loathsome Flying Wyverns dwelling mainly in caves. They generate and release electricity to deadly effect. Monster Hunter Frontier G (?) Monster Hunter Online 龙盘目，龙脚亚目，奇怪龙下目，稀白龙上科。肉食类。无鳞覆盖、强韧而布满粘液的白色厚皮，以及退化的双眼。栖息在不见阳光的洞窟，也会在湿地等地区出没。
Threat Level (危険度):!!!!
MH4U Breakable Parts
Head (x1)
Body (x1)
Notes
A Khezu's tail has a suction cup-like hole with six protrusions lining its rim. They use it to attach themselves to cave ceilings, and to ground themselves when performing an electrical attack.
As shown in the Ecology video, the flabby hide of a Khezu is covered in a thin, wet liquid-like membrane. Its purpose is unknown.
The saliva of a Khezu has strong acidic properties that can melt the floor of caves and Stun hunters.
Khezu's roar requires HG Earplugs to block.
Khezu are one of the few (if not the only) Wyverns in the Monster Hunter world that do not activate the "Yellow Eye" status on the hunter. This could be considered a disadvantage due to the fact that it does not allow a hunter to do a panic dive to avoid attacks. No background music plays, even for sidekick monsters, e.g. Giadrome.
In the Khezu Ecology cinematic, it is seen preying on a Kelbi.
Khezu is highly tolerant against Paralysis; it is only stunned for 5 seconds. As such, Pitfall Traps are better than Shock Traps.
The Village four star quest called "Fang of the Iodrome!" a Khezu appears in it. If you fight it, it has an interesting glitch, unlike any other Khezu on MHF1 this is the only one to have background music playing for it.
The Khezu gained the ability to leap out at the hunter while generating its signature electrical field.
It gained a thunder bite, and an improved thunder blast where it shoots out more thunder balls than the normal move; this is highly predictable because a bolt of electricity runs across Khezu's mouth when charging the attack.
There are Quests that require the hunter to slay or capture tiny Khezus. These Khezus are perhaps Khezu Whelps who are strong enough to leave the carcass in which they were born. The tiny Khezus have a high pitched voice, due to their minuscule size. Their roars are notably shorter, and leaves the hunter incapacitated a bit longer.
When enraged its veins will begin to throb.
When low on stamina it will fail to shoot its lightning balls, produce its lightning shield, and recover from attacks.
Its face and its body can be broken and scarred.
It can be infected by the Frenzy Virus.
In G-Rank, when it releases a lightning shield, it can do a second one that covers a much wider range in a web-like pattern.
Unlike in previous games, Khezu now applies the "Spotted" status to the hunter, allowing the hunter to perform a panic dive.
Khezu whelps are pickled and used as cooking ingredients.
Khezu can be a pet.
HC Khezu's roar requires Super HG Earplugs to block.
This monster is unlocked at Level 25.
Khezu's torso can be broken.When does an online fantasy cross the line into criminal conspiracy? That's the issue the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is currently weighing in United States v. Gilberto Valle, the so-called "cannibal cop" case. EFF filed an amicus brief in support of Valle today, arguing that finding him guilty of conspiracy based on his online statements would put us in the scary realm of "thoughtcrime."
Valle was a New York City police officer charged with and convicted of both conspiracy to kidnap and violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA"). Earlier this month, we filed a separate amicus brief in Valle's appeal of his CFAA conviction, arguing that it was a dangerous expansion of criminal law. But the conspiracy charges are equally troubling, stemming from discussions Valle had in chat rooms on fantasy role-playing fetish websites involving cannibalism. The government alleged that these discussions were more than just fantasy role-playing, and actually a concerted criminal plot to kidnap and eat women.
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The district court judge threw out the jury's conspiracy verdict in an 118-page ruling, stating "the nearly yearlong kidnapping conspiracy alleged by the government is one in which no one was ever kidnapped, no attempted kidnapping ever took place, and no real-world, non-Internet-based steps were ever taken to kidnap anyone." But the government has appealed the reversal of the conspiracy conviction, so we've filed another amicus brief in support of Valle, arguing that the trial court got it right.
The court ultimately believed—and we agree—that finding Valle guilty of conspiracy based on his online statements would hold him guilty of thoughtcrime (or "crimethink" in Newspeak). It's understandable that a jury would find the discussions taking place in these chat rooms disgusting. Juries are instructed to leave emotion out of the deliberation room and to coldly apply the facts to the law, but that can be hard to do in cases involving controversial facts. That's why it's important for reviewing judges to independently examine the context of speech in order to determine whether speech loses its protected status and is fairly determined "criminal."
That's exactly what we tell the Second Circuit to do in our amicus brief: rather than simply deferring to the jury's finding of guilt, the court needs to independently examine the context of the speech and determine whether it rises to conspiratorial speech that is criminal and unprotected by the First Amendment. Courts have routinely used their own independent review of speech to determine whether speech qualifies as soliciting or inciting a criminal act, slander, libel and other forms of unprotected speech. Our brief explains why it should be no different when it comes to speech alleged to be part of a criminal conspiracy. The Center for Democracy & Technology, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project, National Coalition Against Censorship, Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment and a number of First Amendment and Internet law scholars also signed onto the amicus brief.
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More critically, we note that this independent review is especially important in cases involving controversial facts like this one, to ensure that bad facts (and emotion-driven juries) don't create bad law that will have an effect beyond the case at hand. The lower court's meticulous review of the facts of the case and the speech at issue—ultimately concluding that Valle's speech was fantasy rather than part of a true conspiracy—should serve as a blueprint for other courts looking at allegedly criminal speech. Hopefully the Second Circuit will follow the lower court's lead and find—after conducting its own independent review—that Valle's fantasies werenot a criminal conspiracy.
Thanks to UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh of the Scott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinic for writing our amicus brief.
This article first appeared on Electronic Frontier Foundation and is republished here under Creative Commons license. Image by Steve Petrucelli under Creative Commons license.Right now, in almost every river in the world, some 12,000 different species of caddisfly larvae wriggle and crawl through sediment, twigs, and rocks in an attempt to build temporary aquatic cocoons. To do this, the small, slow-moving creatures excrete silk from salivary glands near their mouths which they use like mortar to stick together almost every available material into a cozy tube. A few weeks later a fully developed caddisfly emerges and almost immediately flies away.
After first learning about caddisflies, self-taught (and self-professed amateur) artist Hubert Duprat had a thought. Had a caddisfly ever naturally encountered a fleck of gold in a river and used it to build a home? And then one step further: what if a caddisfly had only gold and other precious stones or jewels to work with?
Trichoptères, French for the scientific name of the caddisfly, is Duprat’s answer to that question. For years the artist has been collaborating with the tiny insects, providing them small aquariums of gold, turquoise and pearls that the the larvae readily use to construct their temporary homes. Regardless of how creepy crawly you might find the insects, it’s impossible to deny the strange beauty of the final product, tiny gold sculptures held together with silk. Encountering them void of any context, one would assume they were constructed by a jeweler.
Duprat currently has a solo exhibition at the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania which runs through July 28th, and it should be noticed that is work with caddisflies is only one small aspect of his art practice.
A huge thank you to the Museum of Old and New Art and photographer Fabrice Gousset for providing the images for this post. If you liked this, don’t miss the work of (via ARTREBELS)The Bare-Faced Messiah Interviews Interview with Kima Douglas,
Oakland, California, 27 August 1986
Kima Douglas was very much a typical Scientologist during her years in the Church, from 1968 to 1980: she was young, English-speaking, well-educated and totally committed. She was well-qualified to join L. Ron Hubbard's naval élite, the Sea Org, which had been founded in 1967. Her past nursing experience in her home country of Rhodesia was discovered at a time when Hubbard's health was rapidly deteriorating and for seven years, from 1973 to 1980, she became a unique combination of nurse, aide de camp and confidante. When she was interviewed in 1986 by the British journalist and writer for his biography of Hubbard, Bare-Faced Messiah, she had an extraordinary story to tell. The following is a transcript of that interview.
Interview - 27 August 1986
In early 1968, I was painting water colours. I was on a beach in Santa Monica, painting. Some friends came down and said, "We've just been to a lecture on Scientology. It's a phenomenal thing - if they run the wrong process on you it can kill you." It just interested me that there could be such a process so powerful. I am South African. I wanted to find out about it. I had been through two marriages by '68. I am a child of an alcoholic parent, and I was looking for something but didn't know what I was looking for. I went to a lecture at the Beverly Hills franchise and it was really interesting. I started working at the franchise and met Yvonne Gillham. Everyone was dressed in white boiler suits and hard hats to promote the outer space image. The whole thing was like a wild dress up party.
I joined the Sea Org 25 Sept '68. Hana [Eltringham] took over AOLA [Advanced Organisation Los Angeles] in '69, then Tony Dunleavy came out. I met him, fell in love and in August 1970 went to the ship [Apollo] in Madeira.
My expectation was of a psychic person who could look at me and see every evil thing I had ever done in my whole life. I'd been indoctrinated to all the things he could do. There were wild stories that if an atomic bomb in Nevada was about to go off, L. Ron, with the power of his mind, could defuse it. The expectation was that he would be able to see into my head, which both terrified and excited me. And he'd come to save the planet, at the time we were talking about atomic warfare. Who could stop this? I was a complete believer. Doubts were out-ethics, so you sat on them quickly. I had him set up as close to God as anyone could be set up.
Tony met me at the gangway and went up to his office on the sun deck. I was coming up the stairs and Hubbard came out of his office in a white uniform and commodore's hat with two messengers behind him. He said, "Who's this?" He was a jovial, happy, golden man. Tony said this is my wife to be. He shook my hand and was very charming. For me, I had arrived.
There were only 108 people aboard. The ship had gone through the whole Ethics thing, they cleaned, painted and scrubbed the ship. It looked wonderful. It was August 13 1970. I went to work in the kitchen because I could cook. Someone found out I had nursing experience and went into the medical office. I had been there about a month and went over to take over publics in Denmark. I came back and the ship was in Casablanca, Morocco and there was an org there at the time where we were training top management teams. Everything was going fine, then some bloody girl [Susan Meister] shot herself on the ship. She got Peter Gillham's gun and shot herself in the mouth. We were in a port that had disease. LRH called me back to the ship to take over medical office.
We were also messing around at that time with the King of Morocco. It got very weird. Tony & I sent out to Apollo US and I fell in love with another man, Carlos Gusman. I was recalled back to ship. This was out-ethics, tsk, tsk. I was put in a low ethics condition, and painting and cleaning the ship went on for 3-4 months.
We would get messages from LRH every now and then about Carlos.
Jim Dincalci was sent on some Mission and I was moved into the Medical Office, where I came into my own. In Sulfi the wind was blowing against the ship, didn't have enough fenders so Captain Bill [Robertson] had all crew pushing against dock. Also in Sulfi he ordered people over side painting the ship without sunhats, they were going down with sunstroke. I asked Captain Bill to bring them in, but he refused. I ordered them in. There was row Hubbard came up and backed me.
I had 2 years' nurse training at British hospital in Bulawayo - my speciality was labour and delivery.
At that point I established a line with Hubbard. I never put him in jeopardy to risk making him look a fool. I always thought, what would he want in this situation? This was about 73.
Then he got bursitis in his shoulder, I did a quick check on things you can do other than exercise. One thing that helps was injections of vitamin B12. I was giving him daily shots and they were helping and I was giving him limited exercises, he was overweight, having someone commiserate. He got through it and then got a little bit of flu and says it is pneumonia, it was not. We got him through that and so I became a person who could get him through his little sickness. and an affinity was established.
It got to a point where I personally knew he was no more a wonderman and was as human as you and I. He started treating me like messengers, he tell me things pissing him off on ship. I would listen. He'd tell me stories of childhood, he talked about breaking in broncos at the age of 3 - I've ridden and there's no way a 3 year old could even sit on a saddle -
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Uhura obtain a tribble from Cyrano Jones.
Back on the Enterprise, Bashir continues to scan for Darvin. O'Brien is supposed to be conducting repairs so as to blend in, but unfortunately he cannot tell what is what, as all is cross-circuited and rewired. Bashir jokes that it sounds like one of O'Brien's repair jobs. Both are then interrupted by a young engineer who wonders why they are working at that panel, because Scotty had told him to do it. He then wonders why they need a doctor to repair a power relay. Bashir makes up a story about checking O'Brien for stress and, after O'Brien accidentally pulls out a circuit that darkens the whole deck (and quickly replaces it) tells O'Brien he has seen enough and that they need to go to sickbay. O'Brien tells the engineer he would appreciate if he did not mention this to anyone. The engineer says he will not, and expresses his hopes that O'Brien feels better soon.
On K-7, Worf enters the bar and sees Odo sitting at a table. Worf tells Odo he has finished searching the primary habitat levels. Before he can get any farther, he notices a trilling sound and demands to know, "What is that noise?" Odo says the sound is very soothing; he holds the tribble up as it squeals at Worf, who disgustedly recognizes it.
Act Three Edit
Odo has Worf sit down before he attracts any further attention. Sitting down, Worf asks where Odo got it; he tells Worf that he got it from one Cyrano Jones, who said that tribbles like everyone – but apparently not Worf, a feeling which Worf shares. He calls the tribble a "detestable creature," noting that feeding a tribble more than the smallest morsel will cause prolific reproduction. Worf tells Odo how tribbles were considered mortal enemies of the Klingon Empire, which Odo is amazed to hear, finding it hard to believe that a simple tribble could be someone's "mortal enemy." Worf further explains that the Empire considered tribbles to be an ecological menace and that many warriors were sent out to kill any and all tribbles that they could find. Once the tribble homeworld was located, a Klingon armada obliterated it. According to Worf, tribbles were considered extinct by the end of the 23rd century, which Odo sarcastically calls "another glorious chapter in Klingon history," and then proceeds to ask Worf mockingly, "Tell me, do they still sing songs about The Great Tribble Hunt?"
Before Worf can say anything else, the station goes to red alert. The same has happened on the Enterprise. Seeing everyone rush to battle stations, Dax asks Sisko what they should do; he says they should do the same. They find an empty turbolift and Sisko contacts the Defiant, or at least he tries to; he slaps the insignia on his uniform out of habit, expecting it to be the working combadge that it is not. After a moment of realization, he pulls out the old-style communicator and this time successfully contacts the Defiant. Kira reports that a Klingon D7-class battle cruiser has dropped out of warp and is approaching the station. Sisko asks if the Klingons have locked weapons, but Kira says they have not as yet. Recognizing something familiar, Dax asks Kira to identify the Klingon vessel; she identifies it as the IKS Gr'oth. Dax immediately recognizes it as Koloth's ship and she tells Sisko that Koloth is not here to attack. She remembers Koloth telling her about how he once traded insults with Kirk on a space station near the Federation-Klingon border and how he regretted never getting to face Kirk in battle. Kira then reports that the Klingons just beamed two people to the station manager's office. Dax remembers one of them being Koloth, and asks Sisko if they could beam over to K-7, as they know that Darvin was there a short time ago. However, Sisko refuses and tells Kira to contact O'Brien and have him and Bashir prepare to transport to the station. Dax wants to see Koloth and points out that it is not as if he would recognize her, but Sisko stands firm. After closing the channel with Kira, Dax says it would have been fun, but Sisko corrects her: it would have been "too much fun."
Sisko informs the investigators that Dax was indeed correct. The Klingons only wanted shore leave, and Captain Kirk allowed the Klingons to beam over in small groups. Once the red alert ceases, everyone resumes their search for Darvin.
Kira contacts O'Brien and Bashir on the Enterprise, telling them the next band shift in the Enterprise's scan cycle is coming up. O'Brien tells her they will be ready. He and Bashir duck into a turbolift, but Lieutenant Watley is there with them again. She notices that Bashir has left the flap open on his tricorder, thereby draining power. He closes it and thanks her for the tip. Watley asks Bashir if he is a doctor; he replies in the affirmative. She says that she just transferred over from the USS Lexington and O'Brien, acting as a regular member of the crew, welcomes her aboard. Watley tells Bashir that she will be in sickbay the next day at 15:00 hours for her physical, and tells him her name as she walks out of the turbolift. Bashir recognizes her name as his great-grandmother's last name and wonders if it could be her, which O'Brien scoffs at, as the odds of that happening are astronomically small. Since no one ever met his great-grandfather, he then begins wondering if he is supposed to meet with her later in a predestination paradox and become his own great-grandfather. O'Brien accuses Bashir of being ridiculous, but he begins to convince himself that if he does not meet with Watley, he may not ever even be born. Just then, Kira calls and asks O'Brien if they are ready for transport; the Chief's reply: "Are we ever!" Bashir denies being able to wait to get back to Deep Space 9 and watch O'Brien's reaction when he finds out Bashir was never born, a comment which causes a smirk from O'Brien as they beam out.
Elsewhere on the Enterprise, Sisko and Dax are near another panel, pretending to work on it, when Dax looks up, sees Captain Kirk and Commander Spock walking toward an intercom close to them, and gets Sisko's attention. They look for a moment. Then Sisko reminds her they are supposed to be only maintenance crew members doing their jobs. But Dax cannot help looking as Kirk deals with the intercom transmission. She notes how he is so much more handsome in person; Sisko tells Dax how Kirk had a reputation for being a ladies' man, but she reveals herself to be referring to Spock instead. At that, Sisko closes the panel, takes Dax by the hand, and they walk away from Kirk and Spock. Dax is amazed that Sisko does not want to meet Kirk. Sisko calls that the farthest thing from his mind, as they have a job to do. Dax then reminds Sisko about how Kirk is one of the most famous captains in Starfleet history. Sisko then admits that indeed he would like to meet Kirk, shake his hand, and ask him about fighting the Gorn on Cestus III. That, however, is not the reason they are there. Dax concedes Sisko's point, but laments that as she remembers this time period, it is difficult for her not to want to be part of it again. At that point the turbolift opens and they enter.
Bashir and O'Brien enter the bar on K-7, whereupon they good-naturedly tease Odo and Worf for sitting at the bar while they were crawling through conduits on the Enterprise and the station. Odo says they believe that Darvin will return and Bashir picks up on the raktajino hint, a clue that others might have missed. Before they can say anything else, Chekov, Scotty, and Freeman enter. O'Brien is amazed, having mistaken Freeman for Kirk. Worf agrees that it would be an honor to meet Kirk. O'Brien suggests buying Kirk a drink, but Odo reminds them they cannot, and O'Brien agrees, as altering the time line would be too great a risk to take. The waitress comes up and asks them what they want, including a warning not to dare ask her for a raktajino. She then points out the Klingons when Odo asks who else had ordered a raktajino, but they fail to recognize the Klingons as such, since they look nothing like Worf or any other Klingons that the crew had met. When they act confused, the waitress decides they have had enough and walks away. Everyone at the table then looks over at Worf, wondering what's going on. Worf tells them that those are Klingons, and that it is a long story that Klingons do not discuss with outsiders. Meanwhile, a Klingon named Korax has spent his time loudly insulting Kirk, trying to get a rise out of the Enterprise officers. Chekov stands up to fight, but Scotty restrains him, saying they can take a few insults. O'Brien is impressed at how "Kirk" (Freeman) is ignoring Korax. At that moment, a confused Bashir asks if that is really Kirk, and O'Brien says it is, but then Bashir points out that the man is only wearing lieutenant's stripes. Odo says they have more problems at the moment than a case of mistaken identity. Just then Korax begins insulting the Enterprise herself, which quickly gets under Scott's skin – he is the engineer, after all. When Korax, who had called the Enterprise a "sagging old rust-bucket designed like a garbage scow," clarifies his statement by claiming, not that the Enterprise should be hauling garbage, but instead that it should be hauled away, as garbage, Scott slowly stands up and punches him. Every Klingon and Starfleet officer stand up immediately and then, despite Odo's efforts to stop them, Bashir, O'Brien, and Worf all stand up. Everyone ends up in the huge brawl in the bar. When the door opens to admit more Enterprise security, Odo notices Darvin in the background and knocks a Klingon off of Worf so they can both give chase to Darvin. Meanwhile, caught up in the fight, Bashir and O'Brien fail to notice Worf and Odo's departure and are themselves, shortly thereafter, arrested by the security officers and taken into custody along with the other crew members who were involved.
Act Four Edit
In Sisko's office, the investigators are not happy, as regulations clearly state that Starfleet officers must take all precautions in taking minimal part in historical events. Sisko admits that they made a mistake, but it caused no alteration of the timeline. Dulmur is not so convinced, and goes so far as to point out that this could be an alternate timeline as far as they know, but Sisko says that if they had altered history, they would have known immediately upon their return. After exasperatedly wondering out loud why everyone he interviews always has to mention that particular fact, Lucsly bids Sisko to continue.
Sisko tells them that instead of going to the brig, the arrested officers were taken in for questioning. Bashir and O'Brien find themselves in a line in front of Kirk, who wants to know who started the fight. Kirk asks O'Brien who started the fight; O'Brien tells Kirk he does not know. Likewise, Chekov tells Kirk he does not know who started it. When no one confesses, Kirk confines everyone to quarters until he finds out who started it. After they are dismissed, O'Brien and Bashir walk away as quickly as possible. O'Brien is astounded that, of all the people in the lineup, Kirk asked him about the fight and that, even more astonishingly, he ended up lying to him! O'Brien says he wishes Keiko could have seen it. Accidentally stepping on a tribble, Bashir wonders who left it out in the corridor alone. But rounding the corner, O'Brien realizes that the tribble is actually far from alone.
Meanwhile, Odo and Worf have captured Darvin in the midst of the fight on K-7 and have beamed him back to the Defiant. Odo tells Darvin that he will face some very serious charges when they return, but Darvin says they would not dare put one of the greatest heroes of the Klingon Empire in the brig, to which Worf angrily tells Darvin he is no hero to the Empire. But Darvin says he will be one soon, and wants his statue in the Hall of Warriors to have him standing with Kirk's head in one hand and a dead tribble in the other. Worf grabs Darvin and demands to know what Darvin did: did he hire someone to kill Kirk, or sabotage the Enterprise? But Darvin says that though he did nothing like that, Kirk's death will have a certain poetic justice to it.
Shortly thereafter, Sisko, who is still on the Enterprise with Dax, is amazed to hear from Odo that Darvin has planted a bomb in a tribble. Odo describes it as revenge from Darvin, as in the original timeline Kirk noticed how a tribble reacted to the younger Darvin and realized he was a Klingon. While Darvin has obviously refused to reveal the bomb's location, he did say it was set to go off within the hour. Dax suggests they risk going to the bridge and using the internal sensors to scan the ship within minutes. Sisko agrees and orders everyone else to K-7 to search for the bomb. However, Odo suggests that Worf remain on the Defiant due to his mutual dislike of tribbles, to which Sisko agrees. However, O'Brien is concerned they may not be able to reach the station's internal sensors. Sisko tells him that then he will have to manually scan every tribble on the station. O'Brien, in disbelief, says there must be thousands. Bashir notes it could be hundreds of thousands, but Dax has already worked out the number as one million, seven hundred and seventy-one thousand, five hundred and sixty-one, starting with one tribble, producing an average litter of ten every twelve hours over a period of three days. Sisko tells everyone they have their orders and closes the channel.
Later on the bridge, Sisko is sitting at a station and Dax is standing over by the engineering station when Kirk comes onto the bridge. He tries to sit in his chair, but ends up accidentally sitting on a tribble. Removing the tribble, Kirk looks over at Dax who smiles and shrugs at him. He then calls Dr. McCoy to the bridge. Dax steps over and tells Sisko that she has reworked the sensor interface. Sisko scans the bridge. No explosives are found, which relieves Dax as she almost expected the tribble Kirk sat on to explode. Nothing is found on the first six decks either. Just then, McCoy comes up to the bridge and begins talking to Kirk. Dax seems to recognize him and Sisko identifies him as McCoy, the ship's doctor. Just then, Dax recognizes him, having met him when he was a medical student at "Ole Miss." Sisko asks if it was Curzon who met him; she says it was actually Emony, when she was on Earth judging a gymnastics competition. Dax tells Sisko that McCoy had the hands of a surgeon and that she knew he would be a doctor. Her smile suggests their acquaintance might have been more than purely social. Sisko is rescued from having to respond by the completion of the scan– there are no explosives aboard. Dax, stating the obvious, says that the bomb must be on K-7.
Act Five Edit
In the bar on K-7, Odo, Bashir and O'Brien are searching through tribbles frantically when Odo gets a call from Sisko telling them the bomb is not on the Enterprise – thus, it must be over there. Unfortunately, Odo reports that they have been able to scan only two decks so far. When Sisko offers to send more people over from the Defiant, Odo tells him it is no man-power shortage; rather, it is that the tribbles are multiplying so fast that they cannot keep up with them. Dax suggests that she and Sisko stay close to Kirk, as Darvin likely will have put the bomb someplace he knows Kirk will be in the next half hour and, as a result, Kirk may lead them right to it. Odo says they will keep scanning the tribbles for now.
Sisko and Dax get set up in the recreation room when Kirk and Spock come in. Kirk, upon ordering his chicken sandwich and coffee, sees that the tribbles are in all the food slots. Kirk tells Spock, "I want these things off the ship. I don't care if it takes every man we've got; I want them off the ship!" Scott comes in with an armful of tribbles and tells them the tribbles are in the machinery and probably in all the other food dispensers as well, probably having gotten there through one of the air vents. Spock realizes there are similar vents on the station... "and in the storage compartments!" Kirk realizes, interrupting him. Sisko is given a clue then, and he and Dax beam to K-7 and climb down into one of the storage compartments to begin scanning tribbles for the explosive. Sisko notes that most of the tribbles are dead, as the grain has been poisoned. Dax detects a faint tricobalt signature, indicating the bomb is in the compartment somewhere. They begin scanning through the tribbles when they hear a strange, multi-toned beeping sound. As it turns out, that sound is Kirk, outside, trying to open the overhead hatch leading into the storage compartment. He finally does get it open – and ends up being buried in tribbles. Sisko and Dax see the hatch open, and as it turns out, Kirk's opening the hatch all but exposes the bomb-laden tribble in the storage compartment. Dax realizes it is directly in front of them. Sisko begins searching frantically for the bomb, tossing tribbles away as he scans them, some of them falling through the hatchway and landing on Kirk. Down on the floor, Nilz Baris threatens to hold an inquiry against Kirk, stating there must be thousands of tribbles. Kirk laments it must be hundreds of thousands. Spock comes up with an exact figure of 1,771,561, using the exact formula that Dax had used earlier. In the hold, Sisko and Dax hear this, look at each other and simply shrug. Just then, Sisko finds the bomb-loaded tribble. He places the "tribble bomb" on his tricorder, contacts Kira, and has the Defiant beam the bomb into space, where it explodes harmlessly. As they start to get up, Dax tosses the last tribble in her hand down, where it falls through the hatchway and onto Kirk, causing him to ask in anguish, "Close that door!"
Sisko tells the investigators that after the bomb exploded history continued uninterrupted and, thanks to a tribble's characteristic "alarm chirps", and McCoy's tricorder scans, Kirk exposed Darvin as a Klingon agent exactly as he had done before. By the time the DS9 personnel returned to the Defiant, Kira had figured out how to use the Orb to return the ship back to its proper time. Back in Sisko's office, the investigators ask if that is when they returned to the future, but Sisko is forced to admit that it was not, as he realized that there was one more thing he had to do – something he had thought of since he first saw the Enterprise on the Defiant's viewscreen. Sisko goes to the Enterprise's bridge and brings a duty roster over to Kirk, seated in his chair, for the latter's approval. As Kirk looks it over, he looks over at Sisko, and asks his name. Sisko tells Kirk his real name and says that he has been on temporary assignment on the Enterprise. Before Sisko left, he just wanted to tell Kirk it was an honor serving with him. Kirk smiles, nods at him and then tells Sisko, "All right, lieutenant, carry on." Sisko thanks the legendary captain and leaves the bridge, while Spock and Uhura watch.
Back in his office, Sisko tells Dulmur and Lucsly that if they want to put a reprimand in his file for that, then they are welcome to do so. They both stand up and tell Sisko they will have to review everything before making a final recommendation, but it does not seem as if any harm was done. Dulmur says he probably would have done the same thing himself, given the chance. Sisko walks them out of the office; Lucsly tells them he will have their full report in about a month, but that he should have nothing to worry about. Sisko admits he is happy to hear it, and the investigators then quietly leave the station, heading directly for their ship at Docking Port Seven. Dax asks Sisko if it went well; he says it did. Kira tells Sisko that Odo wants to see them on the Promenade.
Odo asks Sisko if he told the investigators; Sisko says they did not ask, and that he is open to suggestions. Dax quips that they could build a new station. It turns out that Odo brought his tribble back with him, and that it reproduced. True to Worf's warnings about them, a considerable number of the creatures are now all over the Promenade – particularly Quark's Bar, with one even sitting on Quark's head.
Memorable quotes Edit
"I guess you boys from Temporal Investigations are... always on time."
- Dax, upon the arrival of Dulmur and Lucsly; both, having likely heard the joke many times before, respond with disgusted expressions
"That's..."
"The Enterprise."
- Dax and Sisko, as the Defiant viewscreen clears to reveal the legendary ship
"Be specific, Captain – which Enterprise? There have been five."
"Six."
"This was the first Enterprise, Constitution-class."
"His ship."
"James T. Kirk."
"The one and only!"
"Seventeen separate temporal violations – the biggest file on record."
"The man was a menace."
- Dulmur, Lucsly, and Sisko
"Don't you know anything about this period in time?"
"I'm a doctor, not a historian."
"In the old days, operation officers wore red, science officers wore blue, command officers wore gold."
(showing herself off in her red skirt) "And women wore less."
"I think I'm going to like history."
- O'Brien, Bashir, Sisko and Dax, on changing into 23rd century Starfleet uniforms.
(referring to the tribbles) "They were once considered mortal enemies of the Klingon Empire."
"This? A mortal enemy of the Empire?"
"They were an ecological menace; a plague to be wiped out."
"Wiped out? What are you saying?"
"Hundreds of warriors were sent to track them down throughout the galaxy. An armada obliterated the tribbles' homeworld. By the end of the 23rd century, they had been eradicated."
"Another glorious chapter in Klingon history. Tell me, do they still sing songs of The Great Tribble Hunt?"
- Worf and Odo, about the tribbles and the destruction of their homeworld
"I had no idea."
"What?"
"He's so much more handsome in person. Those eyes!"
"Kirk had quite the reputation as a ladies' man."
"Not him...Spock."
(Sisko quickly shuts the panel he's pretending to work on and starts pushing Dax away) "Let's go."
- Dax and Sisko
"They are Klingons... and it is a long story."
"What happened? Some kind of genetic engineering?"
"A viral mutation?"
"We do not discuss it with outsiders."
- Worf, O'Brien, and Bashir, when the lack of cranial ridges on Kirk-era Klingons is noted (see Klingon augment virus)
(referring to the Enterprise) "That sagging old rust bucket is designed like a garbage scow. Half the quadrant knows it. That's why they're learning to speak Klingonese."
"Mr. Scott!"
"Laddie...don't you think you should...rephrase that?"
(mocking Scotty's accent) "You're right. I should." (normal voice) "I didn't mean to say that the Enterprise should be hauling garbage. I meant to say that it should be hauled away as garbage."
- Korax, Chekov and Scott, in front of Odo, Worf, Bashir and O'Brien
"Your men could've avoided that fight, Captain."
"Regulation 157, Section 3, Paragraph 18: Starfleet officers shall take all necessary precautions to minimize any participation in historical events."
"All right. It was a mistake. But there were no lasting repercussions."
"How do you know that? For all we know, we could be living in an alternate timeline."
"If my people had caused any changes in the timeline, we would have been the first to notice when we got back."
- Dulmur, Lucsly and Benjamin Sisko, about the fight on Space Station K-7
"So, your men were arrested."
"That's right. But instead of being taken to the brig, they were brought in for questioning."
- Dulmur and Benjamin Sisko, about Bashir and O'Brien being interrogated by Captain Kirk
"You are no hero to the Empire!"
"I will be. I've been thinking about my statue in the Hall of Warriors. I want it to capture my essence. Our statues can be so generic sometimes, don't you think?"
"I take it whatever your plan is, you've already set it in motion."
"I see myself standing with Kirk's head in one hand and a tribble in the other."
"What have you done?! Did you hire someone to kill him? Or did you sabotage the Enterprise?"
"Nothing so mundane. Let's just say that Kirk's death will have a certain poetic justice to it."
- Worf, Arne Darvin and Odo, on the plot to kill Captain Kirk
"McCoy... Leonard McCoy!... I met him when he was a student at Ole Miss... I had a feeling he'd become a Doctor – he had the hands of a surgeon."
- Dax, recognizing an old friend on the Enterprise bridge
"I'm not sure we can get to K-7's internal sensors."
"Then you will have to manually scan every tribble on the station."
"There must be thousands of them by now."
"Hundreds of thousands."
"One million, seven hundred seventy-one thousand, five hundred sixty-one. That's starting with one tribble with an average litter of ten every twelve hours. After three days..."
"Thank you. You have your orders, people. Sisko out."
- O'Brien, Sisko, Bashir, and Dax, during the briefing about the tribble bomb
(referring to the tribbles) "They seem to be gorged."
"Gorged?! On my grain?!! Kirk, I'm going to hold you responsible! There must be thousands of them!"
"Hundreds of thousands."
"One million, seven hundred seventy-one thousand, five hundred sixty-one. That's assuming one tribble, multiplying with an average litter of ten, producing a new generation every twelve hours over a period of three days."
"That's assuming that they got here three days ago."
"And allowing for the amount of grain consumed and the volume of the storage compartment."
- Spock, Baris and Kirk, repeating the same formula that Dax told Sisko earlier
"After the bomb was detonated, history continued uninterrupted, and thanks to the tribbles, Kirk was able to uncover the truth about Darvin."
- Sisko, on how Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy exposed Arne Darvin as a Klingon
"Excuse me, Captain. Here's tomorrow's duty roster for your approval."
"Lieutenant... uh, Lieutenant..."
"Benjamin Sisko, sir. I've been on temporary assignment here. Before I leave I just want to say... it's been an honor serving with you, sir."
"All right, Lieutenant. Carry on."
"Thank you, sir."
- Sisko and Kirk, just before Sisko returns to the Defiant
Background information Edit
Conceiving the episode Edit
"Trials and Tribble-ations" was conceived as a tribute to TOS, broadcast to coincide with Star Trek's 30th anniversary. When Paramount asked executive producer Ira Steven Behr to come up with a suitable story to mark the event, he and the writing staff of Deep Space Nine gathered together and began brainstorming for plot ideas. Behr toyed with the notion of hearkening back to the episode "Charlie X", since that installment was a favorite of Behr's and because actor Robert Walker – who had guest-starred as Charles Evans in the TOS episode – was still available. Skeptical that Walker would be interested in returning to Star Trek, this concept was discarded. (Star Trek Magazine issue 123, pp. 79–80)
An alternative idea, conceived by writer Ronald D. Moore, was to revisit Sigma Iotia II, from the episode "A Piece of the Action", where imitators of Kirk and Spock would be discovered as a social commentary on the Trekkie phenomenon. However, fellow writer René Echevarria wanted to revisit a classic episode using original footage. This was made possible by recent technological innovations, such as those used in the 1994 Robert Zemeckis movie Forrest Gump.
When the writers sat down to decide which episode to use, there was little question that " The Trouble with Tribbles " was not only arguably the most famous TOS episode but also an excellent choice in that it was relatively lighthearted compared to other well-known episodes such as " The City on the Edge of Forever ". In what Ira Steven Behr later described as the most incredible coincidence he has ever experienced, Behr and the other producers were at the Mulberry Street pizza parlor in Beverly Hills, discussing the possibility of bringing original TOS actors back for this episode, Behr mentioned Charlie Brill (Arne Darvin), who he then spotted at the counter alongside his wife. Although Behr was hesitant to discuss the matter directly with Brill (due to the complications that normally entail Hollywood negotiations), Brill was greatly honored to be given a chance to make history twice and felt that Gene Roddenberry would be proud. Behr later joked, in a DVD audio commentary for this episode, that the remarkable turn of events proved God was a DS9 fan, while Brill stated that he was happy he hadn't gone out for Chinese food instead.
The difference in appearance of TOS and TNG/DS9/VOY Klingons, first recognized as canon here (it was not broached in the DS9 second season episode " Blood Oath "), was addressed in the Star Trek: Enterprise episodes " Affliction " and " Divergence ". There was a conscious effort to keep Worf at a distance from TOS-era Klingons due to the obvious make-up differences. Ronald Moore wrote Worf's explanation (or lack thereof) into the script because he felt that there was "not a single explanation that's less than preposterous" for the make-up differences and he believed that fans could figure out why the Klingons looked so different. Bashir and O'Brien's dialogue concerning the issue had them suggesting reasons, "genetic engineering" or "viral mutation", that had long been proposed by fans as the reasons for the differences. When the Enterprise episodes were filmed, the final canon explanation for the difference combined both their suppositions.
For a more detailed explanation, see Klingon augment virus.
Combining the past with the present Edit
The writers were initially skeptical about whether creating an episode such as this with the relatively limited budget of a television series would be possible. However, when the visual effects team showed them a clip from "The Trouble with Tribbles," they were unable to tell that an extra person had been added to the scene because the blending was so seamless.
Contrary to the normal technique of chroma key (better known as "blue screen" or "green screen") shooting, in which the new footage is shot with a blue or green background in order to allow the computer to easily place the characters into another piece of footage, the scene in which Dax and Sisko are working behind Kirk and Spock was shot with an actual set background and then placed into the existing footage. This was due to the fact that there was no panel for Sisko and Dax to pretend to repair in the original shot.
Creating the footage for scenes such as the fight with the Klingons took almost a full week to shoot due to the number of components involved, the complexity of staging, and other minor details.
More crude blue screen techniques had actually already been employed in the Star Trek franchise for combining new performances with pre-existing footage; it had been employed previously in the Orlando, Florida venue of the Star Trek Adventure live-performance attraction.
franchise for combining new performances with pre-existing footage; it had been employed previously in the Orlando, Florida venue of the live-performance attraction. Everything from the TOS sets was created faithfully right down to the blinking lights on the bridge, which the crew recreated by freeze-framing and painstakingly examining the TOS footage. Everything from the turbolift control panels to the wall intercoms to basic surface textures and back-lit graphics in the corridors were reproduced exactly as they originally appeared. Even the pattern of the overhead graphics in the Enterprise corridors is identical to the original. However there were some minor details that didn't come out as planned. In his foreword for the novelization, David Gerrold – who wrote the original episode – spoke about his involvement in production on the anniversary episode. Among other things, he tells how Bob Justman pointed out, during a visit to the set, that both the wall panelling and the orange mesh screen in front of the set ladder were not right. Michael Okuda explained that those were the only two things they could not perfectly recreate, as the company that made the reflective plastic had gone out of business ten years earlier and that nobody else produced that kind. ( Trials and Tribble-ations, "Introduction")
as they originally appeared. Even the pattern of the overhead graphics in the corridors is identical to the original.
Production Edit
Once this episode was green-lit, an immediate question faced by the production staff was when it would air. The actual 30th anniversary of Star Trek was 8 September 1996, but if the show aired that week, it would make it the first episode of the fifth season. The producers discussed the possibility of showing this episode as a kind of stand-alone show before returning to established chronology the following week with " Apocalypse Rising " but they ultimately decided to abandon this idea. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)
Reception Edit
Trivia Edit
Some speculative possibilities include, but are not limited to: beaming aboard a 20th century Earth Air Force pilot (allegedly "erased") beaming aboard a 20th century guard (allegedly "erased") breaking into a military base in 1969 and getting caught (allegedly "erased") stealing clothes and clashing with law enforcement in 1930 beaming aboard two NYC policemen in 1968 breaking into a military base in 1968, getting caught, and beaming out risking being seen doing so helping to sabotage a rocket launch in 1968 being involuntarily transported into Sarpeidon's past giving information about transparent aluminum to Dr. Nichols the president of Plexicorp (although this can be attributed more to Scotty than Kirk, with Scotty speculating that they were merely preserving history by providing the original inventor the means to create it) bringing two whales from 1986 to save Earth from the cetacean probe bringing back Gillian Taylor to the 23rd century leaving Klingon technology on board the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) (Chekov throws his non-functioning phaser at his captors while trying to escape) allowing Bones to cure a patient in 1986 with 23rd century medicine not concealing use of a phaser and a de-cloaking of a Klingon Bird-of-Prey in 1986 Temporal Investigations may not know about this, as McCoy may be unaware his phaser went missing and a homeless man killed himself with it taking work, money, housing and food that others would have been employed at, spent (or saved) or consumed after Kirk saved the USS Enterprise-B from being destroyed in the Nexus, he was swept into the energy ribbon. Although from his point of view, Kirk was altering future events, he technically went into the past by agreeing to assist Captain Picard stop Soran. However, Picard altered past events by preventing the destruction of the Veridian System and the survivors of the USS Enterprise-D. Kirk would have known that by leaving the timeline, he would be assisting Picard alter the timeline by preventing the torpedo launch.
Cast trivia Edit
The Enterprise Edit
Media Edit
Award nominations Edit
This episode was nominated for the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. It was also nominated for three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects, Outstanding Art Direction for a Series, and Outstanding Hairstyling for a Series (which was won by VOY : " Fair Trade ").
Remastered information Edit
Paramount announced the HD remastered version of this episode would be included on the TOS Season 2 Blu-ray collection. [2]
Video and DVD releases Edit
The sleeves of DS9 videos up to season 6 display stardates for the episodes within (even when none appear) – the 23rd century stardate mentioned in the episode is used on this volume. The sleeve of this release displayed Sisko, Bashir and Dax in 23rd century uniforms. The division insignia within the Enterprise badges are reversed in the case of Dax and Bashir.
As part of the US VHS collection, Star Trek - Tribbles Gift Set
As part of the DS9 Season 5 DVD collection
The usual ambient sounds of Deep Space 9 Ops on the episode's menu are replaced by the sounds of Tribbles cooing.
The Blu-ray collection advertises the episode as being in high definition.
Starring Edit
Also starring Edit
Guest stars Edit
Actors appearing in the original Star Trek episode Edit
Uncredited co-stars Edit
Uncredited co-stars appearing in the original Star Trek episode Edit
Stunt doubles Edit
Stunt doubles appearing in the original Star Trek episode Edit
References Edit
air vent; Alpha Quadrant; alternate timeline; Antarean glow water; auxiliary communications jun
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antenna to seek out unsecure networks. In 2004, I did a bit of this while visiting a friend in Los Angeles, and despite that being ten years ago, the sheer number of wireless spots that popped-up on my laptop was simply jaw-dropping. You can only imagine how things have changed today.
Coco the Smart Collar-wearing Cat
Gene has dubbed his collar the "WarKitteh", and it cost him less than $100 to make. He admits that such a collar isn't a security threat, but more of a goofy hack. Of course, it could be used for shadier reasons: People could send their cat out with the same collar, identify open Wi-Fi connections, and thanks to the bundled GPS chip remembering their exact locations, they could be later visited to perform some less-than-honest tasks on someone else's Wi-Fi. What I can't help but wonder is how many open Wi-Fi connections out there could lead to network shares - I sure wouldn't mind tossing a how-to on someone's C:\ telling them how they could secure their wireless.
Ultimately, what this really highlights is the fact that there are way too many unsecured/unprotected Wi-Fi spots out there, and the fact of the matter is, they could be used for illegal purposes. If something illegal is done on your line, it's going to be awfully difficult to prove that it was an outside party's doing, and it might not even matter since you were careless enough to leave that line open.
Regardless of any of that, one thing's for certain: The WarKitteh is undeniably ameowzing.Jordan Henderson was at secondary school when Steven Gerrard made his first official steps as Liverpool captain - but 11 years on he's proud to be able to label the Reds talisman a friend and role model.
As we celebrate the anniversary of the day Sami Hyypia passed the armband to Gerrard, Henderson has offered a stunning, earnest tribute to his skipper, citing in particular the personal debt of gratitude he owes the 34-year-old.
October 15, 2003 brought Kopites a first glimpse of Gerrard in the coveted role as he strode out at Anfield for his first official game as captain - a 3-0 UEFA Cup first-round second-leg win over Slovenian side Olimpija Ljubljana.
More than a decade on, Gerrard still leads by example - and Henderson belives the No.8's off-pitch personality is as vital to his continued presence as the phenomenal milestones the Scouser continues to achieve on the field.
"Stevie's probably not only the best captain for Liverpool and before with England, but in the game itself," the 24-year-old explained in an interview with the official Liverpool FC magazine.
"Being around him has benefited me a lot. It's been huge. Every day I watch him. It's his desire to improve. He's been the best and most influential player here for such a long time but he still wants to get better.
"He takes training really seriously and sets the tone for how things should be. Everyone else follows. He does a lot of things that people on the outside don't see. On the pitch he's a great leader. You can see the goals, the passes and the tackles he makes; the way he inspires the team.
"But off the pitch he conducts himself brilliantly too. He's a genuinely nice person and everybody in the squad knows they can go to him. The most important thing is he puts the team in front of everybody else including himself. The most important thing is the team."
Henderson believes one of the most vital advances he has made since working alongside Gerrard at Melwood has been in learning to deal with the disappointments that can accompany playing at football's highest level.
"That was one of the biggest things that I needed to come to terms with when I first came here," admitted the midfielder. "I was 20, 21 when I joined and when you're young, you can dwell on things quite a lot. It's one area where I've improved a lot.
"At the end of the day you can't change what's happened. You can only influence what happens in the future. As long as you learn from mistakes, you'll be fine.
"When we have a bad result or I have a bad performance, it isn't nice. It hurts, it ruins your evening. But the next day you've got to move on, taking the negatives and the positives."Today due to the advanced use of Internet there are various speculations about the navigation menus. Navigation is the basic key element involved in the UI. We cannot even imagine any website without the navigation menu as there always exists a cluster of links which is located somewhere in the Web page. Depending upon which type of UI is being used even some boring and outdated menus can be of some use to us. Yet, we can note that the changing trends are the dictators of rules so there will always be some room for favorite navigation menus. Here at TemplateToaster CSS menu maker, i bring you top 8 modern navigation menus or solutions.
1. Interactive navigation
This is one of the leading navigation menus where there are static scenes, virtual talks and interactive videos which are all spiced with the pragmatic features which are powered by these non-standard menus that catch eyes. It is a huge hit menu as it promises it’s users that the website shall be more engaging, intricate and impressive despite the fact they are suffering from non-compatibility with devices and browsers. A leading example to this can be the ocean Elzy project which was a pioneer in art projects that brought this menu to life.
This menu thus offers you an opportunity to make your site much more interesting and interactive by grabbing a lot of attention. So, time to indulge yourself in an amazing interactive walk!
2. Sidebar static navigation
These were trending in the market some years ago. Although it is said that these menus give more importance to compact and sleek solutions, we see that many online magazines and blogs still are deriving benefits from these menus. Planex will utilize a static bright color panel which will be placed on the left side which would display all important links effectively. On the other hand, the right side can be used for scrolling down. Thus it helps the menu to stay in the same place.
Thus, using this many links can be seen in a bird’s view giving visual weight to numerous links at a time and which can be easily accessible. Thus, the users feel comfier with this menu as all the links are available at your fingertips.
3. Navigation in websites which are parallax powered
These projects are usually driven by the parallax opting for plain and simple navigation which is graphic based. Circles are often accompanied by titles helping viewers by not allowing them to wander about. These circles utilize several lines like structures corresponding with the titles and thus blend with surrounding environment effortlessly.
This approach also complements various designs giving users some important visual hints helping them to stay on the same site and not get lost and wander around!
4. Hamburger menu
This Navigation menu is the top choice of corporates when it is the matter of bringing all navigation links to one place. This menu is known to be stylish, dynamic, mobile friendly and subtle. So, this type of menu grabs a lot of attention by people as it is stylish and pragmatic. It is best suited for a geometric feeling or a techno vibe prevailing on the Web page.
5. Multimedia based menu
Videos and images are often used for supporting a variety of visual devices for items in the menu links. All thanks and regards to the modern technologies which allow us to incorporate loads and loads of multimedia even without having to sacrifice the productivity, accessibility, and functionalities. Thus this kind of navigation based on multimedia is trending towards becoming the most widely used navigation menu for its dynamic and lavish nature.
This also includes a hamburger button and a footer navigation which helps in taking up entire screen shedding the focus upon only the important or vital parts of the description. Therefore, this navigation menu helps the website to be visually intriguing and appealing.
6. Centered layout Navigation
This navigation is likely to be scattered around the circumference of the welcome section giving an original and fresh look. It is well known for providing lots of free space to its owner in order to maneuver. But, this navigation solution comes with a specific drawback being it consists only of four particular items. So, anything more than 4 items will not be accepted by this kind of Navigation.
The homely feeling here becomes dominant helping to achieve an attractive and impressive impact on the users. This also helps to enhance the consistency in the field of anesthetics.
7. Huge drop downs
Huge and giant drop downs are always a big yes to those websites engaged in presenting industries like online newspapers, popular sports brands and multinational e-stores. This menu is a multi-functional and complex component which extends over the screen entirely covering the breadth. It is well known for balancing images, videos, and texts or even some additional features like a shopping cart which is trending on shopping sites such as amazon, eBay etc.
So, this one is trending now and has an enormous drop-down menus covering various sorts of information. Adding to this feature is the fact that it works pretty fast even when the chances of page becoming nonresponsive is comparatively high.
8. Footer navigation
This kind of menu is more similar to another traditional menu known as the streamlined bar. The difference is that this takes place at the bottom of Web page sticking to its previous position as the users scroll down. It is called as the footer navigation for the same reason. Although most of us are accustomed to the tradition of searching for the menu on the upper part of UI, this one though stands different from them benefits some concepts which would distinctively require such kind of feature.
Thus, we can conclude that although there are numerous ways of showing navigation ranging from traditional or conventional streamlined navbar to hamburger menus, it is the individual choice of the users to choose between them weighing the pros and cons. The trends here are really dynamic changing every year and bring a whole new lot of menus. What type of menu best suits your needs is again a matter of choice!!!Every Object in Mirror’s Edge Catalyst Has a Purpose, Says DICE
DICE has said that every object in its upcoming title, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, has a use and isn’t there “just to be pretty.” Speaking to GamesMaster magazine, Senior Producer Sara Jansson said that unlike the first game, players will be able to interact with all the objects in Catalyst‘s environment as Faith.
No object in the environment is there just to be pretty. It’s there because it’s a gameplay object. It’s something you interact with. In the first game you could only springboard from certain objects. In Catalyst, you can do it from any object of the right height. It adds to the freedom.
DICE previously said that the developers borrowed elements that they liked from the first game and built upon them. In the process, guns were removed completely and first-person free-running is being improved.
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst releases on February 23, 2016 in North America and February 25, 2016 in Europe. For more on the game, check out our previous coverage.
[Source: GamesMaster via GamesRadar]When Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward announced in March that it would start issuing same-sex marriage certificates to gay and lesbian couples, much of Japan — and in particular, its LGBT community — stood up and took notice.
The international media, too, has doggedly covered the story, often using it as a starting point before going on to examine the numerous obstacles the lesbian and gay communities still face in Japan.
After all, although Shibuya Ward’s certificates will guarantee couples certain rights within the ward itself, the marriages will not be legally valid nationally, and the ward has no power to force businesses to recognize the couples’ same-sex partnerships.
But are Japanese laws as rigid as some of these reports make out?
True, for now it is not possible for gay couples to get legally married in Japan, nor to have a marriage registered abroad recognized as being on a par with those between heterosexual couples.
However, while things may be moving too slowly in the right direction to satisfy many Japanese same-sex couples, things are considerably better in Japan for those where both partners are not Japanese.
Take French nationals Mustapha Mokrane and Raul Montero, who were joined together in a civil partnership — a union that offers many of the legal benefits of marriage — in Marseille in December 1999. After France legalized gay marriage in 2013, Mokrane and Montero were wed, and they are now registered as a married couple with their local ward office in Tokyo. Mokrane, the executive director of an international scientific program, has a working visa. Montero has a “designated activities” visa that lists him as a dependent of Mokrane.
The couple’s path to this life in Japan began when Mokrane, then working as a geneticist in France, was offered a job in Japan in March 2012. At that point, he immediately began looking at ways for Montero to join him.
Initially turning to the Japanese Embassy in Paris, progress was confusing, with different officials offering different information. Immigration in Tokyo, on the other hand, was more honest about the ambiguities.
“I was told that Japan had no official stance,” says Mokrane. “Recognition of same-sex relationships, including our civil partnership at the time, was still a gray zone as far as the Immigration Bureau was concerned.”
Following their actual marriage in France in November 2013, immigration officials told Mokrane that they could not guarantee that Montero would be issued a spousal or any other form of visa if he applied for one. Instead, says Mokrane, “They suggested that Raul enter as a student or on a working visa and then apply for change of status once he was in the country.”
This he did, and the rest is history: Montero was eventually given a designated-activities visa, with the accompanying certificate of residence status listing him as a dependent of Mokrane, in much the same way as many foreign spouses of heterosexual non-Japanese residents are.
Originally a communications officer for an NGO, Montero is now working freelance on website development, and the couple live near Ogikubo in Tokyo’s Suginami Ward.
At the local ward office, Mokrane surprised the staff by trying to register his same-sex spouse on his certificate of residency in the first place, but then he himself was surprised by the help he received: The head of the section first offered to register them as a household of two residents, but then suggested they apply as a married couple, providing they had a translated document proving a ceremony had taken place. Mokrane says the city official was “very efficient and sensitive.”
There have been a number of practical day-to-day benefits of Montero now being registered as Mokrane’s husband at the ward office. Mokrane’s company pays him a dependent allowance, and Montero was also able to get a family-member credit card on Mokrane’s account at CitiBank (the bank in Tokyo said it was the first time they had issued one to a same-sex partner). And, just in case anything were to happen to Mokrane, he was also able to add Montero to his current rental contract when it was renewed in 2014, something real estate agents will rarely do for nonfamily members.
Yet, as easy as obtaining a visa was in Japan, neither man can return to the country of his birth with a same-sex dependent in tow. Mokrane, originally from Algeria, says he could be fined and potentially face years in jail for being in a same-sex relationship. For Montero, born in Venezuela, although he would not be locked up for his relationship with Mokrane, the laws on same-sex marriage are still “in limbo.”
By comparison, life in Japan as an openly gay couple is surprisingly easy.
“Homosexuality and sexuality in general in Japanese society is open,” says Mokrane. “There is societal and family pressure to conform to social norms at times, but no persecution. We can live freely and we are openly affectionate, but don’t go out to shock people.”
For couples where one partner is Japanese, the other a foreign national, things are not so clear- cut.
Yuki Keiser is a 40-year-old Japanese citizen of Japanese-Swiss parentage, born and raised in Switzerland. She moved to Japan in 2001 but has lived in San Francisco since late 2013 with her now-wife, Shawn, an American citizen and fourth-generation Japanese immigrant.
At the time they first “met” — online in 2010 — Keiser was in Japan working as a writer and photographer, and Shawn, a film producer, was stateside. So, the couple started a long-distance relationship.
Until 2013, the U.S. Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) meant that even if individual U.S. states recognized same-sex marriages, Keiser would not have been able to move to the States as a spouse of Shawn according to federal law.
“This lasted until June 2013,” says Keiser, “when the Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of DOMA as unconstitutional, requiring the government to recognize same-sex marriages registered in any state where such unions are legal.”
Keiser applied for a green card in October of that year, citing her plan to marry Shawn in December in California.
“Three months later my visa was approved and today we live together in San Francisco,” she explains.
Keiser does, however sometimes think of Japan when considering her future and, when interviewed, she admitted to not being sure about the current state of play in Tokyo.
“I did try and get our marriage recorded on my family register in Japan, but this was refused,” she says. And as is so often the case when dealing with bureaucracy, she says she “couldn’t get a clear answer on the phone.”
However, inquiries made to the Immigration Bureau by a reporter posing as a same-sex foreign spouse of a Japanese citizen seeking a visa did yield clear — albeit ultimately conflicting —answers. In two cases, officials on the bureau’s information line said that a non-Japanese married legally abroad to a same-sex Japanese partner could be granted a standard “spouse of Japanese national” visa upon request, as heterosexual foreign spouses of Japanese citizens are. The officials stressed that confirmation of this policy was not written anywhere on the Immigration Bureau’s website.
The third official contacted, however, suggested applying for a designated-activities visa, with the same-sex spouse to be listed as a dependent of their Japanese partner in the same way Mokrane and Montero are.
In contrast, an Immigration Bureau official contacted by The Japan Times contradicted the information provided by all three immigration help-line staff, saying obtaining any visa based on a same-sex relationship with a Japanese national was impossible, as Japanese law does not recognize same-sex marriages involving Japanese partners.
Regardless of what would-be applicants are told over the phone, this is the official Japanese government line, confirmed Kosuke Oie, an immigration lawyer at the Tokyo Public Law Office.
“In 2013 Immigration issued an internal memo to the effect that same-sex couples could be issued designated-activities visas for their spouse to be shown as a dependent,” Oie says, referring to couples where both partners are non-Japanese legally married overseas. But, he adds, “I am not sure about the (comments from) immigration staff regarding spousal visas being an option for legal same-sex partners of Japanese nationals, as under Japanese law a spouse is always recognized as a member of the opposite sex.”
One Japanese national affected directly by this interpretation of “spouse” is Yukiko Hosomi, a Shizuoka-born university employee who lives in Bristol, west England, with her British partner, Kaz Williams, a local government official.
“Currently there is no way to obtain a visa for my same-sex partner in Japan based on our relationship status,” says Hosomi. “We have been together over 15 years and became civil partners in 2012. We are considering changing this to a marriage, an option that only became possible in December 2014. I have heard of same-sex couples applying for a visa to stay in Japan with both being non-Japanese and getting visas to support this application, but they are being quiet about it for political reasons, it seems. But if it is the case of Japanese and non-Japanese, (the government) won’t do this.
“Some people have suggested (Kaz) could just get a working visa by teaching English, but she is a trained and qualified professional, so we don’t want to compromise her career just for the sake of getting a visa that is only temporary and does not provide stability,” Hosomi says. “I would definitely consider applying for an appropriate visa — if available — as both of us love Japan in so many ways. Also, I have a great concern about my aging parents as I am not able to live there to support them at the moment.”
Without any official figures, it is impossible to know how many Japanese citizens are in same-sex civil partnerships and marriages abroad to foreign partners. However, Keiser and Hosomi’s stories suggest there may be a significant number of Japanese out there who are unwilling to live in Japan while their partnerships are not recognized and their foreign partners are not entitled to the rights afforded to heterosexual couples.
In April, Japanese lesbian actresses Akane Sugimori and Ayaka Ichinose held a highly public — but strictly symbolic — wedding ceremony in front of news crews in Tokyo. Other same-sex marriages have also been held in Tokyo Disneyland and even at a Kyoto shrine, all invalid according to Japanese law.
“We held the wedding ceremony to that it might become easier for others to do the same in the future,” Sugimori said after her ceremony.
Shibuya’s move to grant same-sex marriage certificates is one small step in this direction, but until Japan changes its stance on unions involving its own citizens, same-sex marriages among foreigners carried out abroad will continue to grant non-Japanese gays and lesbians rights in Japan that their Japanese counterparts don’t have.
Additional reporting by Tomohiro Osaki. Your comments and story ideas: [email protected] has put in development Ballistic City, a futuristic drama directed and executive produced by Oblivion helmer Joseph Kosinski and written/executive produced by Travis Beacham, co-writer of another upcoming tentpole sci-fi movie, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim. Ballistic City is expected to be among the projects in development announced at AMC’s upfront event in New York today, along with Ashland, from writers Allison Anders and Terry Graham.
Ballistic City is described as “Blade Runner meets Battlestar Galactica” and tells the story of a former cop thrust into the criminal underworld of a city housed in a generational space ship destined for an unknown world. I hear the project is eyed as a potential companion to AMC’s genre blockbuster The Walking Dead. Kosinski, who previously directed Tron: Legacy, and Beacham, who also co-wrote Clash Of The Titans, executive produce with Anonymous Content’s Steve Golin, Bard Dorros and Michael Sugar. Following a strong international start with a $61 million haul last weekend, Tom Cruise–starrer Oblivion opens this Friday. Pacific Rim is being released in July. Kosinski is repped by Verve and Hirsch Wallerstein; Neacham is with WME, Anonymous Content and Hansen, Jacobson.
Set against the backdrop of the early 1950s Hollywood witch hunt, Ashland tells the story of Del, the destitute and desperate wife of a blacklisted screenwriter who moves the family to Ashland, a tiny mining town in Kentucky, where she must hide her family’s secrets and find a way to support her three children at the height of the Red Scare. The project was written on spec by Anders and Graham who will executive produce, with Anders attached to direct. Former UTA agent Shana Eddy-Grouf is co-executive producing. This marks the second project at AMC for Anders and Graham, repped by APA and managed by Ragna Nervik, who wrote another drama script, Western Quanah, in 2009. Anders’ episodic directing credits include Southland, The Mentalist and Sex And The City. She recently directed the upcoming Lifetime biopic Ring Of Fire: the June Carter Cash Story.CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan — In the early morning sunlight, the Afghan National Army, Afghan Uniformed Police and Afghan commando students at Afghanistan’s Joint Sustainment Academy Southwest located aboard Camp Leatherneck, start a short march from the classroom to the range to demonstrate what they have learned in the Afghan Small Arms Weapon Instructor Course.
They are preparing for the rocket propelled grenade range and it’s easy to see the excitement in all the students by the way they are quick to answer any question the Marine Corps instructors ask, the overall joy and smiles as each student picks up their rockets launcher and ammunition.
“Me and the other students were so happy to shoot rockets for the first time, and we were so excited to learn,” said Afghan National Army 1st Sgt. Baibola Habid, a student at the Afghan Small Arms Weapon Instructors Course.
Under the watchful eye of Marine Corps instructors, the ANA, AUP and Afghan commando students learn everything they need to know about small arms in this six-week course. Following graduation they, can go back to their own units and teach their own students.
“The goal is to instill the confidence in them, and capability to instruct their fellow ANA or AUP,” said Marine Sgt. Derrick Thompson, an instructor for ASAWIC.
Afghan commandos, ANA and AUP from all over Afghanistan learned how to operate a wide range of small arms weapon such as pistols, assault rifles, machine guns and rockets during the course.
“I’m so happy to be in this course, because in this course we have people from different units from ANA, AUP, Afghan commandos, and we are together and learning together,” said Pvt. Ashmir Koboli, an AUP member and student in ASAWIC.
This course is a challenge for all the students who come through here, said Thompson. They go over the safety rules, how to properly clear the weapons, the different ways to carry them, how to disassemble and reassemble them, shooting positions, conduct a course of fire, and finally how to teach it all back to the class and the instructors.
“I’ve studied in several courses, but the teaching has not been very good,” said Habid. “I came here and it’s much better. I’m learning so much more and the instructors are always helping us.”
When students first get here they think they know it already, said Thompson. Toward the end when students realize the instructors are here for them and they genuinely care about teaching them, their attitudes change.
“My instructors are doing a very good job, and teaching us the right thing,” said Koboli. “I like being here.”
It is easy to see that all the students are glad to learn and eager to go back to their home units to teach their fellow ANA and AUP everything they have learned.
“My plan for when I get back to my unit is to start the same class, and I’m going to teach them the same things that I learned from here. I’m going to teach my own students.” said Habid, while smiling and holding his head up high with pride.
NEWS INFO Date Taken: 04.11.2012 Date Posted: 04.11.2012 11:11 Story ID: 86563 Location: CAMP LEATHERNECK, AF Web Views: 429 Downloads: 0 Podcast Hits: 0 PUBLIC DOMAIN This work, Small Arms Course sets up Afghan forces for success, by SGT Marco Gutierrez, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.Escobar, 24, has appeared in 3 games (1 start) with Triple-A Pawtucket this season, and has not allowed an earned run (7.0 IP). In 2015, he went 3-3 with a 4.97 ERA (28 ER in 50.2 IP) in 20 games (7 starts) with Pawtucket and Single-A Greenville. In 2014, Escobar entered the season ranked by Baseball America as the San Francisco Giants' No. 2 prospect, and was selected to the World Team roster for the MLB All-Star Futures Game at Target Field. He was traded to the Red Sox on July 26, 2014, along with RHP Heath Hembree, for RHP Jake Peavy and cash considerations, and later made 2 relief appearances with Boston (1 ER in 2.0 IP). In 8 Minor League seasons, the 6-foot-2, 225-pounder has gone 28-45 with a 4.15 ERA (284 ER in 615.1 IP) in 142 games (119 starts). He was originally signed by the Texas Rangers as a Minor League free agent on July 2, 2008, and traded to San Francisco on April 1, 2010 for LHP Ben Snyder.
Before the 2014 season, Escobar was a top 100 prospect on both the lists of Baseball America and MLB.com, being ranked as high as #56 by the former. However, he has struggled with the transition to the Triple-A level, and over parts of three seasons there, has posted a 4.80 ERA over 32 starts and 15 relief appearances. Of particular concern, his strikeout rate there has dipped to 6.6 per nine innings, compared to 8.5 at the lower levels. On the plus side, he's still relatively young, having only turned 24 last Friday, so shouldn't be written off yet. The fact he's a left-hander is certainly in his favor. Writing about him, SoxProspects.com said after the 2015 season
When healthy, the left-handed pitcher has shown the ability to throw three average-grade offerings with control of the fastball, curveball, and slider mix. The fastball sits in the range of 89-94 mph with sink when down, and Escobar has shown ability to command to both sides of the plate with it when healthy. The curveball is 75-78 mph with average-grade slurvy action. He's shown the confidence to throw it to both right-handed and left-handed hitters as well as double-up on the offering. The changeup is 82-85 mph thrown with solid arm speed, and he has also shown the ability and confidence to throw it in any count. Escobar could profile best as a left-handed reliever if he can return to form and continue to demonstrate his three offerings with the average command and control that he's shown previously
Which certainly sounds intriguing. However, he did miss the first two months of last season with elbow inflammation - never a good sign. He didn't look impressive on his return: Baseball Prospectus wrote he "struggled with command of his fastball, and his secondary pitches still need work," and the question of whether his future will be as a starter or reliever remains to be decided.
I am kinda sad to see the loss of Matt Buschmann, whose spot on the 40-man roster was needed to make room for Escobar. Buschmann finally reaching the majors was a nice story, but there's no room for sentimentality, and using a roster spot on a warm, fuzzy feeling would be a mistake.
Editor's Note: New players win cash in their first league or get their entry fee refunded! Offered in partnership with FanDuel.A YouTuber who goes by the handle of Mesa Sean, sporting more than 100,000 subscribers, has recently been caught up in YouTube’s algorithm for demonetizing content. If you check his video content it’s all centered around Destiny and Destiny 2. However, his recent uploads have been hit with demonetization flags, so he reached out to YouTube for an answer.
So what did YouTube say in response? Well, it’s probably because the ‘T’ for Teen Destiny 2 contains too much “gratuitous violence”.
Video game violence is usually okay, but “gratuitous violence” as the focal point is not. More info here: https://t.co/AsaoyJE0ha — Team YouTube (@TeamYouTube) August 21, 2017
Sean asked if Destiny 2 was suitable for advertisers, and YouTube’s support responded by saying that it was likely flagging his content for the “gratuitous violence”.
Others responded by pointing out to YouTube that both Destiny games are rated Teen and have no “gratuitous violence”. That’s not to mention that games like Doom, Metro: Last Light, and even GTA V can still be monetized, even though they are rated ‘M’ for Mature and contain gratuitous violence.
After the Twitter feed pointed out that Destiny was a Teen rated game, YouTube went silent.
Sean sardonically pointed out that the game is about shooting aliens and not humans. Nevertheless, YouTube had spoken, and their word was apparently law.
So are Teen rated games, as @MyNameIsByf has mentioned, such as #Destiny2 deemed to show “gratuitous violence”? It’s aliens, not people. https://t.co/K6oNsD11bV — Mesa Sean #Destiny2 (@MesaSean) August 21, 2017
This is part of a new wave of demonetization efforts put into place by YouTube following their implementation of the machine learning AI and their new Limited State policy for content, which can effectively shadowban content even if the content does not violate their content policies.
We’ve seen a number of YouTubers getting caught up in a wide-sweeping effort by YouTube that has demonetized all of their content or a majority of their content. As some users pointed out, even when they upload private videos or completely innocuous videos, their content is still automatically being demonetized by the AI. Many have concluded that their channel has been flagged as part of a demonetization “blacklist”.
Gaming reviewing channels like ACG has been hit so hard in the demonetization wave that he recently had to do a video stating that if he isn’t funded via Patreon for the content he produces, he won’t be able to keep the channel alive.
What’s more is that YouTube’s machine learning AI has also begun preemptively censoring and blocking content on the platform, including an interview that was supposed to take place with Inside GamerGate author James Desborough.
Google and those on the YouTube staff have been mostly silent about the “blacklists”, preemptive censorship and new wave of demonetization happening, other than the announcements they’ve made about the Limited State content policy being put into effect.This article is from the archive of our partner.
On Wednesday Robert Murray, the Chief Executive of Murray Energy, decided to pray and then fire 54 employees at American Coal and 102 more at Utah American Energy. And now it looks like one of Murray's layoffs has taken to Reddit to explain that he was told he was being fired because America chose to re-elect President Obama the night before. Reddit user Kgphoto writes in an Ask Me Anything thread titled "Yesterday I was laid off because President Obama was re-elected:
I worked at a coal mine that decided today to layoff over 40 employees and the only reason that was given was that "America has betrayed coal miners" by re-electing President Obama. Despite the fact that nothing has changed in the two days since the election they decide to lay off employees. I've seen how corrupt the company can be over the years and am fairly certain the layoffs are just a way to make the President look bad.
Kgphoto's account (over 40 employees, "America has betrayed coal miners", etc.) matches up with The Washington Post's Steven Mufson's account of Murray today. Mufson wrote:
On Wednesday, Murray also laid off 54 people at American Coal, one of his subsidiary companies, and 102 at Utah American Energy, blaming a “war on coal” by the administration of President Barack Obama.”
And KG has the photo of a statement those being laid off were given, just in case this whole "war on coal" idea as the reason for being fired just seems like fiction:
So got that? Workers being told they were being fired because of Obama. But the key takeaway from kg's AMA is this line:
Despite the fact that nothing has changed in the two days since the election they decide to lay off employees.
That isn't how the company has been spinning it. Knowing that no major changes happened makes you question if the company was really in "survival mode," as the Huffington Post reported, or if Murray was trying to make another political point—he was a prominent Romney backer, and as The New Republic reported, he sent employees to a Romney rally without pay earlier this year. The latter is what kg is thinking:
And, as one redditor pointed out, big picture-wise, coal's major problem is the emergence of cheaper national gas. But that wasn't the point Murray was trying to make:
As some Redditors pointed out, Murray's layoffs are legal because of "at-will" employment. And considering the timing and the political statement, some are having a hard time believing that these cuts reasonable (even though it's entirely possible):
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.This one time, I did something bad.
I’m at a Store Championship sometime in 2014. My opponent just wiped my last Decoder and Fracter with a well-timed Archer. I’m sitting here, pursing my lips, nodding solemnly to myself as I contemplate my inevitable demise, knowing my opponent is going to be able to score behind that rezzed Bastion all day long.
Playing a Criminal deck with no recursion, and at that point, no AI breaker, it was really just a matter of time. I’d have to wait for my opponent to draw their agendas, install and advance them. A mixture of Barriers and Code Gates (and that one Archer), were gonna keep me out of centrals.
So, at this point it was a no-brainer. We were twenty minutes into the match, and I was playing a Glacier Corp deck. I was gonna need all the time I could get to win game two, especially as going to time isn’t ever ideal for anyone.
I scooped up my cards and said ‘Go to game two!’ My opponent nodded, understanding how bad they’d crippled me with that pesky Archer. We packed up, shuffled our decks and I proceeded to try and do my best to win my Corp game with the time left on the clock.
The game went on, as did the tournament, and neither of us knew that what we had just done could have got us disqualified.
The Ruling
The rule I had broken (and by extension, the rule my opponent had broken), is squeezed into a paragraph of the Netrunner tournament rules that has not been changed since 2014.
The rule comes under ‘Unsportsmanlike Conduct’ on page 2 of the most recent rules document:
“Players are expected to behave in a mature and considerate manner, and to play within the rules and not abuse them. This prohibits maintaining an illegal game state, colluding with another player, behaving inappropriately, scouting
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changes to the formula, but it's better for respecting the formula that won it Game of the Year in past incarnations." "Not a very good RPG or a good Fallout game for that matter, but still fun," says jakeochsner. "The only game I completely finished this year," says Longrange. "By that I mean I replayed it for the two other faction endings."
2. Bloodborne Publisher: SCE
Developer: From Software
Bloodborne review What we said: "The structure underlying Bloodborne is not just original but coherent, and because of this the impact of everything it does is commensurately greater. This is total design. It feels wonderful to have a world like this and, over a week of solid play later, feel that there's so much more to discover. And it's awful to know that, in all likelihood, it will be a painfully long time until I play anything else that matches up to Bloodborne's breadth of vision, generosity of content, and - yes - genius." "A more action-oriented, offensive-focused affair than its spiritual antecedents," says slint. "Bloodborne manages to stand out while retaining much of the excellent design which marked the Souls series." Plenty of agreement: "Oh such dark and grim atmosphere! My Halloween parties will never be the same again," says Chufty, who never invited us anyway, so we can't hold them to that. "One of the best games of all time," says dogonthewall, while Jim-Bob has a narrative for us: "Stuffed my PS4 into my suitcase, boarded the plane to Spain with the wife and kids, bribed the hotel staff to loan me a big HDTV, boarded inflatable animals in the pool, played Bloodborne, drank and ate too much, played Bloodborne, spent inordinate amount of time in shops with'stuff', played Bloodborne, boarded the plane to Scotland with the wife and kids, rinse and repeat with expansion in 2016." You're making us kind of sad, Jim-Bob. Bring it home, Bulbatron: "I'm really not a very skilled gamer at all and I had never played any of From Software's previous games. However the promise of a mixture of gothic and Lovecraftian horror really piqued my curiosity before reeling me in. I found the game incredibly challenging of course, but frustration only set in a few times throughout the whole game. The trial-and error gameplay was quite addictive and the atmosphere was incredible."Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is one of the most famous fairy tales in the world, first related in 1812 when the Grimm brothers published their collection of tales that had been gathered from old European folk stories. Like many of the Grimm tales, it is believed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has been in existence since the Middle Ages, passed down through word-of-mouth over the centuries. In 1937, Walt Disney’s animated feature film of Snow White popularized the story worldwide, and since then, it has generally been regarded as purely a tale of fiction. However, recent research suggests the famous fairy tale may not be so fictional after all.
Plot Summary
The story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs tells the tale of a beautiful princess born with skin so fair and pure that her mother named her Snow White. After the Queen’s death, her father married a woman who was vain and wicked, and who would stand in front of a magic mirror asking who was the fairest woman in the land. The mirror always replied “My Queen, you are the fairest one of all”, until one day an answer came that threw her into a rage – Snow White was now the fairest woman in all the land.
Snow White’s evil step-mother talking to her magic mirror ( Wikipedia).
Snow White’s step-mother, furious at what the mirror had told her, ordered a huntsman to take her into the forest and kill her. But the huntsman felt sympathy for Snow White and let her free. Snow White came upon a small cottage and, feeling exhausted, collapsed into one of the beds and fell into a deep sleep. When she awoke, seven dwarfs were looking down upon her. They told Snow White she could stay with them as long as she cleaned and cooked.
Snow White and the dwarfs lived in contentment until one day when the magic mirror told the Queen that Snow White was alive and was still the fairest of them all. The Queen disguised herself as an old woman and presented Snow White with a poisoned apple. After taking a bite of the apple, Snow White fell unconscious. The dwarfs, assuming she was dead, built a glass coffin and placed her inside.
One day, a handsome Prince passed by and saw Snow White in the coffin. He fell instantly in love with her and convinced the dwarfs to let him take the coffin so he could give her a proper funeral. As he and some other men were carrying the coffin, they tripped over some tree roots causing the poisoned apple to dislodge from Snow White’s throat. She awakened and the Prince declared his love for her. They were married, and as all fairy tales go, they lived happily ever after.
The Prince awakens Snow White ( Wikipedia)
Snow White is Margarete von Waldeck?
In 1994, a German historian named Eckhard Sander published Schneewittchen: Marchen oder Wahrheit? (Snow White: Is It a Fairy Tale?), claiming he had uncovered an account that may have inspired the story that first appeared in Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
According to Sander, the character of Snow White was based on the life of Margarete von Waldeck, a German countess born to Philip IV in 1533. At the age of 16, Margarete was forced by her stepmother, Katharina of Hatzfeld to move away to Wildungen in Brussels. There, Margarete fell in love with a prince who would later become Phillip II of Spain.
Margarete’s father and stepmother disapproved of the relationship as it was ‘politically inconvenient’. Margarete mysteriously died at the age of 21, apparently having been poisoned. Historical accounts point to the King of Spain, who opposing the romance, may have dispatched Spanish agents to murder Margarete.
So what about the seven dwarfs? Margarete's father owned several copper mines that employed children as quasi-slaves. The poor conditions caused many to die at a young age, but those that survived had severely stunted growth and deformed limbs from malnutrition and the hard physical labour. As a result, they were often referred to as the ‘poor dwarfs’.
As for the poison apple, Sanders believes this stems from an historical event in German history in which an old man was arrested for giving poison apples to children who he believed were stealing his fruit.
Historian Eckhard Sander’s maintains that the seven dwarfs represent the impoverished child labourers employed by Margarete von Waldeck’s father ( Wikipedia)
An alternative account - Maria Sophia von Erthal
Not everyone is convinced by Sander’s claim that Snow White’s character stems from the life of Margarete von Waldeck. According to a study group in Lohr, Bavaria, Snow White is based on Maria Sophia von Erthal, born on 15 June, 1729 in Lohr am Main, Bavaria. She was the daughter of 18 th century landowner, Prince Philipp Christoph von Erthal and his wife, Baroness von Bettendorff.
After the death of the Baroness, Prince Philipp went onto marry Claudia Elisabeth Maria von Venningen, Countess of Reichenstein, who was said to dislike her stepchildren. The castle where they lived, now a museum, was home to a ‘talking mirror’, an acoustical toy that could speak (now housed in the Spessart Museum). The mirror, constructed in 1720 by the Mirror Manufacture of the Electorate of Mainz in Lohr, had been in the house during the time that Maria’s stepmother lived there.
The ‘talking mirror’ constructed in 1720 that furnished the home of Maria’s stepmother, the Countess of Reichenstein. Credit: Manfred Scherer / Spessart Museum.
The dwarfs in Maria’s story are also linked to a mining town, Bieber, located just west of Lohr and set among seven mountains. The smallest tunnels could only be accessed by very short miners, who often wore bright hoods, as the dwarfs have frequently been depicted over the years.
The Lohr study group maintain that the glass coffin may be linked to the region’s famous glassworks, while the poisoned apple, may be associated with the deadly nightshade poison that grows in abundance in Lohr.
In Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the dwarfs are depicted with colorful hoods, just as the miners wore near the town of Lohr. ( Joe Penniston / flickr )
It may never be known where the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs truly originated as Grimm’s fairy tales were often an amalgamation of events that really occurred, mixed in with fantasy and imagination. Still, there is little doubt that there was at least some historical basis to the famous fairy tale.
Featured image: An illustration from page 17 of Mjallhvít (Snow White) from an 1852 icelandic translation of the Grimm-version fairytale. ( Wikimedia Commons )
By Joanna GillanI got into music journalism for very specific reasons: I love both music and the rush of writing on a topic about which I am so passionate. I entered this world in the hopes that my stories would touch artists and readers the same way certain songs and bands have inspired me.
Over the course of two and a half years of covering music for outlets such as Rolling Stone, I quickly learned that the world of rock and roll is tainted by a pervasive sexism. Moments I've gotten used to: a nonprofessional squeeze on the shoulder by an artist or manager at a show; being referred to as "girlie" instead of, you know, my name; jokes about striving to be like Penny Lane from the movie Almost Famous.
The work, for the most part, outweighs whatever male-dominated BS to which I've been subjected. Like catcalling on the sidewalk, misogyny in this industry is something I've gotten used to in order to keep moving. And, my gender aside, I've always believed that this industry rewards its talented disciples.
This belief was challenged by a single quote regarding Condé Nast's acquisition of Pitchfork, the independent music site that's earned respect as a major player in music media in the digital age. In a statement to the New York Times, Fred Santarpia, Condé Nast's chief digital officer, said the new merger introduces "a very passionate audience of male millennials" to the company.
It's true that many of Pitchfork's readers are male. In fact, 88 percent of its readership, according to a recent census conducted by the outlet, is male. But shouldn't music—and therefore music coverage—be gender agnostic? (After all, a 2013 Nielsen study found that women buy more music than men. Not to mention the fact that women like Taylor Swift are singlehandedly shifting the industry's business model.) Why, then, did Santarpia feel the need to exclude Pitchfork's equally passionate female readership? Certainly he didn't understand the impact the comment could have on women who, like me, are fighting to make an impact as music critics, editors, writers, and photographers.
I remember the first major music festival I covered. It was a sweltering weekend in Philadelphia, and I was there for the 2013 Made in America show. I watched in awe as Beyoncé prepped for her set backstage and then I interviewed a number of bands and artists whom I admire. One group in particular had been pushing me off all afternoon. "Just a second, sweetie," the band's manager kept telling me. "They just have one more interview before you." They eventually got to me, but I was told to make it quick. About 10 minutes into our conversation, the lead singer put his arm around me, which made me stumble over my question. I quickly wrapped up the interview and was about to leave when he said, "Thanks so much, sweetheart. Which blog is this going on again? Maybe I'll check it out."
"RollingStone.com," I said and smiled sweetly before turning to leave, blood rushing to my cheeks.
This experience is not exclusive to me.
"The real problem is not that men in this industry agree with or condone sexism, but rather that they don't acknowledge it at all."
"I can't think of a show or festival I've shot when something hasn't happened," a photo editor friend told me Tuesday night at CMJ, the New York–based showcase that exposes up-and-coming bands to the media. "I mean, stuff has even happened tonight."
She then described an experience she had while in a photo pit for a popular alt-rock group. A man associated with the band's management grabbed her waist from behind to direct her through the pit, his hands locked on her hips the entire time she photographed the set. "How many times have we each been called'someone's girlfriend' while waiting to interview or shoot somebody?" she said with a laugh. Before ending the conversation, we noted the look of surprise we've often received once our knowledge of music is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. The realization is usually followed by a statement like, "It's so hot that you're into music!"
Personally, I'd like to believe that we're thought of as more than silhouettes in skirts, swaying mindlessly on beer-sticky floors.
Some of the most influential figures in music journalism today happen to be women, many of whom are on the Pitchfork masthead. Jessica Hopper is Pitchfork's senior editor and the author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic. She has served as a role model for female journalists—both inside and outside the music realm—by encouraging us to discuss instances of sexism within the industry via Twitter.
Hopper and a number of other female contributors to Pitchfork have inspired girls who want to get into music. "I've read Pitchfork since I was 15," says Zoe Leverant, a contributor to the The Pitchfork Review and the Village Voice. "I wouldn't be a music writer, or by extension a writer at all, if Pitchfork hadn't shown me it was a possibility."
But with a single line from a press release, many of us have felt shut out by the community that inspired us in the first place. "After reading that line, I felt that it erased my contributions and fandom," says Nilina Mason-Campbell, a former contributor to Pitchfork. "I never felt like I was writing for a 'passionate millennial male' fan base."
The real problem is not that men in this industry agree with or condone sexism, but rather that they don't acknowledge it at all. "It's a big uphill battle that we have to fight every day," says Courtney Harding, former music editor at Billboard. "The good ones are at least thoughtful and responsive when I point [sexism] out."
Each woman I spoke to for this article had her own horror stories pertaining to sexism in editorial offices and within the music industry as a whole. Each vignette was like a different version of the same sad song. It's not new that we're faced with sexism in this industry, but isn't it about damn time something happens about it? The only way to enforce change? "Doing this," says Leverant. "Talking about it, naming it, and demanding better."
Let's hope this message reaches its intended, passionate male audience.Now, as Bill Cosby used to say, I told you that story to tell you this one.
I recently did a post on the Dark ‘n Stormy, which referred back to my post in January on the Bacardi Cocktail. The latter post started out a little schitck about the Cocktail Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken.
Well, for some reason, the last week has brought a whole bunch of hits to this site from Google, with search terms like He Who Must Not Be Named Cocktail, as well as other, more obvious search terms like, Volde….
Say what?
Say that!
You know, the search term you were about to write.
Why not?
Because it contains You Know Who’s name! You can’t just go around writing that out in public, or even in private!
You want to get everybody around killed?
Hey, what’s with the hat and stick? What are you up to?
Oh!
Um. Uh.
I’m going to a costume party! Yeah, that’s it.
A costume party? Why was I not invited? How was I not invited?
Anyway, the search term was Voldem….
Noooo!
Shut up. Voldemort Cocktail.
Aieeeee! Run awaaaaay!
{Door slams in the distance}
What’s the matter with him?
Anyway, Dr. Bamboo put Voldem… if I just say, You Know Who Cocktail from now on, will you come back?
{In the distance}
Maybe.
Dr. B coined the term in the comments, and now every Harry Potter fan of age and cocktailian inclination is headed to this blog. Fun huh?
But it isn’t enough. I now need a real Volde— You Know Who Cocktail, and I have successfully created one.
It is dark, and pungent, and dangerous, and while it has a taste that is definitely not for everyone, it ain’t half bad.
2 parts black sambuca
1 part absinthe
1/2 part gin
lemon zest
1 dash lemon bitters THE YOU KNOW WHO COCKTAIL Combine sambuca, absinthe, and gin in a shaker with ice and shake well. Strip off a wide band of lemon peel with a vegetable peeler and twist over a chilled cocktail glass to express the oils. Drop it into the glass, along with a chip of dry ice and the bitters. Strain potion cocktail over the top and serve while dangerous.
This is far sweeter than any cocktail I have ever made before, but even I kinda like it. If you make it, let me know. Just be careful what you call it!
Yeah!
Please.
A last note here, as an alternate presentation.
Take a large, round scoop of chocolate ice cream, make an indentation in the top, and fill with the Voldemort You Know Who Cocktail (minus the gin). Still use the dry ice if you have it.
And thanks for the visits, Harry Potter fans!
We’re all gonna die….The German (rather, West German) director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s first feature, “Love Is Colder Than Death,” from 1969, is one of the great first features. The genre came into being with “Citizen Kane”; before Orson Welles, filmmakers tended to made lots of films quickly before emerging with their first enduring classics. Welles established the notion of the epochal first feature that didn’t just launch a career but knocked the history of cinema into a new orbit. Next came Jean-Luc Godard, who did so in early 1960 with “Breathless,” a Parisian version of an American film noir that nonetheless plays like an intimately personal story.
Fassbinder, too, made a gangster film, setting it in his home town of Munich and turning it personal in his own way—not least, through his performance in the lead role of Franz, a small-time pimp who refuses to accept a mobster’s offer that he can’t refuse. As a result, he’s pursued by a killer, all the while also being hunted by another pimp.
The story, rooted not in Fassbinder’s experience but in his cinematic mythology—both his viewing of American movies and of French New Wave films that borrowed from them—nonetheless suggests his own sense of himself as an outsider in the crosshairs for not playing the game. He made the film as an independent filmmaker, putting some of his own money (earned by acting) into the film, and got some money from a private backer, but working utterly outside the system of German filmmaking. He was twenty-three at the time.
A couple of weeks ago, at the Berlin Festival, I brought up the subject of Fassbinder and his leap into filmmaking. The topic under discussion was the current state of German filmmaking, and what became clear is that it’s inseparable from the current German state: government subsidy has become, for the most part, the sine qua non for most German filmmakers, beginners as well as veterans, and discussions, public and private, revealed that the bureaucrats whose decisions matter exert a disproportionate influence on the substance of films as well as on the determination of methods of production. The very process of entering the financing pipeline slows filmmakers’ plans and projects to a crawl and creates undue delays in the making even of relatively low-budget movies. It’s the antithesis of youth and its ardor, its urgency, its irrepressible outpouring of creative energy—which is exactly what’s on view in Fassbinder’s first film.Hundreds of residents of the beleaguered city of Flint, Michigan, are receiving letters informing them of yet another reason to be alarmed about their ongoing water crisis: Faulty testing equipment may have resulted in “falsely low test results” for blood lead levels.
The letter, dated May 31, cites a safety warning — issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on May 17 and later updated with a manufacturer’s equipment recall — regarding LeadCare-branded venous blood draw analyzers produced by Magellan Diagnostics. Flint residents who were under 6 years of age at the time of the safety warning and who received a venous lead blood test result of less than 10 micrograms per deciliter anytime from the beginning of 2014 until May of this year are being advised in the letter to be retested. Currently pregnant and lactating women who received the test — as well as anyone seeking “peace of mind” — are also encouraged to seek retesting.
Experts, however, suggest that because lead leaves the bloodstream over time and accumulates in organs, bones, and teeth, new tests will provide little insight into the severity of lead exposures that occurred during the height of the Flint water crisis — precisely when the faulty testing equipment was being used. The city infamously switched its water source to the polluted Flint River in April 2014 and failed to add the requisite corrosion controls. As a result, lead leached from water pipes and poisoned the water sent to Flint’s homes and businesses.
“There’s nothing we can really do to find out what [the exposure level] really was back then,” said Laura Sullivan, a mechanical engineering professor at Kettering University in Flint who sits on both city and state advisory boards addressing the Flint water crisis.
The problem of inaccurate testing is likely to extend well outside of Flint, given that many municipalities are struggling with aging, lead-infused infrastructure. “This problem is going to impact on East Chicago, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Baltimore — any city that has a problem with either lead in water or lead in soil or lead in paint,” said Dr. Jerome Paulson, a professor emeritus in both pediatric medicine and environmental and occupational health at George Washington University. “It’s not just Flint. It’s everywhere across the country where people thought they had a handle on what the blood lead levels were in children in the community.
“This throws a monkey wrench in the whole system,” Paulson said.
The faulty tests will also likely undermine aggregate exposure data culled from the Flint crisis and now being used by scientists to better understand the impacts of lead from intense, long-term exposures. The Magellan problem, Sullivan suggested, means that the data — much like the water itself — is now contaminated.
The health district in Genesee County, which contains Flint, issued the letters to some 600 families, although the City of Flint issued a statement saying that according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the blood of only 128 children under 6 years old had been taken by venous draw and analyzed with Magellan equipment. The rest, they said, were taken by finger pokes or heel sticks in a method known as capillary draw.
When pressed by Undark, County Health Officer Mark Valacak said in an email message that tests for 335 adults and 225 children were analyzed with Magellan’s faulty devices. (This reporter was among the recipients of the letter, after having submitted to a lead level test in Flint last summer as part of his report on the crisis. The test results showed lead levels nearly triple the reference level set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although to date he has exhibited no obvious symptoms of lead poisoning.)
Valacak acknowledged the limited scientific value of a retest, but said the department was attempting to be sensitive to the city’s historic lead exposure disaster. “Because of the distrust in this community, we needed to be open and transparent and let everyone know,” he said. “We’re limited on our ability to test for lead. It doesn’t necessarily mean if you got a low test you weren’t previously exposed.”
The FDA said the Magellan equipment gives accurate lead readings for blood taken via capillary draw. “As such, the FDA believes that most people will not be affected by this issue, as a majority of Magellan lead tests currently in use in the United States are conducted using blood obtained from a finger or heel stick,” FDA spokeswoman Tara Goodin said via email. Still, Goodin also noted that the Magellan devices are “the only FDA-cleared lead test systems and a primary source of blood lead testing in doctors’ offices and clinics in the United States. However, other testing methods are available, including mass spectrometer and atomic absorption testing, at larger-capacity [CDC]-approved laboratories such as reference labs.”
The CDC recommends retesting a child via venous draw if a capillary draw finds a blood lead level higher than 5 micrograms per deciliter. Some residents suspect that the 128 children may have been subjected to the venous test after an especially high capillary draw, although Valacak said he does not know the circumstances of these venous draws. In any event, if the faulty tests underestimated lead exposure levels, it also may have caused different treatment decisions than an accurately high reading, said Melissa Mays, a Flint mother whose activism forced the city and state to acknowledge that Flint’s water was contaminated after months of denials and dismissals of residents’ concerns.
“That’s absolutely terrifying,” she said Monday. “My cynical mind tells me that first they’re saying only 120 or so are too low. Then they’ll come back and say, ‘Oh, we found thousands of tests that were too high. You were never poisoned to begin with. You’re fine.’”
The news of the Magellan test problems comes at a time when state officials say the Flint water crisis is subsiding and that water quality has returned to safe levels. The crisis began when state and local officials overseeing the impoverished city of Flint, which was under the management of a state-appointed emergency manager, decided to stop taking water from a Detroit treatment system in an effort to save money. Eventually it was determined that a series of blunders at the Flint Water Plant resulted in contaminated water that was deemed responsible for abnormally high lead levels in children as well as a Legionella outbreak that killed more than a dozen people.
Lead exposure is toxic to humans and particularly so for developing children, who can see developmental delays, increased vulnerability to disease and emotional problems — although science has yet to pinpoint exactly what the impacts are and how they can be fully detected and mitigated.
After the crisis became major national news in late 2015, the water system reverted to taking Detroit’s water and added extra anti-corrosion chemicals to re-coat the interior of the city’s pipes with a biofilm that prevents lead leaching. Meanwhile, tens of millions of dollars have poured in to provide bottled water, distribute faucet water filters, and replace lead and galvanized steel service lines. To date, almost 1,500 pipes have been replaced; it is believed there may be more than 18,000 still in service.
The Magellan test revelations reignited the outrage of many who believe authorities are once again trying to downplay the state of things — as Gov. Rick Snyder admitted his administration did at the height of the crisis — in order to save money.
“Everything that’s come out has been, ‘It’s not that big a deal, you’ll be fine’ since day one,” Mays said. “It’s that same messaging. … I have no trust for them and they’ve done that to themselves. How do we know that other tests aren’t too low either from other labs or other lab equipment?”
The FDA issued no alerts regarding other lab equipment or techniques related to lead testing. On Tuesday, Catherine Lufkin, director of marketing for Magellan, said the company is “actively working with the FDA to resolve the recent action and until resolution we are unable to comment.”
“It’s all probablys and maybes and approximatelys,” Mays said, clearly exasperated. “They cannot give any solid answers. When people are thinking about their kids’ health and their own futures and everything, probablys, maybes and approximatelys are not very comforting.”
Steve Friess is a former technology and politics senior writer for Politico whose freelance work appears regularly in Time, BuzzFeed News, New York Magazine, and Al Jazeera America, among other publications. He is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.Good morning lovely readers! Today I am reviewing a bra I’ve been super excited about. Drumroll…. it’s a music note bra!!! Oooh, I made a pun there without intending to. This lovely bra is manufactured by Kinga, a Polish bra company that can be found on http://www.misterna.pl for a very reasonable price. This is my third attempt at Kinga’s music bras. I first tried the Music II style, a semi padded 3 part cup with stretch lace at the top, in 2 different sizes, mostly because I thought the pattern was a little prettier than this one. However, stretch lace and I do not get along – I lack the upper fullness required to fill it out even in my correct Kinga size. A note about Kinga’s sizing: They use Euro sizing, but I find they run quite big in the cup. Today’s bra is a 65G, which should be equivalent to a UK 30F, but I am a UK 30FF/28G, and this cup volume is correct. So, should you plan to try this bra, size down in the cup. From what I can tell, Kinga’s size range is D-H, so UK D – FF – but when you account for the cups running big, more like UK DD-GG/H.
Moving along – let’s take a look at this unique bra:
Just look at her in all her unique glory. There’s a cute gore detail, and the semi-adjustable straps are decorated with a black ribbon and bow. The black mesh is overlayed onto the white base color and all of the stitching appears clean and even.
Some fit notes: The band is TTS for a 30 band, stretching to 30.” I have a 28″ ribcage and this band rides up even on its tightest hook. Look at the extra band here:
Being a Polish bra, I expected narrow wires and immediate projection. The semi-padded Music II bra is definitely a projected bra. This all-padded Music I bra is slightly shallower. It’s really borderline for me. The wires are average width at 5.5.” After I took proper bra measurements I bent the wires to 5.1″ – these wires are flexible, keeping in line with other Polish bras like Comexim.
This all padded style is coded by Kinga as PU and marketed on the website as padded/push up. It comes with removable “cookies” to correct asymmetry or add some extra oomph – fans of Ewa Michalak bras will appreciate this! Overall, I would say Kinga is more similar to EM than Comexim in the structure of their bras. Unfortunately I need the super-narrow wires of Comexim. But guess what! The straps are removable and repositionable to make a cross back bra! Very cool.
One more shot of this lovely lady:
So, let’s recap. While there are no major, glaring fit issues – this is a bra that will need a little work to be wearable for me. I have already narrowed the wires, and will definitely need to take the band in shorter. It’s slightly too shallow, and will probably require some minor re-adjusting throughout the day. I’m hoping having a tighter band will hold the wires more firmly in my IMF, because I would not call this bra shallow in the UK sense of the word – but it is shallower than Comexim plunges. Since finding well-fitting bras, I’ve become extremely picky and if it were any other bra, I’d return or sell it. I probably won’t be in a big hurry to chase down other Kinga bras. But now is the time to mention I am also a pianist and grew up with music in my blood, so I HAD to have this bra. I’ve never seen its equal! So I’m inclined to not give a damn about these little issues, because this bra speaks to me. I’ll do whatever work to it I need to do.
AdvertisementsSamsung Gear Fit2 Pro revealed including specs
Samsung has accidentally released the Samsung Gear Fit2 pro via its own website, well at least in in Spain and Malaysia before it was the page was promptly pulled. Before Samsung pulled the pages, GSM arena managed to capture the spec’s.
Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro available in 2 colours
The Samsung Gear Fit2 pro will only be available in two colours, which is either red or black with either a small or large band. At 30g. It features a 1.5-inch, 216 x 432 resolution curved AMOLED display, which is same as the Gear Fit2.
Essential reading: Garmin Vivosmart 3 review
Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro software and Spotify confirmed.
Tizen will be the OS that runs the watch with access to up to 3,000 apps including Spotify, However, something that is not clear is if the Spotify app will allow for offline playback like you can with the Gear 3
Essential reading: Garmin Fenix 5x tips and tricks
The Gear Fit2 Pro will feature a 200mAh capacity battery that should typically get you 3-4 days of use out of it. However, when using it for a long run expect the battery life to last around 6 -8 hours which all the apps and GPS running or even less with Spotify playing in the background
Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro waterproof, GPS, heart rate sensors included
According to the specs on the Samsung website the Gear Fit2 will waterproof to 5ATM. Samsung is also making it more swim-friendly thanks to an app developed by Speedo for the device to record stats, which can be reviewed on the wearable after your session.
Essential reading: Garmin Fenix 5x tips and tricks
You will also get an accelerometer, barometer, gyroscope, heart rate sensors, plus there’s GPS and GLONASS support to accurately map your runs and rides. It will also have a range of sports profiles and have continuous heart rate monitoring.
Samsung Gear Fit2 release date and price
I suspect that the Gear Fit2 Pro will either be unveiled at Samsung’s Unpacked event or it could feature at the IFA Berlin. I suspect the pricing will be around $199.99 dollars and around 1£60 GBP in the UK.
Edit – according to Evan Blass and this picture the price is spot on at $199.99
I don’t think this wearable is that ground breaking and it adds another device to an already crowded fitness tech and wearable market. To add to this with the likes of Fitbit rumored to be launching the smartwatch later this year and Garmin launching the Vivosmart 3 then the Gear Fit2 pro could quickly forget about.Fox News host Jesse Watters has been a panelist on The Five for less than a week, yet he is already taking a vacation. Watters disclosed the news last night on the Fox News panel program, which moved to 9 p.m. hour earlier this week.
“I’m going to be taking a vacation with my family, so I will not be here tomorrow. I’ll be back on Monday, so try not miss me too much,” Watters quipped.
He then went on to say that “K.G.” (Kimberly Guilfoyle) is going to be hosting Saturday’s episode of his weekend prime time show Watters’ World.
This vacation announcement comes amid backlash over what can be interpreted as sexually charged remarks he made about first daughter Ivanka Trump.
During a segment on Tuesday night, Watters talked about the way that Trump held a microphone while she discussed women’s rights at a panel in Germany.
“It’s funny. The left says they really respect women and then when given an opportunity to respect a woman like that they boo and hiss … so I don’t really get what’s going on here, but I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone,” Watters said, before grinning at his co-hosts.
The next morning, the Fox Newser claimed that his comment was not meant to be derogatory and shouldn’t be considered sexual innuendo.
“During the break, we were commenting on Ivanka’s voice and how it was low and steady and resonates like a smooth jazz radio DJ,” he said. “This was in no way a joke about anything else.”
This isn’t the first time Watters has come under fire. Last October, he received a lot of backlash for a segment on The Factor taped in New York’s Chinatown that was viewed by many as having racist overtones.
CommentsIf one is going to think scientists at are going to take a break after successfully conducting the Insertion, then one is wrong. The Indian space agency has lined up a series of launches, including test flight of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark III - an advanced version of the current GSLV - which will have double the capacity of the current launch vehicle.
will be Isro's next major event, said K Radhakrishnan, chairman, He said the vehicle is an advanced launch vehicle and it can launch a four-tonne communication satellite into geostationary orbit.
The Indian space agency is planning to launch an experimental mission, with a passive cryogenic engine, which means the cryogenic stage will not be operational. The significance of the flight is that it will test the crew compartment as it re-enters earth and splashes into the Bay of Bengal.
Once this vehicle gets ready, India need not depend on European space consortium, Arianespace, to carry its four-tonne class of Insat communication satellites. This rocket will also be used to fly astronauts from Sriharikota. It may be noted that the Narendra Modi government has increased its budgetary allocation from Rs 10 crore to Rs 171 crore to develop
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about this or other issues, but nothing changes unless StoryCorps agrees to change it. Nothing is automatic. Nothing is guaranteed.”
Along with higher pay, StoryCorps employees are asking management for clear protocols around hiring, firing, and performance evaluations, transparent job descriptions, formal mechanisms to increase diversity and inclusion, as well as more professional development, cultural competency training, and self-care resources. Maura Johnson, a specialist in community training based in StoryCorps’s Brooklyn office, has trained health-care workers to record the stories of patients and their families, many of which center around serious illness or death. “It’s heavy work, and the mental-health benefits at StoryCorps are not great,” said Johnson, who joined the organizing effort because she had been in a union at a past nonprofit job and had seen it work there.
StoryCorps CEO Robin Sparkman said the organization has already begun to address employee concerns through a four-year strategic plan implemented last year. Under the plan, which was created with staff input, StoryCorps has already added additional holidays, disability and life insurance, and 2–3 percent wage increases for all non-temporary employees, according to Sparkman. “We’ve thought out the ways that we want to address the wages and benefits issues that we’re grappling with as an organization, and we feel that that’s the best vehicle for dealing with this,” Sparkman said of the strategic plan. “We’ve already made tremendous strides without having a union at StoryCorps.”
The StoryCorps union push brings to mind recent organizing efforts in digital newsrooms, but its struggle is more typical of a nonprofit, where workers are expected to be fulfilled by the mission of the organization without pushing for better pay or benefits or demanding labor rights. In cash-strapped organizations that see themselves as protectors of the public good, union efforts can be stigmatized, seen as an unnecessary burden on already strained resources.
“The employer is really caught off-guard, because he or she thought of the organization as a team, as one in which they had a special open-communication policy,” said Jake Rosenfeld, a sociology professor who studies unions and economic inequality at Washington University in St. Louis. Rosenfeld pointed to “decades of acrimonious bargaining” between universities and graduate-student unions as evidence that nonprofits are not immune to the union-busting tactics corporations use.
“One of the reasons that we didn’t unionize when I was there was almost a sense of guilt,” said Talya Cooper, a former StoryCorps archivist who now works for The Intercept. “We know it’s really hard for the organization to keep the lights on and have working Internet, so who are we to ask for a guaranteed cost of living raise every year.” According to Cooper, StoryCorps employees had been intermittently contemplating unionization since at least 2008.
StoryCorps workers and CWA organizers have pointed to Democracy Now! and the Nation Institute as examples of nonprofit workforces that have unionized without great conflict. “We’ve organized a lot of nonprofits, and we’ve never seen this many obstacles,” said CWA organizer Erin Mahoney.
StoryCorps’s fierce reaction to the union is symptomatic of problems that have long been simmering in the organization, according to current and former employees who described a revolving door of enthusiastic, socially conscious young people who are hired to perform demanding work for little pay and quickly burn out.
Cooper said she frequently experienced poor communication between what she called “tiers of middle management” and “the people doing the work on the ground,” who were mostly low-paid facilitators, like Williams, charged with navigating the social spaces of underrepresented communities and making people feel comfortable enough to share their stories. To do this work, facilitators must be able to comfortably work across different community lines, according to Williams.
After StoryCorps won the 2015 TED prize for developing a mobile recording app, Cooper recalls feeling like the organization’s attention was drawn to the “shiny new object” at the expense of the mission-driven work. The focus of the organization gradually shifted away from community engagement or “any kind of input from the people who were devoted to the communities they were working with,” according to Cooper.
“The TED money really changed everything,” said Shirley Alfaro, then–regional manager of the Chicago office. “It’s easier and much cheaper to make people do it themselves when you have that digital platform, and you don’t need the human connection.” A spokesperson for StoryCorps said the organization “has not shifted away from [its] on-the-ground work” and that the app is “intended to complement, not replace,” the services offered in the recording booths. “We’ve already made tremendous strides without having a union at StoryCorps.” —Robin Sparkman, StoryCorps CEO
According to Maura Johnson, StoryCorps has a “long-standing tradition” of launching new oral-history programs without making a lasting commitment to them. For example, the Historias initiative launched in 2009 to record Latinx experiences in the United States has long been dormant, Johnson said. “In terms of people coming into the booth, we still have low representation in terms of Latino and Hispanic voices,” she said. “The [StoryCorps] archive is supposed to represent the true demographics of the country, and at this point it’s really not.”
Sparkman said initiatives like Historias, which are funded by individual grants, are designed to be short-term projects, but that employees in StoryCorps booths and its mobile unit are able to continue to contribute to them. “It just means it’s not done centrally out of Brooklyn,” she said.
Johnson said she doesn’t expect the CWA to be able to fix story representation with a union contract, but she believes it will be easier to advocate for change as a group. “The collective voice holds a lot more power in terms of shaping change organizationally,” she said. Ready to Fight Back? Sign Up For Take Action Now
The employees’ concerns continued into the summer of 2016, when rumors began to circulate among the staff that a funding cut might lead to layoffs. “We didn’t know what would happen until, overnight, it did,” said Williams.
In October, five staff members were abruptly let go, creating a “situation of panic,” according to Williams. Among the laid-off employees had been the managing director for community engagement. “The whole department was dismantled, and they never spoke about it,” said Alfaro. Sparkman said many of the director’s functions are now performed by StoryCorps’s chief program officer. “We felt that we no longer needed that position,” she said, “but our commitment to community engagement is just as strong as it’s always been.”
“Management would say, ‘Oh, we’re just taking a pivot,’ but it was never clarified what that meant,” said Williams. Employees began meeting to discuss their grievances, and it soon became clear that an impetus to unionize had emerged.
On May 26, a group of about 10 employees from various departments in StoryCorp’s Brooklyn office presented a letter to Sparkman outlining their intentions to unionize through the CWA Local 1180. A majority of non-managerial staff—the proposed bargaining unit—had signed cards with the Communications Workers of America.
“It was tense, it was really tense,” said Gautam Srikishan, a facilitator based in New York who was there to present the letter to Sparkman. Since then, Srikishan said he has since been “appalled” at how vehemently the organization has responded. “They’ve just gone straight to the union-busting textbook and are employing the types of tactics I’d expect from big corporations.”
Four days after the letter, StoryCorps founder and president Dave Isay sent a plaintive e-mail to his staff. “I am deeply concerned that bringing in a union will deliver a serious blow to our work and culture,” Isay wrote. “That it will build walls, harden divisions, create a more regimented and formal workplace, and foster an increasingly adversarial culture.”
Isay went on to say that 70 percent of the money raised by StoryCorps pays for staff salary and benefits. “Because funding is so precarious, each year on January 1st we start with a deficit, and then work every minute of every day until literally 11:59 PM on December 31st to close the gap,” Isay wrote. In 2015, the organization reported a revenue of $9,778,792 and expenses of $9,930,780. Isay was paid $166,092 and Robin Sparkman was paid $164,804, according to StoryCorps’s 2015 IRS disclosures.
Once management knew about the efforts to unionize, StoryCorps also began holding captive-audience meetings that employees felt required to attend and during which they were not allowed to ask questions of management, according to Williams, Srikishan, and Johnson. (A StoryCorps spokesperson said employees were not required to attend the meetings.) Sparkman said the meetings were informational and included an open floor for questions. Though she admitted to using the words “captive audience” while speaking with staff, Sparkman said she misused it. “I was unfamiliar with the term and I apologize,” she said.
StoryCorps also contested the employees’ proposed bargaining unit before the NLRB. The union has proposed a unit of 30 non-managerial employees; the company is pressing for a unit of 14, arguing that many employees are in temporary or grant-funded positions and therefore ineligible for union representation.
The NLRB hearing, which lasted three days in mid-June, overlapped with an all-staff retreat in New York City. Williams was subpoenaed to testify about his work at the company.
“It was actually a very insulting experience. They made it seem like I don’t have a bachelor’s degree, like it wasn’t required in my job description,” said Williams, who graduated from Brown University in 2012. He said the organization tried to break up the bargaining unit by drawing a distinction between producers as skilled professionals and facilitators as entry-level employees. “As a facilitator…I’m bringing my skills and my background and my emotional labor and my insight to bear on creating these products StoryCorps uses.”
The pushback from management created an “adversarial atmosphere” that permeated the all-staff retreat, according to Williams. “People were cornered, intimidated.”
“Everyone in management said, ‘Personally, none of us are anti-union, none of us are anti–labor movement. We just don’t think StoryCorps is the right place for a union,’” said Srikishan. “To me, it’s just incredibly inconsistent and completely indefensible.”
A spokesperson for StoryCorps denied any disconnect between the values the organization presents via its public image and its current opposition to the union effort. “StoryCorps leadership believes in the power of listening to allow us to better understand each other,” the spokesperson said. “That principle applies to this process, too.”
“We have enormous respect for our staff,” said Sparkman. “They’re terrific and they’re very passionate about the work. We disagree on how to achieve the goals here, but it’s in no way a reflection of our affection and admiration for them.”
In a 2016 interview with Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, Dave Isay said of his book Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work, “…there are so many messages in the ether now that work is about…doing as little as you can to get as rich as you can, as quickly as you can. And this book shows a different path, a path to people who’ve got this real sense of joy and love in their work, and want to get up in the morning and go in and do something.” Read in the light of Isay’s resistance to the StoryCorps union, his comments seem to imply that a request for higher wages would sully the joy and the love his employees should have for their work.
Most of the current and former employees interviewed for this piece said they felt they were underpaid at StoryCorps, but that the low pay wasn’t their primary motivation for organizing. “When I worked at other organizations, I didn’t mind working jobs for little pay,” said Alfaro. “I knew they had my back.”
At StoryCorps, management and employees are not on the same playing field, according to Alfaro, who said she was “pushed over the edge” when her job expectations were abruptly changed—to include more fund-raising work—without any explanation or increase in salary. A spokesperson for StoryCorps said the organization does not comment on individual employees or personnel actions. Alfaro left StoryCorps in May and now works at the National Public Housing Museum.
When Williams was offered full-time work, he was told his salary would start at a non-negotiable $33,700 per year. He said he now makes the same amount at an hourly rate; his 3 percent salary increase is set to go into effect this month. “I’ve been paid more to do part-time work, quite frankly,” he said, but added, “I do this work because I believe in social justice and the work they purport to do. I knew there was an exchange that came out of that.”
“That’s one of the things that makes this so sad and upsetting,” said Cooper. “It’s not that people hate StoryCorps. The reason they’re organizing is because they love the work so much.”Former New York Times Tokyo bureau chief Henry S. Stokes should have reason to celebrate. His latest book “Eikokujin Kisha Ga Mita Rengokoku Sensho Shikan no Kyomou” (“Falsehoods of the Allied Nations’ Victorious View of History, as Seen by a British Journalist”) has moved 100,000 copies in the five months since its December release, according to its publisher Shodensha.
The mashup of journalistic anecdotes from the front lines of Japan’s modern history and hard-nosed arguments against its responsibility for World War II atrocities has made the 75-year-old Stokes a darling of the country’s resurgent right wing. With the slim volume popping up on best-seller lists across the nation, its author has found himself in the brightest spotlight of his career.
There is just one problem — until a recent interview with Kyodo News, Stokes, a longtime resident of Tokyo, did not know what was written in his own book.
Now, the former reporter, who reads and writes only a little Japanese, says he is “shocked and horrified” by the book’s conclusion that the Chinese government fabricated the Nanjing Massacre, describing the claim as “straightforward right-wing propaganda.”
The book’s translator, Hiroyuki Fujita, “smuggled” the rogue passages into the work, Stokes says, adding that the conclusion was “just spooned into the text.” Fujita admits that he added his own language to the book but argues that he closely based his additions on Stokes’ own views.
Stokes, who suffers from advanced Parkinson’s disease and cannot easily type or use a pen or pencil, entrusted the book’s production to Fujita and Hideaki Kase, two men with close ties to the Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact, a nonprofit educational group that advocates “revisionist” positions on Japanese history.
At Kase’s urging, Stokes sat with Fujita for over 170 hours of interviews about his journalistic career and his self-described “right of center” political views. He says the men told him that they would translate the interviews into Japanese and then shape them into a book.
Stokes agreed to participate in the project, despite warnings from family and friends to be wary of the men, whom he describes as “personal, close friends.”
According to Stokes, Fujita had assured him that “90 to 95 percent” of the book was based on their interview sessions. While Fujita reiterated these claims, he would not comment on what other additions he had made to the text and declined multiple requests to share the recordings.
“As I’m being interviewed by these people, I would trust them to stick by the record,” Stokes said. “And if they haven’t done that, they have let me down and let themselves down.”
The “record” of Stokes’ comments on Nanjing is decidedly mixed. On one hand, the claims made in Stokes’ book appear, almost word for word, in an article attributed to him in the March 2014 issue of WiLL, a hard right-wing Japanese magazine, edited by Kazuyoshi Hanada. Similar comments appear under Stokes’ name in a series of interviews in Yukan Fuji, a popular evening tabloid.
But, in the March issue of Voice Magazine, another Japanese-language publication, Stokes expresses a very different opinion on both subjects. In a translated response to a question about Nanjing by reporter Taka Daimaru, Stokes says that he “can’t support” right-wing arguments that the massacre never happened, because they “aren’t realistic.” Similar comments appear in an interview with journalist David McNeil that ran in the April issue of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan’s magazine Number 1 Shimbun.
Despite the contradictions, Fujita, Daimaru and McNeill all say that they have faithfully reproduced their conversations with Stokes. Hanada was not available for comment.
“In the process of compiling the Japanese version of course I summarized or interpreted basically what he said,” Fujita said, adding that the quotation marks around the words Nanjing Massacre make it clear that he intended to convey Stokes’ position that the Chinese government has exaggerated the scale of the massacre, not that it is an outright lie.
Japanese readers, however, have interpreted the text differently. In a tweet sent two days before the interview, for example, one wrote that Stokes claims “there is not even one piece of evidence that the Nanjing Massacre occurred.”
That conclusion could not be further from the truth, Stokes says.
Over the course of multiple interviews with Kyodo News beginning on April 5, Stokes repeatedly expressed a view on Nanjing that directly contradicts the remarks attributed to him in both his own book and the articles in WiLL and Yukan Fuji.
“I don’t come within ten-thousand miles of this stuff as a position,” he said, dismissing the view that Nanjing is a fabrication as “ludicrous,” “fatuous” and “utterly, utterly asinine.”
“The stance I take is that ghastly events occurred in Nanjing,” Stokes said, adding that he does, however, disagree with Chinese assessments that 300,000 people died during the six days when the Imperial Japanese Army overran China’s then capital. He also objects to the use of the term massacre, preferring the more anodyne “Nanjing Incident.”
Stokes’ claims are supported by one of the project’s transcriptionists, who resigned for “ethical concerns” stemming from what she described as major differences between Fujita’s interviews with Stokes and the book’s contents. The text, she said, takes out of context or deliberately ignores several of Stokes’ statements, especially on the subject of Nanjing and the comfort women.
Stokes’ career as Tokyo bureau chief for the left of center New York Times, where he worked from 1978 to 1983, makes him the perfect vehicle for providing credibility to historical revisionists’ arguments against Japan’s responsibility for wartime atrocities, according to Takesato Watanabe, a professor of media ethics at Doshisha University in Kyoto.
Fujita admits this was a consideration in producing the book. “If I wrote this,” Fujita said, “people would say that I’m right-wing or a revisionist, and the things I say can’t be trusted, because I’m defending Japan.”
“If a foreign correspondent says it for me,” he added, “no matter what the content... people will say it’s interesting.”
Although Fujita played a major role in the book’s production, “without Kase-sensei (Mr. Kase), this publication was not possible,” he said, adding that he had consulted with Kase on the book’s topics and what questions to ask Stokes.
While admitting that he introduced Stokes to the book’s publisher, Kase denied that he had any direct role in writing it or that he knew about Fujita’s additions. Kase wrote the book’s afterword.
Stokes met Kase, who describes himself as a “diplomatic critic,” in the late 1960s. In the years following, Kase became an adviser to former Prime Ministers Takeo Fukuda and Yasuhiro Nakasone.
Kase, 77, has stayed active in conservative political circles in Japan. In addition to his position as the chairman of the revisionist group, he has been involved with several other right-wing organizations, most notably as a “representative” and “auditor” to the board of directors of the Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference), a hard-right political group with links to the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
In November 2012, Kase’s name appeared alongside Abe’s in a full-page newspaper advertisement in the New Jersey newspaper The Star-Ledger that described comfort women as high-paid prostitutes and made a number of additional claims that closely resemble those found in Stokes’ book. The ad instructs readers “eager to look further into the truth” to visit the website of the Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact.
This is not the first time that Kase’s name has appeared in connection with a literary sleight of hand. In the 1990s, a Korean journalist accused the prolific author of ghostwriting “Minikui Kankokujin” (“Ugly Koreans”), a Japanese best-seller that argues Japan’s occupation of Korea had been good for the country. The book’s original author later came forward and accused Kase of making substantial revisions to the text, which was published under a Korean pen name. Kase says he “corrected” the book, but denies writing it.
Stokes has requested that Fujita issue a correction to his book. Fujita says that he will correct the record in a forthcoming English edition, but there are currently no plans to amend the existing text.
Contacted by Kyodo News, the publisher said that he was “surprised” by the allegations and that if true a correction would be issued.
Despite his objections, Stokes refuses to assign blame for the book’s contents to the men he calls friends.
No matter how much he may disagree with the end result, “If I’ve been taken advantage of, it’s with my complicity,” Stokes said. “And, it’s my responsibility and my fault.”A humble bacterium first isolated in New York's Lake Oneida almost 30 years ago could change the world. With its innate ability to generate electricity, the little powerhouse might one day pave the way for making wastewater drinkable.
The bacterium, Shewanella oneidensis, inspired researchers from the Bazan Research Group at UC Santa Barbara to create a chemically modified microbial fuel cell. Using iron and other minerals, Shewanella produces energy as part of its metabolism and relies on current-conducting proteins in its cell membrane for respiration.
The researchers created an iron-containing molecule, DSFO+, with a structure that could mimic those critical proteins in two mutant Shewanella bacteria. They sought to determine whether incorporating DSFO+ would allow electron transfer in a manner similar to the proteins' function.
When the scientists examined the effect of DSFO+ on the organism, they discovered that they could not only improve its capacity to produce electricity but also use the molecule to replace the function of the naturally occurring proteins in mutant bacteria.
Their enhancement resulted in the ability to change the behavior of microbial systems so that in the future such organisms could be used to treat wastewater through their electricity generation. Their group's findings appear in the journal Chem.
"The protein replacement molecule that we constructed modifies the cell membrane so that it facilitates respiration by electron delivery to the membrane surface," said co-author Guillermo Bazan, a professor in "It's a power-generating trick that gives us an opportunity to look into the behavior of microbial species in a way that didn't exist before." said co-author Guillermo Bazan, a professor in UCSB's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and director of the campus's Center for Polymers and Organic Solids.
"We aided the metabolism of the bacteria," explains co-lead author Nathan Kirchhofer, a former UCSB materials graduate student. "I think very few people have approached this from a chemical modification type of approach. We actually just took bacteria as they were and added an external agent that helps with their native process. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time this has been demonstrated."
Such organism modification is more often done via genetic engineering; however, the microbes that result cannot be released into the environment and are much more challenging to apply in practical applications. The UCSB method chemically modifies the microbe for a certain amount of time and as the microbe multiplies, the synthetic molecule dilutes and the system goes back to its original state. According to Bazan, this makes it possible to use these microorganisms in wastewater treatment in a way that cannot be done with their genetically modified counterparts.
Co-lead author Zachary Rengert, a UCSB chemistry graduate student, points out that genetic engineering is more complicated and difficult to perform. "Furthermore, genetic engineering is microorganism specific," he said. "We envision our molecule to be applicable to a wide range of organisms."
However, the group's controllable microbial electrocatalyst is more than merely a demonstration of a new protocol
"Now we have the means to electronically interrogate what's going on inside the microorganism," Bazan explained. "One idea is removing electrons, which is common and easily performed. But what happens if we provide electrons to carry out chemical reactions? Can also we monitor the health of that microorganism by its electronic signatures? If we put a drug in the organism, how does that impact its metabolism?" Bazan continued. "If we stress the microbe, how does it breathe? If it's in a community of microorganisms, are they sending electronic signatures to let each other know what's going on? Can we intercept that? Can we record that? These possibilities are becoming viable now and open up fundamentally new avenues of research."
Source and top image: UC Santa BarbaraMSNBC host Joy Reid -- screen capture
Beginning her tribute with “Sean Spicer, say it isn’t so,” MSNBC host Joy Reid bid a fond farewell to the departing White House press secretary by sharing her favorite clips of the combative former mouthpiece for President Donald Trump.
“Exactly six months after making his first statement in the White House briefing room, a blistering attack on the press based on a Trumpian lie about crowd size at the inauguration, Spicer is getting off the Trump train at Unemployedsville,” a smiling Reid began. “Yes, it was a ride that was memorable to say the least, full of statements contradicted by the boss’s own tweets.”
Noting the “few minutes” Spicer spent “hiding from the press among the bushes” the AM Joy host reminded viewers about the “seemingly endless intrigue about his hold on the job.”
“At one point he was reduced to petty theft, he had to take the mini-fridge the junior staffers refused to give up,” she explained, referencing a recent Wall Street Journal story.
“What did Spicy get for defending Trump with alternative facts and feats of verbal gymnastics?” Reid asked. “A big old snub from his boss, left off of the officials selected to meet the the Pope — something Spicer long wanted.”
“At least we got this cultural treasure: Melissa McCarthy as the embattled and frustrated spokesman, nicknamed appropriately just ‘Spicy’ on Saturday Night Live,” she concluded before sharing some memorable SNL clips.
Watch the video below via MSNBC:Chief Election Commissioner Achal Kumar Jyoti has denied allegations of collusion with the Centre’s Narendra Modi government in not announcing the election schedules for Gujarat.
As widely expected, Jyoti said that the poll panel will announce the dates in next couple of days. The Congress had alleged that the EC had authorised Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce the dates after he announced key schemes to entice Gujarati voters last weekend.
Taking to Twitter, former finance minister P Chidambaram had sarcastically written that the EC had “authorised” Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare the dates at his last rally, after all “freebies” for the state were doled out.
Jyoti, for his part said that the delay was due to the government staff’s involvement in the flood relief work.
He said, “We realised that nearly 26,000 staff would be deployed for elections and flood relief work would get delayed.”
The same EC had not delayed the assembly elections for Jammu and Kashmir in 2014. The floods in Jammu and Kashmir was far more ravaging that this year’s floods of Gujarat.
There was allegation that Jyoti, a former senior civil servant in the Gujarat government during Modi’s term as the state’s chief minister, had deliberately delayed the dates as part of quid pro quo deal. He’s alleged to have flouted norms by extending his stay in a government bungalow in Gujarat.
He told NDTV, “We can’t stop anybody from making any announcement. We haven’t stopped anybody from going to Gujarat and making announcements.”
Jyoti also reminded that not just Modi, Rahul Gandhi too was ‘going to Gujarat today.’
Janta Ka Reporter had reported last week that the CEC was waiting for Modi to announce sops to announce the poll dates for Gujarat. Jyoti had earlier this month stunned everyone by refusing to announce the election schedule for Gujarat while doing the same for Himachal Pradesh. The counting for both the states will take place the same day on 18 December.Five million Brazilian farmers are locked in a lawsuit with US-based biotech giant Monsanto, suing for as much as 6.2 billion euros. They say that the genetic-engineering company has been collecting royalties on crops it unfairly claims as its own.
The farmers claim that Monsanto unfairly collects exorbitant profits every year worldwide on royalties from “renewal” seed harvests. “Renewal” crops are those that have been planted using seed from the previous year’s harvest. While the practice of renewal farming is an ancient one, Monsanto disagrees, demanding royalties from any crop generation produced from its genetically-engineered seed. Because the engineered seed is patented, Monsanto not only charges an initial royalty on the sale of the crop produced, but a continuing 2 per cent royalty on every subsequent crop, even if the farmer is using a later generation of seed.
"Monsanto gets paid when it sell the seeds. The law gives producers the right to multiply the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay (again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production," Jane Berwanger, lawyer for the farmers told the Associated Press reports.
In the latest installment of the legal battle erupting in South America, the Brazilian court has ruled in favor of the Brazilian farmers, saying Monsanto owes them at least US$2 billion paid since 2004. Monsanto, however, has appealed the decision and the case is ongoing.
In essence, Monsanto argues that once a farmer buys their seed, they have to pay the global bio-tech giant a yearly fee in perpetuity – with no way out.
At stake is Brazil’s highly profitable and ever growing soybean production. Last year, Brazil was the world's second producer and exporter of soybean behind the United States, according to the AFP report. The crops can be used for anything from animal feed to bio fuel, and worldwide demand is growing.
Genetically engineered soy first appeared illegally in Brazil in the 1990’s, smuggled in from neighboring Argentina. The Brazilian farmers found the seed attractive despite the ban in place from the Brazilian authorities because Monsanto had specifically designed the seed to be resistant to its own immensely powerful and popular herbicide Roundup.
When used in tandem, the strong herbicide will kill the weeds while allowing the soy crops to grow unimpeded. After the ban was lifted, genetically modified seed flooded the Brazilian market, and now 85 per cent of the Brazilian soy crop is genetically-engineered. Soy has been extremely successful in Brazil, currently making up 26 per cent of the country’s farm exports last year and netting Brazil a total of $24.1 billion, according to AP. However, Brazil’s farmers were apparently unaware there would be a heavy price to pay.
To make a deal with Monsanto is to make a deal with a company that is one the most powerful and pervasive food giants in the world. It is the world’s number one seed developer, and its patented genes have been inserted into 95 per cent of all American soy, and 80 per cent of all American corn crops. Monsanto has repeatedly levied large damage suits against independent farmers that have unknowingly or unwittingly used their seed.
And Monsanto’s reach goes far beyond agriculture.
Monsanto is also the world’s largest manufacturer of synthetic bovine growth hormone, injected into cows in order to stimulate greater milk production. The widespread pressure by the company to use the chemical and the subsequent measures taken by Monsanto to suppress information regarding the potential health risks sparked uproar among American farmers.
When dairy producers that did not use Monsanto’s products began labeling their products as “Hormone Free” or “Organic”, Monsanto slapped them with a lawsuit as recently as 2008, claiming the labels amounted to negative advertising against hormone-produced milk.
Director of corporate communications for Monsanto, Phil Angell, summed up Monsanto’s take on the issue in a report by food author Michael Pollan for New York Times Magazine in 1998: "Monsanto should not have to vouch for the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is FDA's job."Remember back in the day—pre-internet—when porn was actually…you know…hard to find? We adolescent boys sure had it rough—staying up late to catch the briefest glimpse of the female form on Skinemax. Shannon Tweed made me the man I am today.
Well, things are even tougher for Jack Hoffman (*snickers*), the protagonist of Adam Baran’s stellar coming-of-age short, Jackpot. It’s 1994 and Jack’s 13 year-old hormones are a raging. He’s also gay. Needless to say, relief isn’t easy to come by (pun not intended, I swear).
There’s no denying that the “coming-of-age” story is a crowded sub-genre (at Short of the Week we’ve recently featured several). Yet, Jackpot’s story is one that is rarely told—a comedic tale of a homosexual teen learning to come to terms with his sexuality and how it defines him as a person. Dealing with adolescence is hard enough. But, constantly being bullied and teased based on your sexual preference? That’s got to be downright unbearable. So often are nostalgia stories reserved solely for the awkward, dweeby dude lusting after the girl of his dreams (think Can’t Hardly Wait). With this film, Baran isn’t telling a story of a teen pining for someone to love, but rather, it’s about that teen learning to love himself (in both the sweetest and naughtiest interpretations of that phrase).
The story is obviously a personal one. As Baran related to the Huffington Post, “”The film was shot in my hometown, in my bedroom, and in a parking lot where I was bullied myself. The message that the character learns, at the end, is the message I wish I could go back and tell myself at that age — sometimes it’s better to stay and fight even if you don’t win. It’s hard to keep running away from the problem, even if you do need to keep yourself safe. It’s also about how our erotic materials help gay men understand who they are — even if sometimes it leads them to form the wrong impressions about what sex is actually going to be like.”
Visually, the film looks sharp and the performances are excellent. Ethan Navarro is sterling as the lead, never falling into stereotypical portrayals or mannerisms. But, beyond the technical excellence, I do want to hang a lantern on this film’s pacing. Folks, to be blunt, this is how you do it. As a short film curator, I’m constantly sent films over 20 minutes. While sometimes a longer short film is warranted, 9 times out of 10, every “long short,” I’m sent could stand to be cut by several minutes. Not so with Jackpot. At a brisk 9 and a half (including credits!), Baran manages to tell a complete, satisfying story, filled to the brim with heart, humor, and enough outlandish costumes to make the Village People blush. This is a tight, perfectly paced film—something that feels whole on its own right, but also makes sense as a teaser for a larger project. Speaking of which, Baran is attempting to develop a feature version of Jackpot, which he workshopped at the Outfest Screenwriting Lab in 2010. Be sure to throw a few shekels in his vimeo tip jar and help the project get made. Also, follow Adam on Twitter to keep up to date with his numerous creative endeavors.Federal drug laws create a labeling problem. When you hear the term “drug trafficker,” you might think of Pablo Escobar or Walter White, but the reality is that under federal law, drug traffickers include people who buy pseudoephedrine for their methamphetamine dealer; act as middleman in a series of small transactions; or even pick up a suitcase for the wrong friend. Thanks to conspiracy laws, everyone on the totem pole can be subject to the same severe mandatory minimum sentences.
To the men and women who drafted our federal drug laws in 1986, this might come as a surprise. According to Sen. Robert Byrd, cosponsor of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, the reason to attach five- and ten-year mandatory sentences to drug trafficking was to punish “the kingpins—the masterminds who are really running these operations”, and the mid-level dealers.
Fast forward twenty-five years. Today, almost everyone convicted of a federal drug crime is convicted of “drug trafficking”, which more often than not results in at least a five- or ten-year mandatory prison sentence. That’s a lot of time in federal prison for many people who are minor parts of drug trade, the vast majority of whom are men and women of color.
This is the system that federal district Judge Mark Bennett sees every day. Judge Bennett sits on the district court in northern Iowa, and he handles a lot of drug cases. “Never could I have imagined,” he writes in a recent piece in The Nation, “that…after nineteen years [as a federal district court judge], I would have sent 1,092 of my fellow citizens to federal prison for mandatory minimum sentences ranging from sixty months to life without the possibility of release. The majority of these women, men and young adults are nonviolent drug addicts.” What about the kingpins? “I can count them on one hand,” he says.
The numbers can’t convey the absurd tragedy of it all. This is how he describes a recent drug trafficking case:
I recently sentenced a group of more than twenty defendants on meth trafficking conspiracy charges. All of them pled guilty. Eighteen were ‘pill smurfers,’ as federal prosecutors put it, meaning their
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its electronic shifter except Park and Neutral. We let the car sit for about an hour and restarted it. We could now engage Drive and the same error message disappeared. After moving it only a few feet the error message reappeared and when we tried to engage Reverse the transmission went straight to Park and again no motion gear could be engaged. After calling the dealer, which is about 100 miles away, they promptly sent a flatbed tow truck to haul away the disabled Fisker. We buy about 80 cars a year and this is the first time in memory that we have had a car that is undriveable before it has finished our check-in process.
In comments to Drive On, Fisker said the dealership was able to start the car and drive it off the flatbed truck, and that it was operating as of tonight. Fisker's official statement:
Yesterday a Fisker owner, Consumer Reports, experienced a service event with the Karma they recently purchased from a local retailer. As a new company introducing a new technology into the marketplace, customer satisfaction and a quick and thorough response to any issue is our primary focus. As part of the Fisker VIP Customer Service program, the local Fisker retailer immediately arranged for the car to be picked up and diagnosed by trained service technicians. Our engineers are in contact with the retailer and are working closely with them to understand the cause and resolve the issue so they can return the car to their customer quickly. With about 2,000 Karmas built to date, 1,000 at retailers and 500 in customer hands, there are many satisfied Fisker owners around the world, driving without incident.
Fisker has snagged star points. Teen heart-throb Justin Bieber was surprised with a Karma for his 18th birthday on Ellen DeGeneres' daytime talk show last month.
Aston Kutcher and Leonardo DiCaprio also have Fiskers.
But the company has been staggering through problems, as well.
Last month, Fisker ran dry of federal loan money and had to stop work at a former GM plant in Delaware it promised to revive. It laid off 26 people from the skeleton crew working there, and also began earlier-than-planned layoffs of several dozen engineers at its headquarters in California.
The Department of Energy had halted loan cash to Fisker last May because the company failed to meet production and sales commitments it made to obtain the $529 million DOE loan. The company has been unsuccessful in re-negotiating the loan terms.
Fisker says it's trying to raise money privately.
An activist group called Judicial Watch said last month it is suing the government to get the secret details of the Fisker loan.
And late last month, company founder Henrik Fisker stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Tom LaSorda, formerly CEO at Chrysler Group.
Consumer Reports says it still will complete a test of the Fisker Karma, a plug-in hybrid that's supposed to go up to 33 miles on battery power only, and has a gasoline engine for supplemental power. Says CR:Who maintains RPM?
RPM is an important piece of Linux infrastructure. It is the native package manager for a number of major distributions, including Red Hat's enterprise offerings, Fedora, and SUSE. The Linux Standard Base specification requires that all compliant systems offer RPM - even those which are built around a different package management system. If RPM does not work, the system is not generally manageable. So it may be a little surprising to learn that the current status and maintainership of RPM is unclear at best.
Once upon a time, RPM was the "Red Hat Package Manager." In a bid to establish RPM as a wider standard - and, perhaps, to get some development help - Red Hat tried to turn RPM into a community project - rebranding it as the "RPM Package Manager" in the process. But core RPM development remained at Red Hat, under the care of an employee named Jeff Johnson. That, it would seem, is where the trouble starts.
Back in early 2004, an RPM bug report was filed. The reporting user had made a little mistake, in that he had tried to install a package on a system where /usr was mounted read-only. Needless to say, this operation did not work as intended - an outcome which the bug reporter could live with. This person, however, did think that it might have been better if RPM had not corrupted its internal database in the process of failing. He suggested that RPM should keep its internal records in order, even if the system administrator has requested something which cannot be done.
The ensuing conversation - lasting for over two years - deserves to become a textbook example in how not to respond to bug reports. Mr. Johnson took the position that, since RPM was being asked to do something erroneous, its subsequent mangling of the package database was not a bug. Instead, it seems, this behavior should be seen as an appropriate consequence for having done something stupid. Mr. Johnson repeatedly closed the bug, stating his refusal to fix it. Numerous other participants in the discussion made it clear that they disagreed with this "resolution" of the bug, but nothing, it seemed, could convince the RPM maintainer to put in a fix.
In February, 2006 - almost two years after the bug report had been entered - Mr. Johnson posted a one-line comment to the effect that read-only mounts were properly detected in RPM-4.4.5. This might seem like the end of the story, except for one little problem: Fedora currently ships version 4.4.2, and even the Fedora development repository has not gone beyond that. SUSE remains at 4.4.2, and the current RHEL offerings have rather older versions. Mr. Johnson has continued to make RPM releases, but the distributors are not picking them up. They are, instead, shipping an older version of this crucial tool, augmented with a rather hefty list of patches.
Part of what is happening here is that Mr. Johnson is no longer a Red Hat employee, having been encouraged to pursue other opportunities. He does, however, continue to show up on the Red Hat bug tracker when RPM issues are being discussed; as a current example shows, he does not appear to have adopted a friendlier attitude toward RPM users (or his former employer) over time. There has been talk on the mailing lists about removing his access to the bugzilla database - an action which may have occurred by now.
Red Hat's Greg DeKoenigsberg, who has responsibility for the company's relations with the development community has stood up and pointed out, however, that simply silencing one difficult personality will not address the real problem:
When we fired jbj, we didn't have the courage to draw a line in the sand and say "we're taking upstream ownership of RPM back." Why not? Because we thought it would be difficult politically? Because we didn't want the responsibility anymore? Because nobody in management actually cared enough to think about the ramifications? I don't know. Fast forward a year plus, and here we are. We're in a position where we have, essentially, forked RPM -- and no one is willing to admit it. No one is willing to take ownership of what we've done. Perhaps jbj "owns" RPM, in its current incarnation, by default, because no one else is willing to touch it. That's fine. He can have it. But that is not what *we* are using.
So, when Jeff Johnson walked out the door at Red Hat, he took RPM with him. Since then, few distributors have wanted to use his releases, but no other organized project around RPM has come into existence. For the purposes of the people using distributions from Red Hat and SUSE, RPM is essentially unmaintained.
There has been no clear message to users about the state of RPM. Some Fedora users have asked, via yet another bugzilla entry, for an update to Jeff Johnson's current release, but nobody has posted a definitive reason as to why that will not happen. But it does appear that there is no interest within Fedora to depend on Mr. Johnson for anything, much less an important piece of infrastructure, so Fedora appears unlikely to move to the newer releases.
What Greg DeKoenigsberg has said - backed up by Michael Tiemann - is that the time has come for Fedora and Red Hat to own up to what has happened and formalize the new status of RPM. The current situation, where RPM has been forked but nobody is saying so, will not lead to anything good in the long run. The new RPM - perhaps the "Red Hat Package Manager" yet again - needs to have its existence acknowledged and its maintainership made clear. Either that, or Red Hat and Fedora should acknowledge the current RPM maintainer and move toward rejoining with his version of the code. Until one of those things happen, there will continue to be a dark cloud of uncertainty surrounding a tool which is heavily depended upon by vast numbers of Linux users.
(See also: the the Fedora rpm-devel wiki page, which lists features found in the current RPM release but not in Fedora's version).Due to Function Scope and the hoisting of variable declarations we have to be a bit careful when using loops in JavaScript.
Let’s have a look the following example which is inspired by Douglas Crockford’s 3rd video on JavaScript:
var assure_positive = function ( matrix ) {
for ( var i = 0 ; i < matrix. length ; i += 1 ) {
// ^ fist declaration of i
var row = matrix [ i ] ;
for ( var i = 0 ; i < row. length ; i += 1 ) {
// ^ second declaration of i
if ( row [ i ] < 0 ) {
throw {
name : 'MatrixError',
message : 'Negative'
} ;
}
}
}
}
Due to the hoisting of variable declaration, this is the same as:
var assure_positive = function ( matrix ) {
var row, i ;
// ^ declaration got hoisted
for ( i = 0 ; i < matrix. length ; i += 1 ) {
row = matrix [ i ] ;
for ( i = 0 ; i < row. length ; i += 1 ) {
// ^ i gets reset to 0
if ( row [ i ] < 0 ) {
throw {
name : 'MatrixError',
message : 'Negative'
} ;
}
}
}
}
As you can see both loops share a single variable i. This is certainly not what was intended by the programmer. A first error occurs if
matrix. length + 1 > row. lenth
In this case the script will run indefinitely. In many other cases the function will simply produce false positives, as only the first row will be examined. Let’s test this:
var try_and_alert = function ( matrix ) {
try {
assure_positive ( matrix ) ;
alert ( 'Ok' ) ;
} catch ( e ) {
alert ( e. message ) ;
}
}
try_and_alert ( [ [ - 1, 2, 3 ], [ 1, - 2,- 3 ] ] ) ; // -> alerts "Negative"
try_and_alert ( [ [ 1, 2, 3 ], [ - 1, - 2,- 3 ] ] ) ; // -> alerts "OK" (false positive)
try_and_alert ( [ [ 1 ], [ 1 ], [ 1 ] ] ) ; // -> infinite loop
In addition to that, the row variable is defined in the entire scope of the assure_positive function. For now this is not harmful, but it could lead to future errors when refactoring the coed.
The described problem does not happen in languages with block scope, as each loop has it’s own scope. In order to achieve this in JavaScript, we simply need to wrap each loop into a function:
var assure_positive = function ( matrix ) {
// wrapper around the loop over the matrix
( function ( ) {
for ( var i = 0 ; i < matrix. length ; i += 1 ) {
var row = matrix [ i ] ;
// wrapper around the loop over the row
( function ( ) {
for ( var i = 0 ; i < row. length ; i += 1 ) {
if ( row [ i ] < 0 ) {
throw {
name : 'MatrixError',
message : 'Negative'
} ;
}
}
} ( ) )
}
} ( ) )
}
try_and_alert ( [ [ - 1, 2, 3 ], [ 1, - 2,- 3 ] ] ) ; // -> alerts "Negative"
try_and_alert ( [ [ 1, 2, 3 ], [ - 1, - 2,- 3 ] ] ) ; // -> alerts "Negative"
try_and_alert ( [ [ 1 ], [ 1 ], [ 1 ] ] ) ; // -> alerts "OK"
Every variable that is declared within one of the wrapper functions is only visible in the scope of this function and all it’s sub-functions. It is invisible to the enclosing scope and due to Lexical Scoping (aka Closure) we still have access to the variables defined in the enclosing scopes, such as matrix or row.
Once again, we see how powerful Lexical Scoping is. It gives us the possibility to use functions in order to simulate block scope for our loops.
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Robots are quite good at doing very specific tasks. Arguably, doing very specific tasks are what robots are best at. When you put a robot into an unknown situation, however, odds are you're not going to have a design that's optimized for whatever that situation ends up being. This is where modular robots come in handy, since they can reconfigure themselves on the fly to adapt their hardware to different tasks, and the Modular Robotics Lab at the University of Pennsylvania has come up with a wild new way of dynamically constructing robots based on their CKBot modules: spray foam.
The process starts with a "foam synthesizer cart" that deploys several CKBot clusters, each consisting of a trio of jointed CKBot modules. The CKBot clusters can move around by themselves, sort of, and combined with some helpful nudging from the cart, they can be put into whatever position necessary to form the joints of a robot. The overall structure of the robot is created with insulation foam that the cart sprays to connect the CKBot clusters in such a way as to create a quadruped robot, a snake robot, or whatever else you want. Watch:
Having a robot that shoots foam is good for lots more than building other robots; for example, Modlab has used it to pick up hazardous objects and to quickly deploy permanent doorstops. There's still some work to be done with foam control and autonomy, but Modlab is already thinking ahead. Way ahead:
"By carrying a selection of collapsible molds and a foam generator, a robot could form end effectors on a task-by-task basis -- for example, forming wheels for driving on land, impellers and oats for crossing water, and high aspect ratio wings for gliding across ravines. Molds could also be made of disposable material (e.g. paper) that forms part of the final structure. Even less carried overhead is possible by creating ad-hoc molds: making a groove in the ground or placing found objects next to each other."
With this kind of capability, you could (say) send a bunch of modules and foam to Mars, and then create whatever kind of robots you need once you get there. And with foam that dissolves or degrades, you could even recycle your old robots into new robots if the scope of the mission changes. Modular robots were a brilliant idea to begin with, but this foam stuff definitely has the potential to make them even more versatile.
[ UPenn Modlab ]February 13, 2014
The news that cable and news giant Comcast has struck a deal to purchase Time Warner, another large cable business, has raised concerns over market concentration. Observers note that the combined company, even if it divests some holdings, would create monopoly-like conditions for the industry.
Many are predicting a lobbying blitz by both companies to pressure governments officials to accept the deal. When Comcast purchased NBC Universal, lobbyists were hired to ensure the merger went through. Critics charge that the payments went beyond the traditional influence industry: after signing off on the Comcast-NBC deal, FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker was hired by Comcast for an undisclosed amount.
Could the revolving door shape the antitrust enforcement for the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner? Republic Report looked into the officials responsible for overseeing antitrust enforcement, and found that at least two have close ties to Comcast.
The recently installed head of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, William Baer, was a lawyer representing GE and NBC in their push for the merger with Comcast. At the time, Baer was an attorney with the firm Arnold & Porter. To his credit, Baer said last month that he is skeptical of further consolidation of the cable market. Disclosures reviewed by Republic Report show that Baer will continue receiving payments from Arnold & Porter for the next eleven years as part of his retirement package.
Maureen Ohlhausen, one of four commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission, which oversees antitrust enforcement, provided legal counsel for Comcast as an attorney just before joining the FTC. She also represented NBC Universal in the year before before becoming a commissioner in April of 2012. NBC Universal completed its merger with Comcast in January of 2011.
Still, several officials have signaled that they may reject the Comcast-Time Warner deal. Federal Communications Commissioner Ajit Pai told the Wall Street Journal that the merger could face “a number of hurdles in the Obama administration.”
Comcast and Time Warner are major players in both political parties.
Update: FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright, who began his term last month as a Republican member, worked for the economic consulting firm Charles River Associates since 2009. According to his disclosure, obtained by Republic Report, Wright was on a CRA team that had been retained to secure “antitrust clearance from the DOJ and FCC” for NBC Universal’s merger with Comcast. In addition to his salary as a law professor, Wright earned nearly $900,000 in outside income consulting for various Charles River Associates clients.Extremely limited deluxe vinyl LP edition housed in an over-sized LP book with a heavy matte stock cover and four heavy stock pages featuring artwork by renowned Brazilian artist João Raus. Includes digital download of album AND two recent EPs - Heavy and Empty. 2015 release from composer William Ryan Fritch (Vieo Abiungo). Revisionist brings an emphatic close to his incredibly prolific 2014. Just a few months after the release of Death Blues' Ensemble - his powerhouse collaboration with drummer and new music ringleader Jon Mueller - Fritch has produced his most focused and dynamic work yet. Energized by the collaboration with Mueller (Volcano Choir), the otherwise self-sufficient multi-instrumentalist surrendered his auterist sensibilities, seeking creative alliances with Benoit Pioulard, D.M. Stith, Origamibiro and Esme Patterson. The results are scintillating. From the elegant minimalism of Winds (produced by Pioulard) or the exultant vocals of Gloaming Light (performed by D.M. Stith), these inspired partnerships take Fritch's instrumentation and craft to new destinations, employ new techniques, and further it's immediacy and appeal.Madison Avenue's strategy for popularizing computers shifted from the 1950s through the 1980s. At first pitches focused on reliability and speed, but by the 1960s, advertising brochures put big systems in gardens next to fashion models. When PCs came on the market, the sales pitch changed again. Computing went family friendly, with endorsements from Bill Cosby, William Shatner, and even Charlie Chaplin. Welcome to the Computer History Museum's "Selling the Computer Revolution" exhibit.
In 1983, advertising pioneer David Ogilvy summarized his mission as follows: "I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you find it 'creative.' I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, 'How well he speaks.' But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, 'Let us march against Philip'."
This Hellenic manifesto certainly gets to the point. Unfortunately, Ogilvy's battle cry offers little guidance for helping us view advertising spots from a half century ago—the kind that fans of the AMC series Mad Men see being worked out alongside the personal lives of Don Draper, Peggy Olson, and Pete Campbell. The dictum offers even less aid for considering ads that hawk items so outmoded that even Ogilvy's skills could not inspire us to march on our local electronics store.
Take, for example, sales literature for mainframe computers made and marketed in the 1950s and 1960s. Even after reading a classy three color foldout for a room filling UNIVAC or PDP-5, would you buy one today? No way unless you are a dedicated collector. But now, thanks to the Computer History Museum's wonderful exhibit titled Selling the Computer Revolution, we can appreciate the considerable creative effort that went into making these machines attractive to business owners and consumers.
The public framing of computers shifted from the 1950s through the 1970s, the exhibit notes. In that first decade, advertisement and brochure makers focused their attention on engineers.
"Speed, efficiency, economy, and reliability," were the standard buzzwords. But as computers got smaller, cheaper, and more powerful, ads encouraged consumers to see them as more than just calculating machines. Pamphlets foregrounded the growing female labor force that ran them first as key punch operators and programmer assistants, then as programmers and computer buyers themselves. These advertisements also took on an increasingly futuristic and almost utopian edge.
"It was to have been the Nuclear Age," declared one 1976 ad for IBM. "It became the Computer Age."
Let's follow the computer marketing trail, and watch how the message evolved.
Well endowed
Mainframe computers in the 1950s like J. Presper Eckert's UNIVAC were big and expensive. They required entire rooms and in some instances building floors for their proper maintenance. And so computer literature emphasized maximum processing bang for the corporate buck. The RCA 501, for example, "has been endowed with the work habits that result in low work unit cost-speed, economy of motion, accuracy," the machine's 1958 sales brochure explained, "and with the capability of applying these efficient work methods to the full scope of business routines."
Brochure pictures of the mainframe turned the unwieldiness of the system to its advantage. "Directed to executives with a flair for facts," boasted an image caption, which depicted a suited man easily running the whole fifteen panel RCA 501 shebang from a single console.
Similar images billboarded literature explaining the UNIVAC file system and its general operation. Or they showed women employees skillfully running the show.
"WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?" asked the UNIVAC brochure. "Is it the tedious record-keeping and the arduous figure-work of commerce and industry? Or is it the intricate mathematics of science? Perhaps your problem is now considered impossible because of prohibitive costs associated with conventional methods of solution."
No worries, advertisers assured readers. They tackled anxiety about programming costs by summarizing prospective budgets in concise, easy to remember figures. "How much computer can you buy for less than $1000/MONTH?" asked the opening page of a 1955 brochure for the Bendix G-15 computing system. The large type answer was "PLENTY," followed by a photo of a crew assembling the operation in somebody's office.
Of course, as the buyer read on, he or she discovered a few extra details about the Bendix. It cost about $1,030 a month to lease an alphanumeric system. The sales price went "as low as $14,900." But to give the reader an idea of how concerned clients were about computing power, consider the details this brochure offered about processing times.
BENDIX G-15 SPECIFICATIONS Execution Times
Add and subtract:
Single precision—0.27 msec.
Double Precision—0.54 msec. Multiply and divide:
Single precision—2.16 to 16.4 msec.
Double precision—2.16 to 32.8 msec.
Given the costs of computing in the 1950s, no advertiser could omit a careful accounting of processor specifications and speeds. That attention to detail would taper down a bit in next decade.
Listing image by Computer History MuseumWelcome on board Commander. Time is essential, so let me brief you on the situation. We have just released a challenging time management game, full of hazardous take-offs and perilous interceptions. Reports from preview twitch streams say that players will be constantly under pressure and to make things worse, there are high chances to lose all the pilots and planes in horrendous and avoidable incidents.
But now you are here! The entire USS Ronald Reagan Carrier is at your command! Will you be successful in managing his deck?
The wait is finally over! Carrier Deck is out now and it is ready to stun you!
You will play as the Air Officer on board a CVN-76 in the midst of an active war. You, alone, are responsible for all aspects of operations involving aircraft on the ship and you'll need to work fast to ensure everything happens on time for the highest chances of success!
The game is also available on Steam!
Do you want to see some action? Follow us today as we stream the game on our official Twitch Channel at 11 am EST / 3 pm GMT / 5 pm CEST!Jon Lovett, the host of “Lovett or Leave It,” says humor can help politics go down easier. (Crooked Media)
Jon Lovett spent three years writing speeches — and jokes — for President Barack Obama. Now, he’s the host of “Lovett or Leave It,” a live, week-in-review panel show released as a podcast, and a co-founder of the liberal political outlet Crooked Media and its popular “Pod Save America” podcast. Though he’s traded the White House for Los Angeles, he sees parallels between his past and present roles, touting humor as a tool to discuss “our national [political] emergency.”
“Lovett or Leave It” “is substantive, even though we’re joking around and it’s in front of a crowd and at a comedy club or theater,” says Lovett, who brings the show to the Lincoln Theatre on Friday and Monday for sold-out tapings. “It’s about finding ways to talk about issues and what’s going on in this country in a way that’s honest and accessible, in plain language that doesn’t rely on cliches and tired political language. And that’s also the job of a speechwriter, right?”
In a nutshell, why do you make “Lovett or Leave It”?
I personally believe that Donald Trump being elected president is a national emergency and a crisis that stems from a great cascade of failures. And it’s easy to get overwhelmed and sad and withdraw because it’s too hard to deal with it, and I think that’s wrong. The only thing we can do is recognize how serious it is, but stay upbeat and stay in the fight. It’s OK to laugh at how insane this moment is. This show is a little like therapy — it’s a chance to commiserate with other people who see things how you do.
“Lovett or Leave It” host Jon Lovett worked in the Obama White House for three years as a speechwriter. In this 2011 photo, he discusses an upcoming speech with President Obama and other staff members. (Pete Souza)
What’s the audience in for at the D.C. shows?
The D.C. crowd is a very savvy crowd, so I’m excited to have a more substantive version of the show. It’ll be the show we always do, but we’ll bring in some interesting voices from D.C. — policy people and journalists, both liberals and conservatives.
Maybe Sean Spicer will show up.
That’s a great idea — it didn’t occur to me until now to invite Sean. We should do that. I would invite him to be a guest but I do think even Sean is too savvy to fall into that trap.
Crooked Media is credited with getting a young crowd interested in politics. Are you surprised at how strongly it’s resonated with people?
As a joke I always say no, it’s exactly what I expected. But of course, it’s crazy. There is an incredible appetite out there for in-depth, high-level conversations about what’s going on. Young people especially are a lot smarter than they get credit for, and they want something that treats them like informed people [who aren’t just] interested in the latest poll numbers or little gaffes. We try to talk when the microphones are on the same way we would when the microphones are off.
Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St. NW; Fri. & Mon., 8 p.m., sold out.Danny "BERRY" Krüger's No Problem! have become an official team after a month of playing together, and they're seeking support from a solid organisation.
No Problem! qualified for ESL Major League playoffs when they passed both group stages after beating teams like Awsomniac and Temp.no, while only losing to Russian Divine.
They will soon be taking part in the 8-team playoffs, which will hand out four slots in the next season of ESL Pro League.
gla1ve back in an official team
Apart from that, they have got all the way up to the grand final of FACEIT 2015 League Stage 2 Qualifier #1, beating teams such as AGENT along the way.
After these journeys, the team realized they have potential and decided to go official, while trying to find an organization to back them up. Interested parties can contact the team at [email protected].
"After a month of practise with good chemistry, promising results and potential all around we feel safe announcing our final lineup. We will continue practicing hard for the upcoming events." Krüger told HLTV.org. We are currently on the lookout for an organisation that can provide us the needed help for upcomming offline events."
Danny "BERRY" Krüger's next iteration of No Problem! looks as follows:
No Problem! are looking to attend the CS:GO Championship Series qualifier kicking off on Sunday, March 1st, while their LAN debut should be Copenhagen Games in April.It was 7pm on a June evening in 2010 when Francois Keller heard the rabble approaching his house, making the sort of noise that eight hours later would wake his neighbours.
Two years had passed since the ‘trauma’ of Morgan Schneiderlin’s departure for Southampton but, unannounced, Keller’s golden boy was back in Strasbourg with a bag of meat and a group of former team-mates.
‘I heard this singing in the street and I was thinking, “What is this?” But then I thought, “I know these voices”,’ says Keller, once Schneiderlin’s coach at Strasbourg.
He is one of the key figures in the background of a young prospect who learned English by watching Only Fools and Horses in Southampton and who returns to St Mary’s as a £25million man keen to prove he can be the long-term kingpin in Manchester United’s midfield.
Scroll down for video
Morgan Schneiderlin makes his return to the south coast following his £25m summer move to United
Schniederlin and fellow countryman Anthony Martial enter the Phillips Stadion for a training session
Keller will watch the next phase with more interest than most.
‘When I opened the door that evening, Morgan is grinning with about seven guys from his old youth team,’ he recalls. ‘I hadn’t seen them for a long time but they turned up with food saying it was time for a barbecue.
‘They were there until 3am when they left just as loud as when they came.
‘They woke my neighbours. Morgan and the boys came back the next year and the next. He has a very big heart — whenever I think of Morgan, I smile.’
During our chat at the home of Racing Club Strasbourg, Keller smiles a lot. He was coach at this faded club in north-eastern France, where Arsene Wenger ended his playing days 33 years ago.
It was Strasbourg who spotted Schneiderlin as a shy local six-year-old and raised him for the next 12 years. He was marketed as the ‘club’s child’ for their centenary celebrations in 2006, a teenager who lived on campus until the rules were bent to let him rent a flat. He kept the shutters drawn for six months to thwart Keller’s spy.
Keller remembers it all, from the protesting boy in a senior dressing room for the first time to the devastation that swept the town when Strasbourg went bust and he was sold to Southampton in 2008, aged 18, to pay the bills.
‘Look at him now,’ says Keller. ‘Everyone who knows him knows what he has done to get here.’
It is something an old school teacher, friends and the villagers of Zellwiller will agree on, even if they mostly wished Wenger had won the race to sign him.
Schneiderlin is pictured during his days at local club Strasbourg, whom he left for Southampton in 2008
Francois Keller has closely followed Schneiderlin's career and spoke fondly of his former player
Eric Cantona sold the point that here in Alsace, the hop farmers are more famous than Britain’s footballers. He might be right, but in Zellwiller, Schneiderlin redresses the balance.
‘My friend calls this “Schneiderlin’s town”,’ says Lucienne Ebel. She runs one of the village’s two pubs and has known the Schneiderlins for more than 60 years.
The population of this village of beautiful brightly-painted houses is roughly 750 and everyone knows his neighbour’s business.
It was here, 20 miles from Strasbourg, where Schneiderlin grew up, the eldest of two children, with mother Caroline and father Albert. Caroline was a carer for the elderly and Albert a roofer, like his own father, Gerard. His family still live in the village.
‘Gerard founded the football team here,’ says Martial Helbert, current president of Reunis, the amateur club created in 1968 by Schneiderlin’s grandfather.
‘I played football with Morgan’s father — a very good goalkeeper. He and Morgan played football in the garden every minute.’
From the start, Schneiderlin was a defensive midfielder. He was one of the many who wanted a Brazil shirt after the 1994 World Cup but among the few whose kit carried the name Dunga.
‘When Morgan comes back he is so humble,’ Helbert says. ‘He comes by train. He has a big car but he would never show off. His mother would not allow it.
‘We opened a clubhouse a couple of years ago and Morgan came for support.’
Inside that clubhouse is the kit Schneiderlin wore during an Under 18 international for France in 2007. When he played at the World Cup last summer, 350 people from surrounding villages crammed into the clubhouse to watch on TV. They had to call for more chairs.
Schneiderlin has completed a remarkable rise from Ligues 2 and 1 to League One and the Premier League
The Frenchman learnt English by repeatedly watching classic BBC comedy Only Fools and Horses
A picture in the corridor at Strasbourg’s Centre de Formacion (training centre) says Schneiderlin was six when he was placed on a path that has already visited the Barclays Premier League and World Cup. His father took him to a club open day in 1996 and Strasbourg liked what they saw. At the centre Schneiderlin met Thierry Brand, a coach at the academy and later his PE teacher at Jean Monnet high school in Strasbourg.
‘He was eight, a nice, shy boy — not very strong but charming, intelligent,’ Brand says. ‘He was so hard working and never complained.
‘He was good at volleyball, table tennis, handball... but at football he was so natural — always playing with guys in the year above.’
Keller, a striker at Fulham in the 1990s, oversaw Schneiderlin’s development.
‘His progress was perfect,’ Keller says. ‘He played for France in all age groups. His passion was like Thierry Henry’s.’
Schneiderlin slept at the academy for more than a year, sharing a room with Thomas Zerbini, who now plays in the French fourth division. ‘We had a policy that academy players could not move into flats until they were 18,’ Keller says. ‘But we let Thomas and Morgan get one at 17. They were so mature.’
By that point, Schneiderlin had already become the youngest professional in the club’s history, signing a contract before he was 17.
‘After Morgan moved into the flat I wanted to watch him,’ Keller says. ‘For six months he had the blinds down — they knew one of the club’s staff was in the next building and he’d tell me what time the TV was on, what time they are going to bed. Morgan is smart.
‘Another time I was driving home and saw Thomas and Morgan by the road. They had locked themselves out. I forced the door and they ran inside to hide a huge pile of pizza boxes. He was not an angel but he was not behaving badly.’
Keller gave Schneiderlin his first experience of senior football for the reserve team in 2006.
‘I had only 11 players, no subs, against Beauvais, the champions of the fourth division,’ says Keller. ‘They were men and Morgan was 16 — I put him in defence.
‘We lost 7-0. I remember Morgan at half-time, saying, “Coach, excuse me, but I am not a defender”.
‘I said, “I know this, Morgan, but it is quite a small squad today”. He went back out and tried so hard.’
Schneiderlin scores against Liverpool for Southampton and will return to St Mary's this weekend
The midfielder wheels away after netting another goal, this time against West Ham last year
That October, the ‘club’s child’ was on posters all over the city as he was handed a premature debut, aged 16, in Strasbourg’s centenary match. He was given a shirt with the number 100.
‘He said to his friends, “I’m like a clown today”,’ Keller recalls. ‘He was used a little for the publicity.’
Over the next 18 months, Schneiderlin was integrated into the first team, but Strasbourg were relegated in 2008 and, financially crippled, sold him to Southampton for £1.2m that summer.
The club were liquidated and reinstated in the fifth tier before climbing back to the third division, where they sit today.
‘We always knew he would go to a bigger club, but we and Morgan thought he would play many games for us,’ Keller says. ‘When he was sold, it was a horrible trauma.
‘We had faith he would do well in England with a club
|
yes.”
In the past, it was easy to ignore the role that student borrowing might play in the overall economy. A decade ago, there was only about $300 billion in such loans outstanding, and even now the $1.1 trillion in student loan debt is dwarfed by mortgage debt. But people who borrow money to pay for their education can’t simply walk away without paying, unlike with mortgages, car loans or credit cards; there is no equivalent of foreclosure, and student loan debts aren’t cleared by bankruptcy.
That may all be great from a lender’s point of view. But there’s a growing body of evidence that rising levels of student loan debt are restraining the ability of young adults to enter the “grown-up” economy — to buy a car and to buy a home and start filling it with big stuff.Organization creating copyright licenses for the public release of creative works
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share.[2] The organization has released several copyright-licenses, known as Creative Commons licenses, free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. An easy-to-understand one-page explanation of rights, with associated visual symbols, explains the specifics of each Creative Commons license. Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright but are based upon it. They replace individual negotiations for specific rights between copyright owner (licensor) and licensee, which are necessary under an "all rights reserved" copyright management, with a "some rights reserved" management employing standardized licenses for re-use cases where no commercial compensation is sought by the copyright owner. The result is an agile, low-overhead and low-cost copyright-management regime, benefiting both copyright owners and licensees.
The organization was founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig, Hal Abelson, and Eric Eldred[3] with the support of Center for the Public Domain. The first article in a general interest publication about Creative Commons, written by Hal Plotkin, was published in February 2002.[4] The first set of copyright licenses was released in December 2002.[5] The founding management team that developed the licenses and built the Creative Commons infrastructure as we know it today included Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, Glenn Otis Brown, Neeru Paharia, and Ben Adida.[6]
In 2002 the Open Content Project, a 1998 precursor project by David A. Wiley, announced the Creative Commons as successor project and Wiley joined as CC director.[7][8] Aaron Swartz played a role in the early stages of Creative Commons,[9] as did Matthew Haughey.[10]
As of May 2018 there were an estimated 1.4 billion works licensed under the various Creative Commons licenses.[11] Wikipedia uses one of these licenses.[12] As of May 2018, Flickr alone hosts over 415 million Creative Commons licensed photos.[13][14]
Creative Commons is governed by a board of directors. Their licenses have been embraced by many as a way for creators to take control of how they choose to share their copyrighted works.
Purpose and goal [ edit ]
CC some rights reserved
A sign in a pub in Granada notifies customers that the music they are listening to is freely distributable under a Creative Commons license.
Made with Creative Commons, a 2017 book describing the value of CC licenses., a 2017 book describing the value of CC licenses.
Creative Commons has been described as being at the forefront of the copyleft movement, which seeks to support the building of a richer public domain by providing an alternative to the automatic "all rights reserved" copyright, and has been dubbed "some rights reserved".[15] David Berry and Giles Moss have credited Creative Commons with generating interest in the issue of intellectual property and contributing to the re-thinking of the role of the "commons" in the "information age". Beyond that, Creative Commons has provided "institutional, practical and legal support for individuals and groups wishing to experiment and communicate with culture more freely."[16]
Creative Commons attempts to counter what Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons, considers to be a dominant and increasingly restrictive permission culture. Lessig describes this as "a culture in which creators get to create only with the permission of the powerful, or of creators from the past."[17] Lessig maintains that modern culture is dominated by traditional content distributors in order to maintain and strengthen their monopolies on cultural products such as popular music and popular cinema, and that Creative Commons can provide alternatives to these restrictions.[18][19]
Creative Commons Network [ edit ]
Until April 2018 Creative Commons had over 100 affiliates working in over 75 jurisdictions to support and promote CC activities around the world.[20] In 2018 this affiliate network has been restructured into a network organisation.[21] The network no longer relies on affiliate organisation but on individual membership organised in Chapter.
South Korea [ edit ]
Creative Commons Korea (CC Korea) is the affiliated network of Creative Commons in South Korea. In March 2005, CC Korea was initiated by Jongsoo Yoon (in Korean: 윤종수), a Presiding Judge of Incheon District Court, as a project of Korea Association for Infomedia Law (KAFIL). The major Korean portal sites, including Daum and Naver, have been participating in the use of Creative Commons licences. In January 2009, the Creative Commons Korea Association was consequently founded as a non-profit incorporated association. Since then, CC Korea has been actively promoting the liberal and open culture of creation as well as leading the diffusion of Creative Common in the country.
Creative Commons Korea [22]
Creative Commons Asia Conference 2010[23]
Bassel Khartabil [ edit ]
Bassel Khartabil was a Palestinian Syrian open source software developer and has served as project lead and public affiliate for Creative Commons Syria.[24] From March 15, 2012 he was detained by the Syrian government in Damascus at Adra Prison. On October 17, 2015 Creative Commons Board of Directors approved a resolution calling for Bassel Khartabil's release.[25] In 2017 Bassel's wife received confirmation that Bassel had been executed shortly after she lost contact with him in 2015.[26]
Criticism [ edit ]
All current CC licenses (except the CC0 Public Domain Dedication tool) require attribution, which can be inconvenient for works based on multiple other works.[27] Critics feared that Creative Commons could erode the copyright system over time[28] or allow "some of our most precious resources – the creativity of individuals – to be simply tossed into the commons to be exploited by whomever has spare time and a magic marker."
Critics also worried that the lack of rewards for content producers will dissuade artists from publishing their work, and questioned whether Creative Commons is the commons that it purports to be.[30]
Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig countered that copyright laws have not always offered the strong and seemingly indefinite protection that today's law provides. Rather, the duration of copyright used to be limited to much shorter terms of years, and some works never gained protection because they did not follow the now-abandoned compulsory format.[31]
The maintainers of Debian, a GNU and Linux distribution known for its strict adherence to a particular definition of software freedom,[32] rejected the Creative Commons Attribution License prior to version 3 as incompatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) due to the license's anti-DRM provisions (which might, due to ambiguity, be covering more than DRM) and its requirement that downstream users remove an author's credit upon request from the author.[33] Version 3.0 of the Creative Commons licenses addressed these concerns[34] and, except for the non commercial and no-derivative variants, are considered to be compatible with the DFSG.[35]
Kent Anderson, writing for The Scholarly Kitchen, a blog of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, criticizes CC as being dependent on copyright and not really departing from it, and as being more complex and complicating than the latter – thus the public does not scrutinize CC, reflexively accepting it as one would a software license – while at the same time weakening the rights provided by copyright. Anderson ends up concluding that this is the point, and that "Creative Commons receives significant funding from large information companies like Google, Nature Publishing Group, and RedHat", and that Google money is especially linked to CC's history; for him, CC is "an organization designed to promulgate the interests of technology companies and Silicon Valley generally".[36]
License proliferation and incompatibility [ edit ]
Mako Hill asserted that Creative Commons fails to establish a "base level of freedom" that all Creative Commons licenses must meet, and with which all licensors and users must comply. "By failing to take any firm ethical position and draw any line in the sand, CC is a missed opportunity.... CC has replaced what could have been a call for a world where 'essential rights are unreservable' with the relatively hollow call for'some rights reserved.'" He also argued that Creative Commons worsens license proliferation, by providing multiple licenses that are incompatible.[37]
The Creative Commons website states, "Since each of the six CC licenses functions differently, resources placed under different licenses may not necessarily be combined with one another without violating the license terms."[38] Works licensed under incompatible licenses may not be recombined in a derivative work without obtaining permission from the copyright owner.[39][40][41]
Richard Stallman of the FSF stated in 2005 that he couldn't support Creative Commons as an activity because "it adopted some additional licenses which do not give everyone that minimum freedom", that freedom being "the freedom to share, noncommercially, any published work".[42] Those licenses have since been retired by Creative Commons.[43]
License misuse [ edit ]
Creative Commons guiding the contributors. This image is a derivative work of Liberty Leading the People by. This image is a derivative work ofby Eugène Delacroix
Creative Commons is only a service provider for standardized license text, not a party in any agreement. Abusive users can brand the copyrighted works of legitimate copyright holders with Creative Commons licenses and re-upload these works to the internet.[who?] No central database of Creative Commons works is controlling all licensed works and the responsibility of the Creative Commons system rests entirely with those using the licences.[44] This situation is, however, not specific to Creative Commons. All copyright owners must individually defend their rights and no central database of copyrighted works or existing license agreements exists. The United States Copyright Office does keep a database of all works registered with it, but absence of registration does not imply absence of copyright – and CC licensed works can be registered on the same terms as unlicenced works or works licensed under any other licences.
Although Creative Commons offers multiple licenses for different uses, some critics suggested that the licenses still do not address the differences among the media or among the various concerns that different authors have.[30]
Lessig wrote that the point of Creative Commons is to provide a middle ground between two extreme views of copyright protection – one demanding that all rights be controlled, and the other arguing that none should be controlled. Creative Commons provides a third option that allows authors to pick and choose which rights they want to control and which they want to grant to others. The multitude of licenses reflects the multitude of rights that can be passed on to subsequent creators.[31]
Criticism of the non-commercial license [ edit ]
Erik Möller raised concerns about the use of Creative Commons' non-commercial license. Works distributed under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial license are not compatible with many open-content sites, including Wikipedia, which explicitly allow and encourage some commercial uses. Möller explained that "the people who are likely to be hurt by an -NC license are not large corporations, but small publications like weblogs, advertising-funded radio stations, or local newspapers."[45]
Lessig responded that the current copyright regime also harms compatibility and that authors can lessen this incompatibility by choosing the least restrictive license.[46] Additionally, the non-commercial license is useful for preventing someone else from capitalizing on an author's work when the author still plans to do so in the future.[46][47] The non-commercial licenses have also been criticized for being too vague about which uses count as "commercial" and "non-commercial".[48][49]
Great Minds, a non-profit educational publisher that released works under an -NC license, sued FedEx for violating the license because a school had used its services to mass-produce photocopies of the work, thus commercially exploiting the works. A U.S. judge dismissed the case in February 2017, ruling that FedEx was an intermediary, and that the provision of the license "does not limit a licensee's ability to use third parties in exercising the rights granted [by the licensor]."[50] Great Minds appealed the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit later that year.[51] The 2nd Circuit upheld the lower court's decision in March 2018,[52] concluding that FedEx neither infringed copyrights nor violated the license. One of circuit judges Susan L. Carney argued in the court statement:
We hold that, in view of the absence of any clear license language to the contrary, licensees may use third‐party agents such as commercial reproduction services in furtherance of their own permitted noncommercial uses. Because FedEx acted as the mere agent of licensee school districts when it reproduced Great Minds' materials, and because there is no dispute that the school districts themselves sought to use Great Minds' materials for permissible purposes, we conclude that FedEx's activities did not breach the license or violate Great Minds' copyright.[53][54]
Personality rights [ edit ]
In 2007, Virgin Mobile Australia launched a bus stop advertising campaign which promoted its mobile phone text messaging service using the work of amateur photographers who uploaded their work to the photo-sharing site Flickr using a Creative Commons by Attribution license. Users licensing their images this way freed their work for use by any other entity, as long as the original creator was attributed credit, without any other compensation being required. Virgin upheld this single restriction by printing a URL, leading to the photographer's Flickr page, on each of their ads. However, one picture depicted 15-year-old Alison Chang posing for a photo at her church's fund-raising carwash, with the superimposed, mocking slogan "Dump Your Pen Friend".[55][56] Chang sued Virgin Mobile and Creative Commons. The photo was taken by Chang's church youth counsellor, Justin Ho-Wee Wong, who uploaded the image to Flickr under the Creative Commons license.[56]
The case hinges on privacy, the right of people not to have their likeness used in an ad without permission. So, while Mr. Wong may have given away his rights as a photographer, he did not, and could not, give away Alison's rights. In the lawsuit, which Mr. Wong is also a party to, there is an argument that Virgin did not honor all the terms of the nonrestrictive license.[56]
On 27 November 2007, Chang filed for a voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit against Creative Commons, focusing their lawsuit against Virgin Mobile.[57] The case was thrown out of court due to lack of jurisdiction and subsequently Virgin Mobile did not incur any damages towards the plaintiff.[58]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]By Nigel Sizer, Matt Hansen, Peter Potapov, David Thau, Rachael Petersen and James Anderson New, high-resolution satellite-based maps released today by the University of Maryland and Google on Global Forest Watch, a partnership of over 60 organizations convened by the World Resources Institute, reveal a significant recent surge in tree cover loss largely in Russia and Canada during 2013. There is also some good news, with a slowing of tree cover loss in Indonesia, though rates of loss continue a troubling rise across the tropics as a whole. These 2013 data are the first annual update to the influential “High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change” published in Science, and are the latest globally consistent estimates of tree cover loss available. So what do the data say? Much analysis remains to be done, but here are five immediate highlights:
Tree Cover Loss Remains High Globally, Surges in Russia and Canada
Global tree cover loss in 2013 continued to be high at over 18 million hectares (69,500 square miles)—about twice the size of Portugal—slightly lower than 2012, but a troubling 5.2 percent increase over the 2000-2012 average. In 2011-2013, Russia and Canada topped the list (mostly due to forest fires), jointly accounting for 34 percent of total loss. Tree cover loss is a measure of the total loss of all trees within a specific area regardless of the cause. It includes human-driven deforestation, forest fires both natural and manmade, clearing trees for agriculture, logging, plantation harvesting, and tree mortality due to disease and other natural causes. Tree cover gain also happened during 2013, but is not included in the 2013 update or this analysis as it is more difficult to monitor than loss. Much of the tree cover loss is only temporary, as forests regenerate after disturbances such as fire, though in the boreal region this is a very slow process.
To see a complete ranking of countries by tree cover loss, visit the GFW country rankings and country profiles.
Boreal Forests Experience the Greatest Increase in Tree Cover Loss of Any Region
The new maps show a recent increase in tree cover loss in parts of the world’s boreal forests in Russia, Canada and Alaska. Although the tropics had more tree cover loss overall, the boreal region showed the steepest increase of loss of any region. Russia (which at 882 million hectares has the biggest area of tree cover in the world) lost an average of 4.3 million hectares (16,600 square miles) of tree cover per year between 2011 and 2013, an area larger than Switzerland. Fires in the boreal are partly natural (natural fire dynamics play an important role in boreal forests) and partly manmade, with climate change and infrastructure increasingly having an impact. The forest will grow back, but this process takes centuries.
Although the new data do not identify the direct causes of tree cover loss, studies found fires in recent years accounted for around 70 percent of total tree cover loss in Canada and Russia. The area and number of fires in boreal regions vary widely from year to year. The Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Forest Service estimated forest fires burned 4.2 million hectares (16,216 square miles) in 2013. Russia’s United Interagency Statistical Information System reported between 3.9 and 6.2 million hectares of burned forest area each year from 2010 to 2014, with a spike of 11 million hectares in 2012. These areas are larger than the tree cover loss estimate from the University of Maryland, possibly due to different mapping methods, different definitions of forest, re-burning of areas where trees have already been killed, and because not all fires kill trees. Researchers have predicted that climate change could increase the frequency and intensity of boreal wildfires in the 21st century, producing more late-season fires that kill trees and result in greenhouse gas emissions. In some boreal forests, fires are already burning more now than at any time in the last 10,000 years. Forest fires can also influence the climate. Although the exact relationship between boreal forest fires and the climate is still uncertain (for example, removing trees may also potentially increase albedo and lead to cooler temperatures), larger and more frequent forest fires do generate more greenhouse gas emissions from burning trees and peat soils. Leading scientists at NASA and elsewhere estimate that the overall effect will be to warm the climate. It is too early to call this spike a trend. Further research is needed to determine the drivers and estimate impacts of the forest fires, which tend to be highly variable over time and affect some boreal areas more than others. Fires can be tracked daily through Global Forest Watch. In addition to fires, logging and pests also account for some of the spike in tree cover loss in the boreal region. Tree Cover Loss Driven by 2013 Forest Fires, East of James Bay, Canada. Click to enlarge. (See NASA image here.) Data visualizations by Vizzulaity.
Indonesia’s Tree Cover Loss Slows Substantially after Previous Highs
Indonesia’s annual tree cover loss declined in 2013 to the lowest point in almost a decade, pulling the three-year average down to 1.6 million hectares (6,200 square miles) of annual tree cover loss. In addition to a slowing of total tree cover loss, Indonesia’s loss of primary forests slowed to an average of less than half a million hectares per year from 2011-2013, the lowest in the last decade. Primary forests are mature, natural forests that have not been cleared in the past 30 years, and Indonesia’s represent some of the most biodiverse and carbon-rich forests on earth. The drop is surprising, since research published last year by the University of Maryland and WRI showed Indonesia’s loss of primary forests increased rapidly from 2001-2012. A single year, however, does not make a trend. Global Forest Watch will soon publish 2014 data, key to further interpreting the 2013 information. It is also too soon to say what may have triggered the decrease. A deeper examination into many potential factors is warranted, including the effects of a much-applauded moratorium on new licenses for forest conversion, a significant decline in agricultural commodity prices (especially for palm oil), corporate zero-deforestation commitments and the fact that much of the most accessible forests have been already cleared.
The Future of Monitoring the World’s Forests
Decision makers around the world can now use this new information to better inform policymaking. In the next few months, more up-to-date 2014 data will be added to Global Forest Watch. Tree cover loss for 2015 can already be monitored through near real-time alerts such as FORMA, Imazon SAD alerts, and Terra-i alerts, all available on Global Forest Watch thanks to the efforts of our many partners. Higher-resolution, higher-frequency, low-cost imagery is also becoming increasingly available. Global Forest Watch will soon be announcing some new partnerships with companies innovating with such data. The fate of the world’s forests rests partly on the steady progress of scientists in monitoring change and partly on policymakers using this information wisely. It also depends on people on the ground calling for good governance and secure land and resource rights, stopping the trade in illegal wood, and shifting to more sustainable systems to grow food and produce commodities. Global Forest Watch aims to support these efforts through apps such as Global Forest Watch Commodities and Global Forest Watch Fires. Join the movement by exploring the data today. We always welcome your feedback on how we can improve the system. Visualize the new data on Global Forest Watch here, or download and analyze the data on GFW’s new Open Data Portal here. *Note, all tree cover loss numbers calculated with a 30% threshold for tree cover canopy density. A Fresh Look at Forests, 2011-2013 In addition to releasing data for 2013, the University of Maryland and Google have released reprocessed tree cover loss data for 2011 and 2012 using a new, improved algorithm and satellite imagery following the launch of NASA’s Landsat 8. The calculations of tree cover loss for those years have been updated on the GFW country pages and the map. Read our technical blog on the data update, or learn more about the researchers at Google Earth Engine Partner page. Why focus on trends and averages instead of 2013 as a standalone year? Clouds literally get in the way of what satellites can “see,” especially in the humid tropics where clouds can obscure the view below for much of the year. That means that occasionally trees may be felled or burned under the cover of clouds and it may not be detected until the following year. To quantify, the research team is 75 percent confident that the loss occurred within the stated year, and 97 percent confident that it occurred within a period from the year before to the year after the stated year. Users of the data can smooth out such uncertainty by examining the average over multiple years (we use a three-year moving average in the charts). Tree cover gain was not updated in this new data because it is difficult to measure on a year-to-year basis due to the slowness of regrowth. In the future, we plan to update tree cover gain every three years.An increasing trend of young twenty-something tech professionals are taking tiny amounts of the psychedelic drug LSD in order to help them think outside the box and increase their productivity at work.
Microdosing is the practice of taking doses of drugs that are so low that they fall into the "sub-theraputic" category, which means that the drugs have a mild effect on the human body, but are unlikely to produce whole-body effects.
Traditionally this term referred to the study of tiny doses of drugs on humans by medical researchers, but today, the website High Existence defines Microdosing as "taking sub-perceptual doses (six-25 microgram LSD, 0.2-0.5 gram dried mushrooms, 50-75 microgram mescaline HCL) while keeping up with one's daily activities, engaging in extreme sports, appreciating nature or enhancing one's spiritual practice".
An increasing number of tech professionals in Silicon Valley are taking microdoses of LSD because it gives them an energy boost and helps them to work through complicated technical problems quicker than before.
"[You] feel a little bit of energy lift, a little bit of insight, but not so much that you are tripping," Rick Doblin, founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies told Rolling Stone Magazine.
James Fadiman, author of The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide, introduced the idea of microdosing at a psychedelic research conference in 2011 when he presented the results of experiments where he took microdoses of drugs himself.
Since then, other people who have tried microdosing out have said that it can alleviate depression, migraines and chronic-fatigue syndrome, while promoting creative out-of-the-box thinking. He recommends that people who want to try this take a microdose every fourth day in the morning and then stick to their regular daily routine.
"People do it and they're eating better, sleeping better, they're often returning to exercise or yoga or meditation. It's as if messages are passing through their body more easily," Fadiman told Motherboard Vice.
"This is total guesswork, but so many different conditions that I've seen are improved, it looks like it rebalances those pistons which are not in balance. This may be in your central nervous system, it may be the brain stem, it may be that it's improving function of mitochondria. One woman who had painful, crampy periods started microdosing and when her period came, she had no problems."Chinese characters are made up of strokes. Learning to write them involves not only learning where all the strokes go, but also the order in which they are supposed to be written and the direction of each individual stroke (left to right, up to down, etc.) The simplest character is yī (one), a single stroke written from left to right. The most complex character, biáng (above), is made up of 57 strokes.
This character occurs in the written form of biángbiáng miàn, or biangbiang noodles, a dish of wide, flat noodles popular in the Chinese province of Shaanxi.
The status of biáng as most complex requires a bit of qualification. The character is not found in dictionaries, and its origin appears to be whimsical: biáng is not a syllable in Standard Mandarin but an onomatopoeia for the sound of noodles slapping on the table as they are being made, or for the lip-smacking sound of people contentedly munching on them. There are different theories about how the character came to be, but the most plausible one is that the owner of a noodle shop made it up.
If obscure or little-used characters count, then one could make a case for zhé, an obsolete character of 64 strokes, that, appropriately enough, meant "verbose."
Wikimedia Commons/Erin McCarthy
This character however, is just one single character (for long or "dragon") written four times. Biáng contains within it the characters for speak, horse, grow, moon, heart, knife, eight, roof, and walk, plus a few extra strokes, so though it might have fewer strokes, it has a lot more complexity.
For characters that do appear in modern dictionaries, the complexity winner seems to be nàng, a 36-stroke character referring to the sound your voice makes through a stuffed up nose.
Wikimedia Commons/Erin McCarthy
Biáng though, deserves to get the credit for its complexity. Though it is a highly atypical Chinese character, a case can be made for it being most "Chinese" of Chinese characters. As expert Sinologist Victor Mair says in this post at Language Log, "For me, biáng symbolizes the difficulty of accommodating the full fecundity of folk, popular, and local/regional cultures and languages within the bounds of the standard writing system, which enshrines the elite, high culture, and now also the bourgeois, urban, national culture. In other words, biáng is well-nigh bursting at the sides of the scriptal and phonetic boxes within which it is constrained."
Biáng. A local comfort food wrapped up, with a wink, in the ribbons of a 5000 year old writing tradition. A lip-smacking, calligraphical good time.Harry Reid’s Senate Tirade Against Trump Looks Like Another Violation of Senate Ethics Rules
Last week, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) went on a tirade on the Senate floor blasting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. He referred to him as a “spoiled brat,” “a con artist” and a “human leech who will bleed the country.”
His speech likely violated Senate ethics rules. Members of both the Senate and the House are prohibited from conducting political campaign activity in a federal building. The applicable ethics rule states, “The General Appropriations statute, 31 U.S.C § 1301, provides that official funds are to be used only for the purposes for which they were appropriated. No official resources may be used to conduct campaign activities.”
This wouldn’t be the first time Reid has attacked the Republican presidential nominee from the Senate floor right before the election. In 2012, he accused Mitt Romney in a speech of not paying taxes for most of the past 12 years, and directly addressed his campaign for president, “This week we learned Mitt Romney only wants to be president of half of the United States. If Mitt Romney were president, he wouldn’t waste time worrying about the 47 percent of Americans who he believes are victims, who Romney believes are unwilling to take personal responsibility.”
A senior Senate Republican aide told The Hill, “He’s campaigning on the Senate floor. It’s the taxpayer-funded Senate floor. The speech had nothing to do with the Senate. It was a pure campaign speech. You couldn’t give it in the rotunda. You couldn’t give it in my office. It’s a taxpayer-funded building.” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) piled on after Reid’s speech, continuing the criticism of Romney.
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NSFW (Not Safe For Work!) Any Yes NoDonald Trump's awake and once again he's tweeting.
As the president-elect is flirting with one secretary of state openly detested by his allies and close advisers and another who willingly gave highly classified information to his mistress, as acts of racism are being carried out in his name he's angry that people somewhere are able to protest their First Amendment rights.
Advertisement:
Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Nov. 29, 2016
Think about this for a moment. Trump — who for years said that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States — wants to be able to take away someone's citizenship for using permitted, albeit unpopular, speech. This isn't just settled law. This is extremely settled law. So much that even the late justice Antonin Scalia didn't want to change it.
“If I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment." - Antonin Scalia https://t.co/bT7z1HNNqM — Olivia Messer (@OliviaMesser) Nov. 29, 2016
Late Monday night, Trump took to Twitter to yell at CNN how he won "in a landslide" that was, at the same time, rigged. And even though no one could find voter fraud — except for a Trump voter — Trump didn't take this to mean that there was no voter fraud. Rather, he took it that journalists weren't working hard enough.
"@HighonHillcrest: @jeffzeleny what PROOF do u have DonaldTrump did not suffer from millions of FRAUD votes? Journalist? Do your job! @CNN" — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Nov. 29, 2016
"@JoeBowman12: @jeffzeleny just another generic CNN part time wannabe journalist!" @CNN still doesn't get it. They will never learn! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Nov. 29, 2016
Trump also retweeted a 16-year-old fan who validated his opinions.
"@FiIibuster: @jeffzeleny Pathetic - you have no sufficient evidence that Donald Trump did not suffer from voter fraud, shame! Bad reporter. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Nov. 29, 2016
No matter what the president has to say, the following is true: Burning the American flag is constitutionally protected speech, there's no evidence of voter fraud, Donald Trump won the 2016 election while losing the popular vote, and he's going to enter the Oval Office with low popularity, tons of conflict-of-interest baggage and a health secretary who hates health care.No prize can please everyone, but the shortlist of six is the result of passionate and painstaking argument, says judge Sam Leith. Who would you like to win tonight?
In some ways, we’d have been happy to leave it at the longlist. As one of my fellow judges commented in the Man Booker shortlist meeting, this was the point at which the gameshow aspects of a book prize start to take over: we took a list of 13 first-rate novels and halved it for no other reason than that’s the way the game works. Tonight, we single out but one.
There are advantages and disadvantages to that process. The fewer books you are talking about, the less you’re giving a snapshot of the literary culture and the more it becomes about these books in their particularity. Most years, the reception of the longlist centres on either famous writers who’ve been omitted (“snubbed”) or on a trip through the statistical wringer (too many foreigners, if you’re one sort of newspaper; not enough women or minority writers if you’re another). Both are necessarily stupid reactions: stupid for obvious reasons; necessarily so because reaction has to be instant, and few, if any, of the commentators will have read the whole longlist, let alone the 156 novels from which it was selected.
It’s sometimes said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Each of us have lost books we’d like to have seen go further in the process. The shortlist from which the winner will be selected is not the one that any single one of us, unaided, would have created. But I think it’s the better for it: it was arrived at not by brute-force voting, but by careful and detailed and impassioned argument – followed, in the odd case, by brute-force voting.
So it’s a list that represents no single person’s taste, but that all of us are proud to own. We have Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings – a rumbustious, thrilling, many-voiced historical novel about gang violence in Jamaica. We have Tom McCarthy’s Satin Island – a horrifyingly comic novel of ideas with its fingers jammed into the light-socket of the age. We have Chigozie Obioma’s extraordinary debut The Fishermen – a story of brotherhood and family that mixes tragedy and farce, the mythic and the mundane. We have Sunjeev Sahota’s hugely immersive and moving story about the experience of Asian immigrants in today’s Britain, The Year of the Runaways: what those who make the journey bring with them, what they leave behind. We have, in Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread, a multi-generational family saga told with astonishing sensitivity and command. And we have A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara’s wrenching and relentless fable of sexual trauma and its aftermath.
What do you look for in a novel? Stylistic grace, emotional punch, truth to experience, extravagance of imagination, storytelling brio, moral rigour, intellectual or formal audacity, depth of characterisation, or what Milan Kundera calls “the soft gleam of the comical”…? All these virtues are amply represented on this list: every book on it is long in more than one of these suits and most of them are long in many. We think that every one of these novels has something remarkable to offer its readers. We hope you’ll agree.
• To buy any of the shortlisted books, or the full Man Booker Prize 2015 shortlist for £60 (RRP £80.94), go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.The home of Nebraska wide receiver De'Mornay Pierson-El and three of his teammates was burglarized early Sunday morning and Pierson
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I tore on. As I gingerly removed the poster I saw a signature and thought, 'Cool! I've never owned a signed poster before!' I pressed on and removed the rolled up poster which I now could see was covered in signatures, 'What could this possibly be?!' I asked myself. My heart beating faster I unfurled the massive poster to be greeted by champions I have played before!
Then basically I lost it and started texting a ton of my friends. I've recenly been swept away by other games but LoL still holds me as my favorite MOBA and even earlier in the day I was discussing with a colleague at work why I preferred the LoL community and game mechanics.
Needless to say, giftee (I have you real name but I won't post it as I don't want to do that without your permission) you are the best fucking gifter I've ever seen. You really made my Christmas! Thank you soooooooo much!
EDIT: I edited the first paragraph as it was filled with half finished sentences from my happiness.Heinsohn. Photo: Markus Heinsohn/Twitter
The Major League Baseball season is almost upon us, and with it comes one of the nerdiest of American pastimes: predicting the statistical performances of the league's 30 teams and 750 players. The task, while inexact, has made stars out of people like pioneering sabermetrician Bill James and FiveThirtyEightfounder Nate Silver. Meanwhile, with the recent release of the seventeenth edition of the baseball simulator Out of the Park Baseball, German programmer Markus Heinsohn has continued working to create a computer game that models the sport as accurately and robustly as possible.
The very existence of OOTP is something of a minor miracle: it's gone from a DIY passion project to a game that has been praised by everyone from former Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling to current Boston Red Sox owner John Henry. In the process, it has developed into a major enterprise, complete with MLB licensing and a full-time marketing and development staff.
"I started playing baseball, which is quite a rare activity in Germany, when I was 14," Heinsohn told me. "My friends and I founded our own club and played organized baseball, and that's how my obsession with the sport began. I read everything about it that I could find, studied its rules and its history, and watched as many games on TV as possible."
By the time he was sixteen, Heinsohn had created a file manager program for DOS that sold well, but after 1997, the development of OOTP consumed nearly all of his time. Although the game has grown in popularity since its debut, the path was not an easy one.
"Programmers who choose to work on games, even successful games, walk a difficult road," said Nathan Zimmerman, a software designer and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. "The cash payoff is rarely as great as when you are engaged in a more avowedly commercial project, which is often the case when it comes to activities pursued for love rather than money."
For some long-term fans, this imagined future is preferable to the reality presented by MLB
OOTP, however, is a game that is at its most basic level concerned with money: You are the general manager of a baseball team, and you must allocate your financial resources wisely. Like the award-winning Football Manager, a soccer simulator Heinsohn singled out for special praise, OOTP allows you to buy and sell players in order to maximize victories and profits.
"These simulation games put the player in the position of management, as opposed to labor, and that's the mentality that you'll begin to internalize, as is the case with fantasy sports players in general," said Ben Labe, a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "You're always asking yourself, 'if I had X amount of money and these particular players, could I do better?'"
Heinsohn, to his credit, has worked to improve the process of answering that hypothetical question by incorporating the advanced statistics developed by Bill James, Nate Silver, and other experts. "By keeping track of new developments, such as pitch FX data and fielding movement data and utilizing the ZiPS projection system as a base for player ratings, we have greatly improved the simulation engine. For example, we introduced DIPS theory, the idea that pitchers mostly have no influence over what happens to batted balls, in OOTP 6, and we've been miles ahead of the competition in terms of simulation accuracy and realism since then."
Although predicting the raw performances of the teams and players is important, the heart of the experience is its financial engine and the behaviors of the various artificially intelligent general managers against whom the player competes. Advanced statistics have also helped Heinsohn develop AIs that display a much better understanding of a player's worth.
"Features like that are so complex that we need years for them to be fleshed out and reach their potential," Heinsohn explained. New developers hired to work on the project have enabled the introduction of multi-threading support, thereby speeding up the time it takes to shop a player around—a truly annoying problem with earlier games. Crash issues, more prevalent in prior versions of the game and in beta testing for OOTP 17, have been resolved.
Projecting the future is no easy task, but OOTP 17 does it well, particularly with regard to the outcome of the season corresponding to its release. "That makes sense," Labe said. "Economists and statisticians are good at predicting the weather, but longer term forecasting is more difficult."
The distant future, at least in OOTP, leaves a great deal to chance: Career-ending injuries and certain behavioral variables, such as "work ethic" and "leadership," can shape the long-term simulation in unpredictable ways. For some long-term fans, this imagined future is preferable to the reality presented by MLB.
"I haven't watched a baseball game in years," said Chris Flora, a tax consultant in Florida who has played OOTP since 2004. "But I read Baseball Prospectus before each season starts, and then I get lost in these Out of the Park universes, thirty or forty seasons in a row, that are always better than the real thing—whatever'real' means."
Flora compared his experience to that of J. Henry Waugh in Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association, a novel in which the protagonist, who leads a boring life, immerses himself in the dice-based imaginary baseball association he runs. "I guess for some people it's about the money, they're identifying with the management or the capitalists or whatever, but for me, once the current players retire, it's about getting lost in the narrative my mind makes up along the way. It's always real to me."
Heinsohn, who closely monitors the game forums in which a dedicated core of users provides up-to-the-minute feedback, understands the challenges that accompany each release of a new game. "I have worked on the game for almost two decades, and unless someone offers me $25 million for the company, I won't quit doing it. Nevertheless, our hardcore fans are demanding, and while I think we do a very good job each year, it is certainly not easy."
Definitely not easy: innumerable fantasy baseball seasons and simulated players' careers are at stake, after all.Women around the world groaned in recognition when a Twitter campaign against men who violate women's personal space on public transport took off in Turkey last week.
The 'Close Your Legs' campaign was an initiative of the Istanbul Feminist Collective (IFK) to highlight harassment in public places. In response, countless women shared photos of leg-spreading offenders on buses and trains and the hashtags #bacaklarinitopla (“Close Your Legs”) and #yerimisgaletme (“Don’t Occupy My Space”) started trending on Twitter, according to Turkish newspaper Hurriyet.
The New York Times noted that the campaign poster uses a picture from the New York subway, highlighting that men who spread out in public live everywhere. In fact, there's a whole "Men Taking Up Too Much Space On The Subway" Tumblr account documenting worldwide offenders.
While some of the women participating in the campaign described harassers deliberately violating their personal space, sociologists note that even on a subconscious level, gender stereotypes impact men and women's body language in public places.
As one Turkish activist from IFK told the website Bianet: "This situation is just men ignoring women and believing they own all public spaces. Trying to have the majority space is completely related to desire of power."
The outpouring of "Close Your Legs" tweets last week also served as a pointed reminder of the futility of Turkish Prime Minster Tayyip Erdogan's efforts to block Twitter in the country. After briefly disrupting the service last month, a Turkish court ordered it back online on April 3, saying the ban breached constitutional guarantees on free speech.
bacaklarını topla yerimi işgal etme! pic.twitter.com/WrZ5zmiSt1 — İFK feministler (@ifkfeminist) April 15, 2014Rebecca Kadaga, Uganda’s speaker of parliament, broke her pledge to pass the country’s infamous anti-gay bill before the year’s end on Friday, as the lawmakers in the small East African nation broke for the holidays without debating the legislation. And so, a population found in one survey to be 96 percent opposed to homosexuality won’t get the odious “Christmas gift” she had promised. But for the government, however, that hardly matters. For Ugandan lawmakers, the anti-gay bill has served its purpose again.
While westerners protested Ugandan embassies worldwide and posted petitions on social media, some in the East African nation sighed. Government critics, watching the almost cyclical return of the matter to prominence every few months, believe what has become known as the “Kill the Gays” bill is merely a cynical ploy to distract from an acute governance deficit in the nation, a flimsy smoke screen for Uganda’s more pressing problems.
President Yoweri Museveni’s hesitance over the bill, which originally proposed the death penalty for the offence of “aggravated homosexuality,” is well documented. Shortly after the legislation was proposed by a backbencher in his party three years ago, the president complained to his caucus about the pressure he was getting from foreign diplomats over it; his reticence to alienate the international community has likely prevented it from being passed long before now.
In fact, privately, Museveni has expressed more tolerance towards homosexuality than most in his country. In an interview with me earlier this year, top presidential advisor John Nagenda said that while Museveni himself believes homosexuality is morally wrong, “he has actually said in my hearing that whether one agrees with homosexuality or not, to some people, it is natural and that therefore there should be more understanding about it.”
So why, in a country where nothing happens without the say of a president with almost three decades in power and a wide dictatorial streak, has the bill been allowed to return with an almost predictable regularity? For Museveni, a master political manipulator, it serves an important political function.
The latest outburst of rhetoric over the bill, which lawmakers say no longer contains the death penalty but retains jail terms of up to life in prison, comes just as the government is under pressure on a number of fronts. In October, the news broke that $15 million dollars earmarked for the recovery of parts of the country devastated by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army had ended up in the private bank accounts of officials in the prime minister’s office.
Corruption scandals are nothing new in Uganda, but after years of empty threats, Britain, Germany, and several other European countries cut $180 million dollars worth of aid to the country. It’s a significant amount for a nation that depends on western donors for 25 percent of its annual budget, and hard questions are starting to emerge about how these cuts will affect government programs in Uganda, where teachers and other civil servants are already routinely paid late or not at all.
In recent weeks, Ugandans have also been engaged in a divisive national debate on new legislation to govern the country’s emerging oil industry, with even members of the president’s own party questioning the sweeping new powers given to the executive. Critics warn that the recently enacted law could open Uganda’s future oil revenues up to theft on a scale that would make the missing $15 million look like small change.
“It’s not coincidental that the gay bill was on the order paper next to the oil debate,” says Angelo Izama, a Uganda political analyst and fellow with the Open Society Initiative, who calls the legislation a “unifying” force. At a time when cracks in the consensus around Museveni’s 27-year rule are starting to emerge, gays have become a common enemy to unite against.
The bill also served an important purpose for Museveni internationally. Once a darling of the aid community for his reformist economic approach, the president is facing not just a tightening of the purse strings, but allegations that Uganda played a role in the recent crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The country stands accused by a U.N. report of providing logistical assistance to the M23 rebel movement.
But just at the point he was losing favor with donors, renewed threats to pass the anti-gay bill have given him new leverage. The bill could return after Christmas and with virtually all members of parliament behind the bill, if legislation comes to a vote it will almost certainly pass. Museveni, whose signature is required for it to become law, is the only one who can stop it.
“To negotiate away (a law produced by) a legislative process which is legal and sovereign, Museveni, whose action is required, (becomes) sought out by donors,” says Izama.
When the bill was first introduced, Museveni was lobbied by U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and fielded a personal phone call from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. While he may not have appreciated the attention then, he might welcome appeals for his intervention on the matter from top level diplomats now. And given his country’s sudden need for cash, if they call he might just have a few demands of his own.Page Content
WARNING: The content you are about to read is not factual—it was created to honour an age-old tradition of April Fools’ Day jokes. We used two of our most loved and known collections, the Bell Features collection and the Military Heritage holdings, in order to appeal to the widest audience. We appreciate your understanding. Stay tuned for next year’s prank!
April 1, 2016 – Gatineau, Quebec – Library and Archives Canada (LAC)
Library and Archives Canada (LAC) acquires the declassified journals and military records of Canadian supersoldier James "Logan" Howlett.
Logan was born in 1882 in Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada, to wealthy landowner Elizabeth Howlett and her grounds-keeper Thomas Logan.
Logan’s journals provide valuable insight into his early life in Canada, including work as a miner in a British Columbia stone quarry, a fur trader for the Hudson's Bay Company, and a homesteader in the Canadian Rockies. His military career spanned multiple conflicts, making his personnel records an unprecedented study in Canadian military history. Logan was gravely wounded in action many times, and gained a reputation as a gritty survivor.
Quick Facts
WWI: Captain in the Canadian Armed Forces (Devil's Brigade). Fought at Ypres in 1915. Wounded by a sword through the chest.
WWII: Returned to the Devil’s Brigade in the Second World War, as an allied spy and paratrooper for the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion during the Normandy landings on D-Day.
Cold War: based in Ottawa and Calgary, worked for both CSIS and the CIA.
Logan later changed his operative name to ‘Wolverine’, and worked with various NGOs.
Stay Connected
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Media contact
Media Relations
Library and Archives Canada
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[email protected]'s Safari browser, like rival Internet Explorer (IE), has lost a significant number of users in the last two years, data published Wednesday showed.
The most likely destination of Safari defectors: Google's Chrome.
According to California-based analytics vendor Net Applications, in March 2015, an estimated 69% of all Mac owners used Safari to go online. But by last month, that number had dropped to 56%, a drop of 13 percentage points -- representing a decline of nearly a fifth of the share of two years prior.
It was possible to peg the percentage of Mac users who ran Safari only because that browser works solely on macOS, the Apple operating system formerly labeled OS X. The same single-OS characteristic of IE and Edge has made it possible in the past to determine the percentage of Windows users who run those browsers.
[ Further reading: Microsoft continues to bleed browser share at record rates ]
Net Applications measures user share by sniffing the browser user agent string of visitors to its customers' websites, then tallying the various browsers and OSes.
Safari's share erosion was much less than that suffered by Microsoft's browsers, particularly IE, during the same period. From March 2015 to February 2017, the use of Microsoft's IE and Edge on Windows personal computers plummeted. Two years ago, the browsers were run by 62% of Windows PC owners; last month, the figure had fallen by more than half, to just 27%.
Simultaneous with the decline of IE has been the rise of Chrome. The user share of Google's browser -- its share of all browsers on all operating systems -- more than doubled in the last two years, jumping from 25% in March 2015 to 59.5% last month. Along the way, Chrome supplanted IE to become the world's most-used browser.
It's impossible to be certain, but Chrome was probably the beneficiary from Safari's user share decline as well. In the last 24 months, Mozilla's Firefox -- the other major browser alternative to Chrome for macOS users -- has barely budged, losing just two-tenths of a percentage point in user share.
The downturn of both IE and Safari expose the fragility of what was once thought to be their biggest advantage: That they were bundled with their respective operating systems. Because they came with the operating system -- Windows in IE's case, OS X and now macOS in Safari's -- their position was believed unassailable; users, it was thought, would largely use what they were given, rather than seek out alternatives.
Microsoft became the agent of IE's destruction when the company unexpectedly called for the retirement of most versions of the browser, and told customers they must upgrade to IE11. Faced with that, many instead simply deserted to Chrome.
Apple did not make that same mistake, so reasons for Safari's decline are muddier. One possibility: Those who used both Windows and OS X/macOS -- perhaps one at work, the other at home -- may have shifted to the common denominator of Chrome for the convenience of bookmark and password synchronization. Under that theory, a small increase of Chrome on OS X/macOS was simply a side effect of the much larger rise of Chrome on Windows.BY: ZOE MELNYK
After receiving a $2 million signing bonus with the Toronto Blue Jays, Daniel Norris decided to hit the road with his new dream car—a 1978 Volkswagen Westfalia camper van—which incidentally, is also his new dream home.
21-year-old Norris signed with the Blue Jays right out of high school in 2011. Upon signing to a new team, professional athletes are typically awarded huge sums of money to incentivize their hard work and integration into the team. At this point, most athletes are inclined to indulge their fantasies coming to life, opting for a mega-home with sports cars, marble floors, and hired help. Evidently, Norris isn’t easily aroused by the materialism of ‘high status’ life, and despite being one of the only 21-year-olds on the planet able to afford a Rolls-Royce, Norris is completely content living out of his van, traveling around the coast in search of good surf, epic hiking spots and rock walls. His van, called Shaggy, is equipped with a bed and kitchenette, which Norris uses to make simplistic meals over a stovetop.
Originally from Johnson City, Tennessee, Norris grew up around the outdoors, cultivating a passion for nature that he partially built in his father’s mountain bike shop. Norris’s childhood consisted of mountain biking, camping, hiking and generally embracing the wilderness.
Norris and Shaggy make the trip to the Blue Jays training complex in Dunedin, Florida, each spring for three-a-day practices. However Norris insists that some of the best cross-training opportunities arise in his travels. “Surfing is great for your shoulders and core, hiking is a good lower body workout, and rock climbing … well, if you’ve ever rock climbed, good luck getting out of bed the next day!” Norris tells GrindTV.
The van-dwelling life may be a little unorthodox for many of his fellow Blue Jays, but Norris doesn’t mind the speculation. In fact, many of his teammates have joined him for camping excursions, all of them expressing a serious interest in coming back soon to spend more time in the wilderness.
With life on the road, camping, surfing, and hiking, it’s hard to believe that Norris can still find the time to be a professional athlete, but he is adamant that baseball is his true passion. Recognizing how easily one can be swept away in the fame and financial excess of professional baseball, Norris believes that the van life keeps him grounded, insisting that societies normalizing luxury is dangerous. Rather, his oceanfront view and van-cooked meals represent a more organic definition of ‘fancy’.
Of course, when people become alarmed at the lifestyle that he has chosen, Norris is more than happy to answer any questions concerning the van life. He is extremely open about his decision to stay simplistic in his life in nature and has even been known to be open for photo-shoots alongside Shaggy.
After three years, Norris shows no signs of slowing down this slightly nomadic life in the van.
Sources: Grind TVLong Shadow is one of the most recent design trends and it seems that the graphic designers are putting it to good use in the design of the icons as well as logos and illustrations. If you like the long shadow design idea then you will definitely love our collection of beautiful long shadow icons for inspiration. You will notice that these long shadow design ideas are more prominently used with the flat user interfaces. They are a perfect choice for the logos and icons.
The shadow design has been in use for a while but was being implemented very traditionally. You could earlier see that the shadow would start somewhere from the center of the icon and extend to the bottom right corner. However, the designers today have started experimenting and have created more innovative shadow icon designs. Not only have they changed the position of the shadow but they also play with the opacity. You can see some icons where the shadows end at the bottom left corner of the canvas.
These long shadow icons are quite eye-catching and very beautiful. At the same time they look very professional too. Take a look at our collection and get inspired.
See Also :- 15 Best CSS Animation Tools for Designers
See Also :- 30 Icon Sets For Web Designers and Developers
See Also :- 20 Beautiful Long Shadow Icons for Inspiration
See Also :- 30 Icon Sets For Web Designers and Developers
See Also :- 32 Free and Premium Mobile UI Kits Web Designers
See Also :- 15 Best CSS Animation Tools for DesignersStill, some analysts suggest that Roku has broken new ground in technology and value.
“It is the most impressive product we’ve seen attached to a TV this decade,” said Richard Doherty, the director of the Envisioneering Group, a consumer electronics consulting firm.
He said that the device is easier to use, with better picture and sound, than competing devices. And it costs much less. “There is nothing like this,” he said.
The biggest drawback to the Roku device is the selection available. Right now, Netflix offers instant Internet viewing of 10,000 movies and television episodes, compared with its inventory of 100,000 DVD titles.
Photo
Because of the way Hollywood sells rights to its products, most of the Internet titles are more than five years old, although there are some newer independent films and TV shows.
Netflix has allowed its subscribers to watch these films on their computers for about a year by streaming them over an Internet connection. Reed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix, said that the company’s experience with its existing service gives it confidence that there is a market for a set-top box.
“Subscribers already use Netflix on the PC now, and this gives us a way to get to their television,” he said.
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Netflix customers who have plans that cost at least $8.99 a month will have access to an unlimited number of movies over the Internet.
Netflix has agreed to license similar technology to other set-top box makers, including LG Electronics.
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The $229 Apple TV, the leading rival for Roku’s box, mainly offers movies and TV shows for purchase or pay-per-view rental, although it also offers free podcasts and YouTube videos. Apple gets access to movies when they are released as DVDs and typically offers movies for purchase at $14.99 and as rentals for $3.99 a day. Apple TV also offers other features that the Roku box does not have, including access to music and photos.
Amazon.com offers similar rental and purchase options service through TiVo video recorders.
Roku’s box is simple to use. The most difficult part of the user experience for a set-top box — sorting through the videos available — is done on the user’s computer, not on the television set.
Unlike the Apple TV or TiVo devices, the Roku box does not have a hard drive. It plays video directly from the Internet by way of an Ethernet cable or home wireless network. That means that the picture could freeze on slow Internet connections. Roku recommends that users have a connection speed of 1.5 megabits a second or faster.
With cable and satellite companies trying to expand the capacity of their video-on-demand services and consumer electronics makers looking to add Internet video capabilities to DVD players, game consoles and televisions, analysts say consumers will get many more viewing choices over the next year.
“A $99 price tag is very attractive,” said Michael McGuire, an analyst with the Gartner Group. But “in the end, it all comes down to content.”The video will start in 8 Cancel
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Almost a quarter of Assembly Members – including two party leaders and a minister – are employing members of their immediate families to work for them with the taxpayer footing the bill.
In total 12 AMs employ either their husbands, wives, sons, daughters or spouses.
The roles filled by family members range from researchers to office managers and personal assistants.
Ukip group leader Neil Hamilton employs his celebrity wife Christine to work for him 37 hours a week as a personal assistant while Welsh Conservatives leader Andrew RT Davies has employed his wife Julia in a similar role since 2007.
Labour minister for social services and public health Rebecca Evans employs both her husband Paul and her sister Claire in her office.
She is not the only the only AM who employes two members of her family in their office,
Tory Mohammad Asghar has hired both his wife and daughter to work alongside him.
A spokesman for Ukip leader Mr Hamilton said his wife “has 26 years experience working in a similar capacity at the House of Commons for Members of Parliament, including nearly 15 years working for Neil Hamilton”.
They also confirmed the former I’m A Celeb star was on the lowest section of the salary scale, earning between £18,236 and £24,593 a year.
AMs from four political parties employ family members – five Conservative AMs, three Ukip members, and four Labour politicians.
No Plaid assembly members have hired family members to work for them – the party changed their rules to forbid the practice in 2016.
We asked all of the AMs who employ family members what recruitment procedures were followed and if the job had been advertised openly online.
They were also asked to reveal how much public money was being spent hiring a family member.
Two AMs – Ukip’s Mark Reckless and David J Rowlands – did not respond.
South Wales East AM Mr Ashgar and his fellow Conservative AM Mark Isherwood refused to answer any questions.
They both said that they would only provide more information if it was requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
A spokesman for the Welsh Conservatives said: “All our Assembly Members’ declarations of interest are publicly available via the Register of Members’ Interests which can be viewed at the National Assembly for Wales’ website.”
A Labour spokesman responded on behalf of the party’s four AMs – Joyce Watson, David Rees, Ms Evans and John Griffiths – who employ relatives.
The spokesman said: “The Assembly commission and the remuneration panel have independently established clear rules on the employment of family members and AMs that do so publicly declare this on their register of interest.”
While the precise amount paid to family members of AMs is not known a conservative estimate would put the cost at hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.
poll loading Should AMs be allowed to employ family members? 0+ VOTES SO FAR YES NO
But the cost to the public purse is impossible to calculate without clarification of the exact roles family members perform for an AM.
Someone working full time for an AM can earn anywhere from £18,236 to £38,762 a year.
AMs are allowed to appoint staff on a temporary basis for a six-month period after being elected without having to put in place a formal recruitment procedure.
After that Assembly rules make it clear that an AM should play no role in appointing a family member to their staff and they must instead hand the process over to Assembly officials.
TaxPayers’ Alliance chief executive John O’Connell said: “Taxpayers want to see the best people getting these jobs. It may well be the case that the most suitable candidates happen to be related to the Assembly members but it’s absolutely crucial that the recruitment process is transparent so that the legitimacy of these appointments cannot be doubted.”
In a statement the National Assembly for Wales Commission, which oversees appointments, said: “The principles of fair and open competition based on merit apply to all posts advertised for assembly member support staff.
“The appointment of the employing assembly member’s family members is only permissible where the member plays no part in the assessment and interviews, which are instead conducted by the members’ business support team.”
In 2009 an independent report recommended the appointment of family members by Assembly Members should be stopped.
The Scottish Parliament phased out the practice of members hiring relatives after a similar report in 2009.
Members of the European Parliament are also banned from hiring people they are related to.
But in Westminster MPs are allowed to hire whoever they want to work in their office.
Last May a report by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority found the cost to the public of MPs hiring family members was £4.7m a year.
The same report found family members employed by MPs were paid on average £5,600 more than the average member of staff.
The full list of AMs who employ family members
Neil Hamilton, Ukip group leader
Who: Wife Mary Christine Hamilton
Job: Personal assistant – 37 hours a week
Since: May 2016
Mark Isherwood, Welsh Conservatives
Who: Wife Hilary Teresa Isherwood
Job: Constituency caseworker, five hours a week
Since: May 2003
Mark Reckless, Ukip
Who: Wife Elizabeth Alison Reckless
Job: Senior adviser, 37 hours a week
Since: July 2016
Joyce Watson, Labour
Who: Daughter Fiona Elizabeth Openshaw
Job: Researcher, 14 hours a week
Since: February 2015
David Rees, Labour
Who: Daughter Angharad Nia Thomas
Job: Researcher and Communications Officer, 22 hours a week
Since: February 2013
Darren Millar, Welsh Conservatives
Who: Wife Rebekah Millar
Job: Administrator and Caseworker, 22 hours a week
Since: November 2007
David J Rowlands, Ukip
Who: Wife, Keryn Rowlands
Job: Head of Office, 37 hours a week
Since: May 2016
Rebecca Evans, Labour minister for social services and public health
Who: Husband Paul Michael Evans
Job: Head of office, 37 hours a week
Since: August 2013
Who: Sister Claire Elizabeth Stowell
Job: Office assistant, 18.5 hours a week
Since: May 2011
John Griffiths, Labour
Who: Wife Alison Kim Griffiths
Job: Administrator, 37 hours a week
Since: May 2003
Andrew RT Davies, Welsh Conservatives group leader
Who: Wife Julia Davies
Job: Personal assistant, 37 hours a week
Since: May 2007
Angela Burns, Welsh Conservatives
Who: Husband Andrew Stuart Burns
Job: Researcher and caseworker, 18 hours a week
Since: August 2007
Mohammad Asghar, Welsh Conservatives
Who: Wife Firdaus Asghar
Job: Caseworker, 22 hours a week
Since: April 2015
Who: Daughter Natasha Asghar
Job: Office manager, 22 hours a week
Since: March 2016GEORGE TOWN: Reports on Penang’s “first fatal victim” during the floods are not true, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said today following a front-page report by an English daily.
He said the so-called fatal incident, as reported by The Star newspaper, was false and probably meant to paint a bad picture of Penang.
“Today’s front page of The Star shows a woman wading in floodwaters up to her chest.
“Underneath, the headline, it reads: ‘Floods have claimed two victims in Penang and Kedah…’
“In the New Straits Times (NST), the same picture was used, but with a caption that says the picture was taken in Gerik, Perak. Looks like The Star is a bigger liar than the NST.
“As far as we know, there are no flood-related deaths in Penang — only that of a man who drowned after his boat capsized near the Prai River.
“The Star should retract and apologise immediately on the front page as well,” Lim said at a press conference at the state assembly today.
Lim added a story on page four of The Star had also wrongly reported “floods in Penang claimed its first victim after a 42-year-old man slipped into the Prai River and drowned”.
Early Sunday morning, a five-hour downpour lashed Penang and the northern peninsula, causing flash floods in villages.
This was the fifth time this has happened since the monsoon season began in late October.
State Welfare Committee Chairman Phee Boon Poh said the only death was recorded at the Sugar Factory Jetties along the Prai River.
He said a 42-year-old man from Ipoh, Perak, and another were in a tongkang during the 10.30pm incident on Saturday.
Phee said the victim fell off the boat and drowned due to choppy weather.
“The man did not die due to the floods, as alleged by the reports.”The Devil’s Henchmen In death, what do Islamic State fighters deserve? A journey through the ruins of Mosul in search of answers.
I A stone skitters down the hillside, clips a tangle of cloth, and stops short of a human’s lower vertebrae. Next to it, strewn in the dirt and grass of a sun-swathed wadi—one of thousands of small desert valleys scattered across northern Iraq—are a coccyx, femur, humerus, and elbow joint. Ribs soak in a puddle nearby. Each bone is a dirty, decalcified umber, like a masticated chew toy. Hasan, a 24-year-old enlisted in the Iraqi Federal Police, stands on the sandy road that snakes along the wadi’s eastern edge. The air is thick with the smell of burnt rubber, bloated rigor, and oil fires. Hasan, who gives me only his first name, has stubble on his chin. He wears blue and gray fatigues and black combat boots, one of which he used to kick the stone that now rests near the scattered remains of a dead man. They are a fraction of what the ravine holds: A short distance away, near the hood of a destroyed Humvee, is another body, stripped of flesh but still braided with the scraps of a brown shirt worn at the moment of death. That moment came in February, when it was much colder in Albu Saif, this village on a bend in the Tigris River a few miles south of Mosul. Iraqi forces swept through en route to reclaiming their country’s second-largest city from the Islamic State. Two months later the village is quiet. The northward view of Mosul, bisected by the Tigris, is dark, halting, and handsome. Lofted train tracks traverse Albu Saif before terminating on Mosul’s western side, where Islamic State militants are making their last stand. Some 340,000 people have been displaced in the past six months, fleeing the most intense urban warfare waged since World War II; another 100,000 will join them by mid-summer. Mosul’s main railway station is gutted. Concrete rubbish recalls where buildings once stood. Those that still do, and the people who’ve taken shelter inside them, hang on like corporeal tissue unwilling to decompose. Hasan saunters along the road to show me more of what the liberation of Albu Saif left in its wake. A fully clothed skeleton lies prone on the hillside, frozen in what looks like an attempted escape from the wadi. It’s a strange relief to see something still lying in the place where it fell, appearing unmolested by nature or man. “All that is left of them are bone,” Hasan says with cool bravado. He wears his camouflage cap with its brim tilted upward, his bootlaces loosened. He wipes a bead of sweat from his brow. “Our force came from above and passed them here. This is just what we found when we killed them.” They were
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(and, let’s be honest, the flashy marketing videos) practically begs pilots to hot dog. Pilots who want to fly fast and low may think this is the perfect airplane, and it won’t be long before an A5 and a water-skier meet under less than ideal circumstances. Stay tuned for some idiotic YouTube videos.
There’s also the not-so-minor issue of water access. Many states are all but closed to seaplanes, so the airplane’s appeal will be limited by regulation as much as economics. An ICON on land can still be fun, but at that point it’s more an expensive 152 than a game-changing innovation.
In spite of these risks, I suspect ICON is playing the long game here. The future of mass aviation travel is low cost airlines (in the short term) and probably unmanned aircraft (eventually). At this point, and probably even before then, piston airplanes will take on a role akin to horses: once used for regular transportation, but now a throwback used for recreation and escape. Airplanes like the A5, which openly embrace this fun and impractical mission, will do well in such an environment. Not everyone wants to fly an antique airplane, after all.
There have certainly been seaplanes before and there have been plenty of LSAs. ICON has no monopoly on good design or confidence. But love them or hate them, the company is running a bold experiment that goes far beyond a few performance specs. Here’s hoping it works.Picture courtesy of The Forgiveness Project: www.theforgivenessproject.com
In just 2 days’ time, African leaders could kill off a great institution, leaving the world a more dangerous place.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the world’s first and only global court to adjudicate crimes against humanity. But leaders of Sudan and Kenya, who have inflicted terror and fear across their countries, are trying to drag Africa out of the ICC, allowing them the freedom to kill, rape, and inspire hatred without consequences.
I know that together we can change this. But we have to join hands and call on the voices of reason at the African Union (AU) – Nigeria and South Africa – to speak out and ensure that the persecuted are protected by the ICC. Join me by adding your name to the petition now and share it with everyone -- when we have hit 1 million our petition will be delivered straight into the AU conference hall where Africa’s leaders are meeting in Addis Ababa.
--Desmond TutuMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Chris and Amanda McDonald describe their experiences sharing leave
New rights to allow parents to share leave following the birth or adoption of their child have come into effect.
Aside from an initial two weeks of maternity leave for the mother, up to 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of pay can be shared between parents.
The rules mean that parents can also take time off at the same time to look after a newborn.
The Institute of Directors has previously warned the new law could create a "nightmare" for employers.
The changes were pushed for by the Liberal Democrats whilst in coalition government.
How it works
Shared parental leave is open to parents whose baby is due, or who have a child matched or placed for adoption, on or after 5 April 2015.
It must be taken between the baby's birth and first birthday, or within one year of adoption.
Eligible parents can share up to 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of pay, after an initial two weeks of leave that is compulsory for the mother to take.
Shared parental leave can be taken in one block, or split into blocks with periods of work in between.
Statutory shared parental pay is paid at £139.58 per week or 90% of your average weekly earnings, whichever is lower.
Source: UK Government; ACAS
How the UK's new rules on parental leave work
About 285,000 working couples would be eligible to share leave under the new rules, the government has said.
The pattern of leave must be agreed between the employee and employer with eight weeks' notice.
Previously, fathers were entitled to one or two weeks paid ordinary paternity leave, or up to 26 weeks' paid additional paternity leave - but only if the mother or co-adopter returned to work.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has said the rights would allow men to become more hands-on fathers and stop women feeling they have to choose between a career or a baby.
Mr Clegg said: "To build a fairer society, the Liberal Democrats want to tear down the barriers that stop people reaching their full potential.
"For too long, mums have been told their place is at home with their child, while dads return to work. I want parents to choose for themselves how to balance work and family."
'Unwieldy system'
When the changes were announced in 2013, the Institute of Directors business group said the plan was a "nightmare" that would "heap yet more burdens on struggling employers".
Deputy director of policy Alexander Ehmann said: "The proposed system is considerably more complex and unwieldy than the current laws and employers will - once again - have to absorb the cost of adapting and implementing this new system."
Children's charity Barnardo's warned that the legislation relied on the support of businesses or it could quickly "run into the sand".
It believes the new measures will allow low-paid working families, where the mother is the higher earner, the opportunity to provide parental support for their child without worrying about losing their jobs.
Others, including campaign group Maternity Action and the TUC, welcomed the change as a "step in the right direction".
Conciliation service Acas, which has drawn up a guide to the rules, said that employers and employees should be aware of the new rights.
Parental leave is a devolved issue in Northern Ireland but the Northern Ireland Assembly passed a bill offering parents the same rights as in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.McNary LAN IX Hosted by Gaming Club at Oregon State University
Come join us for a night of gaming at McNary Dining Center located on the Oregon State University campus! Cost is $5 and you get a 3'x3' of table space, a chair, 2 power plug ins, ethernet port to plug into, and a night of gaming with friends! If at the time of the event that there are seats left, it is $5 at the door for that 3'x3' of space for your PC. Please update your games/software prior to coming to the LAN as to not put more strain on the network.
If you are wanting to come for just console, tabletop, and/or just watch there is no need to reserve a seat. You can pre-purchase your ticket (below the seating chart) for $5 or pay at the door.
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Lepa
SMITEJay Sekulow, one of President Trump’s lawyers. (CBS)
Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s lawyers, went on all five Sunday shows. As is his pattern, Sekulow tried to answer questions that weren’t asked — since the ones asked were problematic (Hasn’t the White House misled us about contacts with the Russians? Isn’t accepting oppo research from a foreign power unacceptable?). He feigned ignorance as to the goings-on in the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting with, among others, the president’s campaign manager, son, son-in-law, a Russian legal insider, a Russian American lobbyist and a Russian translator. He lamely asked, “I wonder why the Secret Service, if this was nefarious, why the Secret Service allowed these people in?” (Well, if the campaign had acted appropriately and alerted the FBI, chances are the meeting wouldn’t have occurred, but of course the Trump team was ready and willing to accept help from the Russians.)
As slippery as Sekulow appeared, it was refreshing to see some battle-hardened conservatives refuse to go along with his spin.
On CNN, we saw this exchange:
JAKE TAPPER: Yes. And you heard the argument from Jay Sekulow, there was nothing illegal. But he didn’t answer my question when I asked, what about was it moral, was it ethical? ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Was it improper? Yes, it was improper. And their argument that anybody would have taken this meeting in politics. No, they wouldn’t. People would not have taken this. Yes, do we take oppo — everyone at this table is familiar with people coming to you but with opposition research on your opponent? However, when it’s the Russian government, you say no and you immediately call the FBI. And I think that’s the problem. I think, Donald Trump Jr.’s amnesia with regard to this meeting is troublesome. But even more so than that, [is] his affluenza and the righteous indignation toward anyone who questions whether or not they knew about Russians tipping the scale towards Donald Trump that is discouraging to the American people and I find it insulting as well....
On Fox News, Heritage Action’s chief executive Michael Needham voiced a similar view, rejecting the notion that accepting oppo research from a foreign government is par for the course:
Well, there was a willingness to accept opposition research from a foreign agent, and that’s something that should be concerning.... I think that’s why all Americans recognizing that Russia is a foreign actor, a hostile foreign actor, are supportive of these investigations, and the country deserves to see what comes out of the investigation. The challenge that those of us who care about policy phase is how, with all of this going on, to get the necessary attention, as we’ll talk in the second panel about health care and taxes and other issues. But clearly, these are investigations that need to go on and are going on and we look forward to seeing the results.
Unfortunately, the president and a good number of Republicans are not supportive of the investigations and continue to insist that this is “fake news,” or something. That said, when Sekulow is reduced to arguing that the meeting didn’t violate a particular statute (a questionable claim, according to several campaign legal gurus, who point to a host of viable legal theories), then we are back to arguing whether pressuring former FBI director James B. Comey to drop the case against Michael Flynn, trying to affect Comey’s testimony by bluffing about tapes, firing Comey, lying about the reason for the firing, lying about the reason for the meeting with Russian officials, etc., is at the very least obstruction of justice.
Trump’s violation of specific statutes should not end the analysis. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), as he did on Sunday, errs in saying that it’s up to special counsel Robert S. Mueller to decide the obstruction issue. Not exactly. While Trump’s family members and associates need to worry about criminal liability, for which Mueller’s investigation might lay the factual predicate, the analysis of Trump’s conduct is different. Whether this entire pattern of conduct rises to one or more impeachable offenses is for Congress to decide. (If Congress concludes that the president obstructed justice, then certainly the impeachment standard is met.) Both Democrats and Republicans should be obligated to tell us whether they think Trump has abused his office, a determination that becomes more than an interesting abstraction if the Democrats take the House.In addition, Polish artist, Zbigniew Libera, created a faux concentration camp made out of Lego bricks in the 1990s. He was heavily criticized by the media, and the Lego Group asked Libera to remove the creation from public view, after the group confirmed they were unaware of the piece's subject matter, according to the LA Times.
Lego enthusiast, James Clinch, said that Lego was "not really censoring" Ai.
"What they are doing is refusing to sell him bricks in a certain way," he told CNBC on Monday.
"There are many ways to buy LEGO from LEGO. One way for artists to obtain a large quantity or certain bricks either free or heavily subsidized is through a bulk order scheme LEGO offers certain groups/people. However, LEGO puts conditions on that scheme, because if they are footing, some or all of the bill, they don't really want anything that may detract from their values. Their values include commercial considerations, like any business would."
He added: "There is nothing they can do, or indeed would do to prevent (Ai from) sourcing his own bricks to do it, or even buying them off LEGO in the normal way. They just won't pay or subsidize him to do it. So he can't say afterwards LEGO helped him."
—By CNBC's Alexandra Gibbs, follow her on Twitter @AlexGibbsy.John Gore, an attorney who has worked to defend laws that critics say are designed to weaken the voting rights of African-Americans and other minorities, was selected by President Donald Trump to serve as a senior civil rights official at the Department of Justice.
Gore’s new role as Trump’s choice for deputy assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department is notable because he will lead the division that oversees civil rights laws, including voter suppression issues. Trump and his nominee to lead the Justice Department, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, are strong supporters of voting restrictions such as voter identification.
The appointment of Gore represents a dramatic break from the the civil rights legacy of the outgoing Obama Justice Department, which has filed suits against voter restrictions in Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina, and other states. Under Obama, the civil rights division was restructured to take on more cases, with former Attorney General Eric Holder describing the team as the agency’s “crown jewel.”
In stark contrast, Gore has worked to defend Republican redistricting laws in Virginia, South Carolina, New York, and Florida — including maps that opponents say were drawn to maximize Republican seats in Congress and frequently employed a strategy of packing African-American voters into a single district to dilute their voting power in neighboring districts.
In Florida and Virginia, Gore also intervened on behalf of Republicans to defend new voter ID laws, rules civil rights group have assailed for reducing participation rates among African-Americans.
In Virginia, for example, Gore was one of the main attorneys working to defend a 2011 Republican map that moved black voters from four different districts into Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District, a majority African-American district held by a Democrat that encompasses the areas around Richmond, Hampton Roads, and Newport News. The strategy appeared designed to weaken Democratic chances in the four neighboring districts, all held by Republicans, by lowering the number of African-Americans, who tend to vote for Democratic candidates.
A brief filed by the local NAACP argued that the map’s “high concentration of African-American voters” represented a “racial gerrymander” that violated voters’ due process rights. The GOP legislature argued that politics, not race, was the motivating factor in drawing the boundaries.
Federal courts overturned the GOP map, creating new borders that added African-American voters to the 4th Congressional district, which was previously represented by a white Republican. In 2016 the district for the first time elected an African-American Democrat.
In 2015, a resident of Virginia challenged the state’s newly passed law requiring a photo identification to vote, arguing that because minority groups were less likely to have a photo ID, the law “disproportionately suppresses the vote of African-Americans and Latinos in Virginia.”
A legal team from the law firm Jones Day, including Gore, filed an amicus brief in support of the voter ID law. The brief claimed that although the voter ID law might lead to a “relative shortfall in minority participation,” the true difference was attributable to “different levels of electoral interest or underlying socio-economic disparities,” and therefore the state’s actions were legal.
In December 2016, a federal appeals court upheld the photo ID law, ruling that “there was no evidence to suggest racially discriminatory intent in the law’s enactment.”
As Buzzfeed reported, just hours after Jones Day announced that Gore would be leaving for the administration position, the Justice Department moved to delay a hearing sought by the Obama administration to challenge the Texas voter ID law, one of the strictest in the country. The Justice Department noted that it sought a delay “because of the federal government’s change in administration, which took place on January 20, 2017.”
On Monday, during his evening meeting with congressional leaders, President Trump reiterated the false claim that millions of undocumented people voted in the last election, costing him the popular vote.When I was younger, I so badly wanted to like shamrock shakes. I loved milkshakes and I love color-themed holidays, but every single year I’d try one and every single year I’d be so disappointed.
I decided it was time to make a really good (and healthy) shamrock shake. This is a creamy milkshake-like smoothie that’s naturally green, made with fresh mint and spinach. The mint adds a lovely fresh flavor, and the spinach taste is undetectable…
Even though this smoothie looks incredibly healthy (and it is!), what I love most about it is its creaminess. Its milkshake-like texture comes from a frozen banana, a few tablespoons of almond butter, and a scant cup of almond milk. It’s especially thick and delicious if you make it with Almond Breeze’s new Almondmilk Cashewmilk. There’s just something about cashews that makes for very tasty milk-like milk.
This recipe makes one pretty big smoothie – share it for breakfast or double this recipe if your significant other loves smoothies as much as mine does.Earlier this year, Kentucky’s Republican Gov. Matt Bevin moved to close the state’s last remaining abortion clinic, the EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville. Kentucky’s second-to-last clinic, run by the same providers in Lexington, had run up against new licensing requirements and was forced to close in January. Now, the Louisville clinic and the governor are in a legal battle to decide whether Kentucky will become the first state in the U.S. with no abortion provider at all.
Women in Kentucky aren’t the only ones running out of options. Across the country, the number of abortion clinics has been declining for years, and after another clinic closed in West Virginia in January, seven states have just one abortion provider left. (An eighth, Arkansas, has only one full-service provider offering both medication and surgical abortions.)
Demand for abortion in the United States is at a record low level as more women use contraceptives to prevent unintended pregnancies, but an estimated 926,000 abortions were performed in 2014. And women have ever fewer options for care as lawmakers — who cannot ban abortion outright — push ever more restrictions aimed at forcing providers to close.
Closures affect more than abortion care; each of these facilities offers a range of women’s health and other medical services, including pap smears and birth control. And even though it’s sometimes possible to get an abortion elsewhere (from a private physician or in a hospital or by driving across state lines), access for most women is limited to the nearest clinic.
Directors and physicians at the last clinics in these seven states spoke with VICE News to tell us the history of their practices and describe the challenges they continue to face. Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Kentucky
Kentucky’s governor is trying to close the EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville and make the state the first with no abortion clinic at all. Stacie Scott for VICE News
Ernest Marshall, physician
EMW Women’s Surgical Center of Louisville
“I trained to do abortion during my residency. Afterward, one of my professors and my partner and I decided to open our own clinic, in 1981. We’ve always been full-fledged OB-GYN physicians. At the time, there were three or four other providers in Louisville. Then in 1989 we opened a satellite clinic in Lexington.
My partner and I, Dr. Sam Eubanks, we operated the two clinics together until he passed away in December 2013. We were dedicated to this work and to our patients. The other providers just voluntarily closed over the years. My two clinics have been the only ones in the state for a fairly long time, at least 10 or 15 years.
Around 1998, they created the abortion clinic license. But when we opened the facility in Lexington, we didn’t qualify for a license because we were just a small doctor’s office. And we operated as a doctor’s office until Gov. Bevin decided that because we did abortions we would need an abortion license. So we went to court, and the courts agreed with him. So then we applied for a license, but they didn’t want to give us one. They control both ends of the situation.
“Every day my patients say they appreciate what we do for them. That’s what people don’t get to hear.”
What they used as a smokescreen to deny the license were the transfer agreements. We had the proper transfer agreements, but they didn’t approve of them. In Kentucky you need a transfer agreement with a hospital and an ambulance.
We really never had any operating troubles from the government [before]; that only began with Bevin. For the first time in Kentucky, the Republicans [control] the House, the Senate, and the governorship. And things changed dramatically. We’ve always had protesters and anti-abortion people, but we’ve never had such political opposition.
In the first week, they passed and signed two anti-abortion laws. [The first banned abortion after 20 weeks and the second required doctors to narrate ultrasounds.] Bevin is a right-to-life governor, and Kentucky is a right-to-life state, but there have always been plenty of pro-choice people in Kentucky. It’s never been smooth sailing. We were always threatened with obstructive laws, but we were never threatened with the possibility of closure.
We filed a federal lawsuit against the governor last month. The trial is set for September. We have a temporary restraining order that allows us to continue operating the Louisville clinic until then.
We’ve remained open because of dedication — dedication to the cause. It’s been part of my life’s work to work on women’s reproductive freedom. And I will keep doing it. Every day my patients say they appreciate what we do for them. That’s what people don’t get to hear.”
West Virginia
The Women's Health Center, in Charleston, became West Virginia’s last abortion clinic when another provider closed in January. Sam Owens for VICE News
Sharon Lewis, executive director
Women’s Health Center of West Virginia
“The Women’s Health Center of West Virginia opened in 1976. I started working here in 1988 as a case manager for a parenting program. At that time we were basically dealing with the same kinds of issues that we have today, but maybe not as many of them. We were just trying to make sure that we had the staffing that was required to comply with all of the regulations.
In 2002, the Legislature passed the so-called Women’s Right To Know Act, which required that a biased counseling script had to be delivered to every patient by a licensed medical professional. So we had to hire somebody. And that’s the kind of thing the anti-choice people advocate for, because it costs us additional money.
Only about 20 percent of our patients come here for abortion care. We get patients from Ohio and Kentucky, not so much Virginia. Lately we’ve been seeing greater numbers of Kentucky residents. The majority of our services are what we call in-clinic procedures; the trend is to get away from calling it surgery. It’s not really surgery. We’re not cutting people.
We have a neighbor, a crisis pregnancy center, that changed their name to Women’s Choice to confuse patients who intend to come here and end up in their doorway. They have a marquee out front that says, “Considering abortion? Free pregnancy test.”
Until this year there were two facilities in the state that advertised abortion care. I believe there are private doctors who do certain procedures for friends and family. But they’re not called abortions.
“Only about 20 percent of our patients come here for abortion care.”
Kanawha Surgicenter just closed [in January], but it wasn’t about restrictions. The Kanawha physician just relocated to California and closed his practice. As far as them closing, it just imposes a greater responsibility on us to provide access. It just makes our job a little bigger to make sure that access is maintained.
This year, the Legislature added additional restrictions for access to abortions for minors. They were tweaking the law over the last session and took out the clause that would have allowed a psychiatrist or psychologist to provide a waiver to minors. Now the only waiver is judicial, despite the fact that last year only four minors used a waiver. To them it’s not even about practicality; it’s about their philosophical opposition to abortion. It’s not a rational decision. It’s a solution looking for a problem.”
Missouri
Planned Parenthood of St. Louis, the last abortion clinic in Missouri, sees patients from 10 surrounding states.Carolina Hidalgo for VICE News
Mary Kogut, president and CEO
Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri
“There are 12 Planned Parenthood–affiliated centers that provide care in Missouri but only one that can do abortions. The Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood St. Louis Region is the only state-licensed abortion center in the entire state.
At one time there were many other abortion providers in the state. In the 1980s, I know there were a number of other private providers, as well as Reproductive Health Services, an independent, nonprofit abortion provider. Reproductive Health Services was one of the oldest centers in the Midwest — they started very quickly after Roe v. Wade.
When it was clear that they needed some assistance to continue, Planned Parenthood came and took them over. We weren’t providing abortion care in Missouri at all up until that time. We opened on May 1, 1996, in a facility that was three blocks away from where we are now.
When we moved into our new building in 1998, we designed it according to the ambulatory regulations so that we could provide care according to the law. We worked with a state architect to ensure that all of our rooms were the proper sizes, that they had the right ventilation systems, that they had everything we needed in order [to comply]. We get inspected each year, and these are the types of things they look at.
We serve about 40,000 patients, primarily from Missouri and Illinois, but we also see patients from about 10 surrounding states. Less than 10 percent of our patients come for abortion-related care. About a third of our abortion procedures are medication abortions, but that percentage is going up every year.
Off and on, our affiliate in Great Plains has provided abortion services in their Columbia facility. In federal court last year, they challenged the Missouri laws that require our centers to be licensed ambulatory surgical centers and to have hospital admitting privileges. And last week we got a preliminary injunction against those requirements, so it’s possible that the Great Plains location could start providing abortion services again.
The state has filed an appeal and a stay against the preliminary injunction, so we’re just waiting to see what happens. But our one-provider status could be changing in Missouri.”
Wyoming
Dr. Brent Blue's Emerg-A-Care clinic in Jackson is Wyoming’s only abortion provider, but terminations account for less than 1 percent of its services.Ryan Dorgan for VICE News
Brent Blue, physician and director
Emerg-A-Care, Jackson
“We’re the only provider in state that acknowledges we do terminations. I’ve heard that there are two others in our county that do medical abortions, but they don’t acknowledge it publicly, and they only offer it to their patients. But if they do more than five abortions a year, I’d be surprised. Still, I think it’s weird that we’re considered the only provider in the state when we’re not.
I started practicing medicine here in July of 1982. I was looking for a small town in the mountains and kind of lucked into Jackson Hole. We opened in 1990 under the name Emerg-A-Care; before that it was just Brent Blue, MD. Emerg-A-Care is just a family practice disguised as urgent care. I wanted tourists to know that they could just walk in.
In 1994, we had a bombing. Some guy was traveling across the country and bombing various facilities. We had a tremendous amount of smoke damage, but it was at night, so no one was hurt. We were closed down for several weeks, but we had a lot of community support, even from people who are anti-choice. Wyoming is a ‘Live and let live’ state — people may disagree, but they generally don’t tell their neighbor what to do.
The entire state of Wyoming only has 500,000 people, so we’re not talking about a huge population density here. But a woman shouldn’t have to drive 400 miles to get a termination.
We have a lot of people that come from eastern Idaho, which is very Mormon, and I think some women there are afraid to talk to their providers. So they come to us.
“A woman shouldn’t have to drive 400 miles to get a termination.”
Wyoming just passed two truly stupid laws this year. They go into effect July 1. One prohibits selling of fetal tissue, which is a response to a fraudulent claim to begin with. The second law is that patients have to be offered the opportunity to look at the ultrasound, but we do ultrasounds anyway, so if they want to look, all they have to do is turn their head to the right. It’s a law that has no teeth, and there’s no way to enforce it. It won’t change one thing for us.
Less than one-half of 1 percent of our services are for abortions. The majority of our termination services are medical, probably 80 percent. Most termination clinics offer a wide variety of family planning services, so I don’t think it’s fair to call them abortion clinics. We’re really providing women’s health care.
I think a lot of physicians don’t want the hassle, or maybe they’re afraid. There are negative aspects, too. There are people who won’t come to our family practice because we provide termination services. And that’s one of the things I’m willing to accept.”
South Dakota
Planned Parenthood of Sioux Falls has been the only abortion provider in South Dakota since 1989.Kristina Barker for VICE News
Sarah Stoesz, president and CEO
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota
“For a long time, there was a doctor who provided illegal abortions in Rapid City, South Dakota. He was known throughout the upper Midwest; I heard stories of planeloads of women coming from the Twin Cities on the days that he was providing abortions. And there was always a tacit understanding among the townspeople, so he was left alone and continued his practice for quite a long time, until he retired.
Dr. Buck Williams began to perform abortions at his clinic in Sioux Falls around 1981, and for a while he was the only provider in the state. Planned Parenthood wasn’t in South Dakota at that point, but he came to us and asked if we would take over his practice in 1989. The Sioux Falls Planned Parenthood has been the only abortion provider in the state ever since.
When we moved out of our old facility, it was taken over by the Alpha Center, a really aggressively right-wing crisis-pregnancy center led by a woman named Leslee Unruh. She worked really hard to confuse women who were accustomed to going to our old location. There was a sign on the Alpha Center door that said something like, “Need help planning your parenthood?” I used to periodically get phone calls from women that had mistakenly thought they were going to Planned Parenthood and went to the Alpha Center instead.
Harold Cassidy, a lawyer in New Jersey, struck up a relationship with Unruh and kind of adopted South Dakota. I think he recognized that it was a state that was highly religious, very white, and somewhat easy to manipulate politically. He’s written some of the really dreadful pieces of legislation and has been behind many of the unsuccessful attempts to ban abortion in the state altogether.
In 2006, the Legislature passed a total and complete ban on abortion and the governor signed it into law. So we chose to challenge that law at the ballot box. We were convinced that even though the state was electing all these conservative legislators, and that the majority of people in South Dakota say they are pro-life, that they wouldn’t want a total ban on abortion. We won by 12 points.
“None of our physicians are from Sioux Falls; we’ve never been able to hire a doctor from the area.”
Two years later, they came back with a ban on abortions except in cases of rape, incest, and the health of the woman. Again we challenged it on the ballot, and we won that one, too. I really think people in South Dakota don’t want to ban abortion.
None of our physicians are from Sioux Falls; we’ve never been able to hire a doctor from the area. So we have four doctors who fly in on rotation. It’s a tremendous waste of resources and it’s very expensive to keep this practice up. I’ve met a few doctors who have moved to the state in the last couple of years, so I’m not giving up.
I do feel very supported by the voters in South Dakota, even though the politicians aren’t supportive of us. That first doctor who openly and illegally performed abortions for some time, that’s in the libertarian tradition of South Dakota. Live and let live. Unfortunately that is not the predominant view in the Legislature.”
North Dakota
Fargo's Red River Women's Clinic has been North Dakota's only abortion provider since 2001.Kristina Barker for VICE News
Tammi Kromenaker, clinic director and owner
Red River Women’s Clinic, Fargo
“After Roe v. Wade, there were two doctors providing abortion care in North Dakota. There was one in Grand Forks and one in Jamestown, about an hour east and an hour west of Fargo. As those doctors were getting close to retirement, they approached Jane Bovard, who was very well known in the state for helping women find places to get an abortion in Minneapolis or neighboring states. The doctors asked her to open a clinic in Fargo.
So in the fall of 1981, she helped bring the Women’s Health Organization to North Dakota. The Women’s Health Organization was the largest independent abortion provider and had eight clinics across the country at the time. Jane met the woman who was running that organization, Susan Hill, and told her to come to Fargo. They opened the first abortion clinic together in North Dakota.
Jane had protesters at her home — she was always being threatened. She’d be calling 911 while her husband loaded the shotgun. She put up with a lot, both personally and professionally. Then by 1991, both those doctors who had been providing abortions passed away or retired, and the Women’s Health Organization became the only provider.
I was hired at Fargo Women’s Health in November of 1993, working one or two days per week as a patient educator, meeting with women, and talking about their abortion decision. Dr. George Miks was the primary physician, and he had worked with Jane for a long time. After awhile they said, ‘Hey, we can do this better,’ and decided to open their own place. That was Red River Clinic. I went along with them.
We opened our doors for patients on July 31, 1998. Both clinics existed for about two and a half years. Both were in Fargo and they were about six blocks apart from each other. There was some confusion: ‘Oh there’s two places. How do I determine which one to go to?’ When we opened Red River Women’s Clinic, the Women’s Health Organization dropped their fees by $100.
Kristina Barker for VICE News
The abortion numbers in North Dakota have always remained pretty steady, at about 25 abortions per week. On the first day we opened, three women walked in. One woman was too far along, but we provided two abortions that day. The scales slowly started tipping; we started seeing more and more patients. I truly think we can attribute that to Jane and Dr. George Miks. I would answer the phone and hear, “Is this Jane’s clinic? Is this Dr. Miks’ clinic?” They wanted to send their patients to the providers they knew.
Then one day, very unexpectedly, a patient called us and told us the other clinic had closed. So we became the only abortion provider in February 2001. North Dakota isn’t very populated — we’re only seeing patients one day per week, on Wednesdays. We see about 20 to 25 patients per week.”
Mississippi
The Jackson Women’s Health Organization in downtown Jackson is the state’s last abortion clinic after a dozen closures in Mississippi.William Widmer for VICE News
Shannon Brewer, clinic director
Jackson Women’s Health
“At one point there were at least a dozen clinics in Mississippi, but we’ve been the only one for 11 years. Mississippi has always been a pretty hostile environment, but when I first started, it wasn’t as hostile at this facility. The protesters were targeting a different clinic in Jackson. But once that one closed, we became the only target left. We’ve been burglarized. Our cameras and our generator have been vandalized.
I started working at Jackson Women’s Health in 2000. I had just had my youngest son, and my aunt at the time was the director here and they were just looking for some help. I had never dealt with anything pertaining to women’s health care or abortion. But once I was here, I started listening to her and just watching what was going on, and it grew from there. I initially came in to work part-time, and 17 years later, I’m still here. My aunt’s still here too. She’s a counselor.
The building wasn’t always hot pink. The new owner who came in 2010 decided to paint it that color. Before that, it was more of a beige color. When I heard we were going to paint it pink, I was like, ‘You cannot be serious.’ But once it was done, we got so much positive feedback from it, I kind of looked at it differently. I wasn’t worried that painting it pink would make us stand out more. We already stand out here.
Wiliam Widmer for VICE News
We have around 10 protesters outside every day. I just walk right in, they talk to me every morning. I’ve heard the same thing for 17 years, so it’s like, ‘Come up with something new for me!’ It’s always the same people.
We see about 30 to 40 patients per week. About 90 percent of our patients are here for abortion services. We do both medical and surgical abortions — it’s pretty even. I’d say about 50-50.
The closest I was to being worried we’d have to close was when [the state Legislature] added the hospital admitting privileges in 2012. None of the local hospitals would give our doctors admitting privileges, even though they are qualified OB-GYNs. We were down to the last day when the judge made the ruling. We thought we wouldn’t be open the following day.
I don’t
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and the drunken man reportedly cut his own penis off with a knife.
"I cut it off because she doesn't understand me," said Ram. "She is very stubborn."
"We haven't had a physical relationship in the past 10 years," he added.
The couple, who have been married for 18 years, have two sons and a daughter. It's unclear whether the man's penis was able to be reattached.
"He has lost his mind, that is what I feel," said Devi. "I have nothing else to say on this."
Sources: Gazette Extra, New York Post / Photo credit: Madison Scott-Clary/FlickrScientists may have discovered the reason why some people always look glum.
Limited or very specific facial expressions could be explained by the fact that some humans have fewer muscles in their face than others, research from the University of Portsmouth suggests.
The findings could perhaps explain why certain people, such as the character Victor Meldrew in the television series One Foot in The Grave, seem to have a permanent scowl.
The study, published in the American Psychological Association Journal, found that all human being have the same set of five "core" facial muscles.
Dr Bridget Waller, who led the research, believes that these muscles control our ability to produce standard expressions showing anger, happiness, surprise, fear, sadness and disgust.
But there are an extra 14 muscles which can be present in the face, and many people do not have a full set.
Dr Waller, from the university's Centre for the Study of Emotion in the Department of Psychology, said: "Everyone communicates using a set of common signals and so we would expect to find that the muscles do not vary among individuals. "The results are surprising - in some individuals we found only 60 per cent of the available muscles."
One muscle, used to control our ability to create an expression of extreme fear, is found in only two thirds of the population, the study shows.
Dr Waller, from the university's Centre for the Study of Emotion in the Department of Psychology, added: "Some less common facial expressions may be unique to certain people.
"The ability to produce subtly different variants of facial expressions may allow us to develop individual'signatures' that are specific to certain individuals."
She said that the only other part of the body where muscles were not uniform was the forearm, where 15 per cent of the population lack a specific muscle.Carrier IQ's data collection software is looking shadier than ever. Trevor Eckhart, the security researcher who accused the company's software of monitoring vast swathes of user personal data and phoning home to the likes of Verizon, Sprint, Samsung, HTC, Nokia, and more, has posted alleged video evidence of his claims on YouTube. Originally, Carrier IQ sent Eckhart a cease-and-desist letter, then withdrew and apologized for the threat, all the while representing that the service it provides cell phone manufacturers and carriers did not "record your keystrokes" or "inspect or report on the content of your communications, such as the content of emails and SMSs."
Now, we have a video of an HTC Evo 3D that seems to suggest otherwise, allegedly reading incoming SMS messages even before the phone displays them to you, querying supposedly encrypted HTTPS strings, and logging keypresses, all using an application that the user cannot opt-out of, stop, or remove. Mind you, there's nothing here to suggest that Carrier IQ actually transmits this data back to a carrier, only that it's reading out loud, and perhaps the OEMs that install the service can be trusted to only transmit the minimum amount and shield against malicious software. Still, you could say the same about Sony BMG's CD DRM rootkit in 2005, and look how that turned out. We'd love to hear from manufacturers, carrier partners and OS vendors like Google about the potential privacy and security issues here, and what steps are being taken to safeguard our data and reduce software bloat.Satellite view of Cyclone Phailin (NOAA)
Over the last day, a cyclone over the Bay of Bengal has explosively strengthened as it marches towards the east coast of India, presenting a clear and present danger to the country of over a billion people.
In the last 18 hours, Phailin’s peak winds have increased an astonishing 80 mph (or 70 knots), a rare rate of intensification.
“Based on satellite estimates, maximum sustained winds are now easily around 160 mph (140 knots),” says Ryan Maue, a meteorologist at WeatherBell.com, a private forecasting services company.
Those wind speeds would make Phailin the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane, capable of catastrophic damage.
Phailin is not only intense, but also large.
“It’s equivalent to Katrina in size,” Maue says.
The storm is headed steadily northwest, on an unavoidable collision course with India’s east coast. Landfall is expected Saturday afternoon or evening local time (Saturday morning EDT), northeast of Visakhapatnam, on its current track provided by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
Track forecast for Phailin (Joint Typhoon Warning Center)
Environmental conditions are ripe for the storm to maintain its strength if not intensify further.
Water temperatures are very warm and there is little hostile wind shear.
“Except for an eyewall replacement cycle, that’s the only thing that could stop it,” Maue says. “I don’t see any dry air. It’s outflow is nearly perfect. The ocean heat content all the way to the coast will be the same [as the content supporting its current strength] or even higher…”
#Phailin passing over maxima in ocean-heat content & being fueled by it — only eyewall replacement will temper it pic.twitter.com/nbobJTkBVV — Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) October 10, 2013
Wunderground meteorologist Jeff Masters warns cyclones that form over the Bay of Bengal have a history of producing devastating cyclones.
“Twenty-six of the thirty-five deadliest tropical cyclones in world history have been Bay of Bengal storms,” Masters writes. “During the past two centuries, 42% of Earth’s tropical cyclone-associated deaths have occurred in Bangladesh, and 27% have occurred in India (Nicholls et al., 1995.)”
In 1999, the Odisha cyclone – taking a similar course to Phailin – made landfall as a category 4 cyclone with 155 mph sustained winds. The storm killed approximately 15,000 people. Many perished from the storm surge – the wall of water pushed ashore by Odisha’s winds – of up to 26 feet.
Storm surge, likewise, poses the biggest danger from Phailin due to the low lying terrain at the coast that could easily be inundated. The strength of Phailin’s winds and its mammoth size are likely to generate a massive surge.
“A worst case scenario would have Phailin tracking slightly eastward of its current forecasted track, toward Kolkata and the Ganges Delta of Bangladesh, which is home to tens of millions of people living just a few meters above sea level,” notes Qz.com meteorologist Eric Holthaus.
Preparations are underway.
“India began stocking shelters with rations, put disaster response teams on standby, and cancelled government employees’ holidays as a cyclone hurtled towards its southeastern coast on Thursday,” reports Reuters.Donations help hundreds of shelter pets find homes
Director Charlie Jackson coaxes 8-year-old cattle dog Buddy out of a kennel on Friday, Dec. 23, 2016, at the Montgomery County Animal Shelter. Director Charlie Jackson coaxes 8-year-old cattle dog Buddy out of a kennel on Friday, Dec. 23, 2016, at the Montgomery County Animal Shelter. Photo: Michael Minasi, Staff Photo: Michael Minasi, Staff Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Donations help hundreds of shelter pets find homes 1 / 8 Back to Gallery
Through the generosity of a handful of anonymous donors, more than 250 animals at the Montgomery County Animal Shelter found homes this Christmas.
And according to new shelter Director Charles Jackson those donations will cover the cost of about 200 more adoptions for county residents looking for a new furry family member. The effort to find the shelter animals homes began Dec. 16 after Jackson was approached by several community members wanting to sponsor adoptions after he made a plea to find the shelter pets forever homes.
"It's fantastic," Jackson said adding the veterinarians are working hard to ensure all the animals are spayed or neutered before leaving the shelter ensuring they will be home for Christmas. "Animals are not allowed to leave unless they have been altered."
While some believe pets should not be given as gift, Jackson said the statistics show those animals don't have any greater return than pets adopted any other time.
"It's a huge misconception that animals that go out during holidays come back at a high rate," he said. "We still to the regular adoption process. We still screen people to make sure they are able to provide care and be responsible pet owners."
Jackson was recently hired by the county to take over direction of the shelter from interim director Dr. Todd Hayden. Following almost two years of turmoil, Jackson said he is working hard to get the shelter back on track and get more animals of the shelter alive.
Among those efforts are setting new policies and mending fences with numerous rescue and volunteer groups that stopped working with the shelter under the old management.
"There are some great employees here," he said. "It was hard for them to be successful in a system that was broken."
Jackson said the key to the shelter is the community.
"If a shelter doesn't have the support of the community, it won't be successful," he said. "If the community doesn't get engaged, we are going to fail."
To help with spay and neuter surgeries, the Montgomery County Commissioners Court approved a grant for the shelter from the PetCo Foundation in the amount of $25,000 during its meeting Tuesday.
Jackson said the grant will allow the shelter to do target spay and neuters in the areas of the county that need that assistance.
"One of the fastest and easiest ways for us to manage intake is targeted spay and neuter in the areas that need it most," he said. "Most of those zip codes are in East Montgomery County."
Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack said he was excited about the direction of the shelter.
"They community has really stepped in and gotten behind him, and they said they would when we got the right director," Noack said. "It's awesome."
The Montgomery County Animal Shelter is located at 8535 Texas 242. For more information visit www.mcaspets.org.Sign-up for the Urban Milwaukee daily email
For Scott Walker, Iowa is critical to his presidential hopes. It’s a neighboring state, and one where he lived for the first seven years of his life. It’s a socially conservative state where a Baptist preacher’s son should be a very attractive candidate. For all these reasons, Walker will be expected to do well.
Should Walker fail to do so, this will be seen as a major disappointment by the media, which will make his task much tougher in the next state, New Hampshire. And from there the retail politics phase of the presidential primary ends and he will need huge campaign donations to keep going, which will become increasingly hard.
By contrast, if Walker wins in Iowa, he will immediately become one of the front-runners, with enough momentum to carry him to the end of the primary. So the last thing Walker needed was an issue that would undercut his socially conservative, Baptist image in Iowa. And a decision by the governor to approve a new casino in Kenosha could have done just that.
As the conservative National Review noted: “Newly elected Iowa U.S. senator Joni Ernst joined 600 other Republicans in sending Walker a petition urging him adopt a ‘No Expanding Gaming’ policy. Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent social conservative in Iowa who led the successful defeat in 2010 of three Supreme Court justices who had approved same-sex marriage, has also written a letter to Walker highlighting the ‘increased societal problems of divorce, bankruptcy, debt, depression, and suicide’ that gambling can produce. In 2012, Vander Plaats’s last-minute endorsement of Rick Santorum helped propel the former Pennsylvania senator to a photo-finish victory over Mitt Romney in Iowa.”
And so, one day before he headed to Iowa for a major speech, Walker announced he wouldn’t approve the casino. The governor blamed an earlier document signed by his predecessor, Democrat Jim Doyle, which might have required the state to reimburse the Potawatomi and Ho-Chunk nations for any gambling revenue they lost to a competiting casino in Kenosha. But Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) contended the willingness of the Menomonee Tribe to sign an agreement reimbursing these tribes for any lost revenue should have addressed the issue.
Vos told the Racine Journal Times his phone “lit up with calls from residents who used ‘words that I won’t put on television for what they want me to tell Governor Walker….For anybody to not understand the depth of the frustration and the disappointment and the anger for people who live in Racine, Kenosha and our area, it’s hopefully going to become evident over time.’”
Not once during the 17-month period that Walker considered whether to expand gambling did he express concern about the social problems associated with it. Yet, as soon as some Iowa conservatives raised this issue, he killed the casino.
It’s not the first time Walker has made a decision with his presidential prospects in mind. Another example was his decision to turn down expanded federal funding for Medicaid, which is a key way Obamacare increases the number of people with health care coverage. Nine Republican governors accepted the funding.
One of them, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie put it this way: “It’s simple. We are putting people first…expanding Medicaid will ensure New Jersey taxpayers will see their dollars maximized.”
Another, Ohio Gov. John Kasich explained that “I had a chance… to bring Ohio money back to Ohio to do some things that frankly needed to be done.”
Had Walker made the same decision, Wisconsin could have saved more than $500 million over 31/2 years, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates, and about 87,000 more adults a month would have been served under BadgerCare.
Walker’s excuse for rejecting this windfall for taxpayers was that the federal government might some day stop funding the program. But as he well-knew, President Barack Obama will be in power until Jan 2017 and has promised to veto any changes in the Affordable Care Act. This money was guaranteed for several years, and it was thrown away. Now Wisconsin faces a budget deficit and there is talk of huge cuts coming for the UW System, including UW-Milwaukee.
But by turning down the federal money, Walker gave his presidential hopes a huge boost. As conservative Brian Sikma wrote in Redstate.com: “It is quite likely that conservatives reviewing a field of Republican governors in the 2016 campaign will measure each governor’s commitment to repealing ObamaCare against how they acted on the voluntary expansion of Medicaid…Walker has possibly secured for himself a unique front-runner spot among his fellow Republican governors and rumored 2016 presidential contenders on the issue of healthcare.”
Walker has also urged legislators to get the two-year budget done more quickly. Passing the biennial budget is the main task of legislators and last time they took just four months or so, passing it sooner than the Wisconsin legislature had in decades. And Walker wants it done even faster? He offered no reason, but one comes to mind: he’d like to clear his schedule sooner to campaign for president. Republican legislators rejected the idea for obvious reasons, saying they were wary of losing input from the public and their own GOP members, as well as the regular analysis of the Legislature’s nonpartisan budget office.
Then there is Walker’s stance on alternative energy. Here is a governor whose paramount goal, he said, was to grow jobs and business in Wisconsin. So why not do all you can to encourage wind and solar power, two industries that had established a solid foothold in Wisconsin and to export less oil and coal, both produced by companies outside Wisconsin. Yet Walker’s policies have brought wind power to a screeching halt and slowed down the solar industry in Wisconsin as well.
As, the EPA’s Midwest regional administrator, put it in a speech to local business people at the University Club, “I always am perplexed when I read that the State of Wisconsin, which doesn’t produce any coal, does not see economic opportunity in making a change… I often have a mental image of the coal trains that come into the state: They bring coal in, they leave it at the power plant and they leave the state with piles of ratepayer cash.”
If it seems irrational for the governor to make Wisconsin even more dependent on fossil fuel, it makes perfect sense if you want the support of the Koch brothers, whose Koch Industries is heavily involved in the production of oil, gas and coal. The Kochs plan to spend $889 million on the 2016 election, about as much as either party will, on the 2016 election, and the Republican candidates for president (including Walker) were recently invited to what’s been dubbed the “Koch primary,” a seminar for aspiring candidates. Don’t expect any of them to be touting alternative energy.
Or take an issue like the proposed right-to-work law. I oppose it, but Walker clearly thinks it’s a good policy for Wisconsin, and supported it as a legislator. Yet he now is pushing lawmakers to drop the idea. Why? Probably because it would distract from his run for president, as Urban Milwaukee contributor Steven Walters has carefully explained.
Walker, as some Republicans have joked, has been planning his run for president since he was in high school. And when you’re burning with that kind of passion, the best interests of your state may not seem quite so important.Select a Design All Political T-Shirts All Political Stickers All Political Buttons -- Button 10-Packs All Political Magnets -- Magnet 10-Packs MOST POPULAR ------------------ "Asses of Evil" "Don't Blame Me, "I Voted for Kerry "Impeach Bush" "No W" ALPHABETICALLY -------------------- "20 January 2009 The End of an Error" "51% NOT a Mandate!" "Asses of Evil" "Better Dead than Red" "Buck Fush" "Bush Lied, Soldiers Died" "Bush sent us to Iraq to find WMD, but all we found were these lousy t-shirts" "Don't Blame Me, "I Voted for Kerry "Draft Republicans" "Four Moron Years" "GOD is NOT spelled G.O.P." "He’s STILL not my president" "I think, therefore… I'm a Democrat" "Impeach Bush" "Jesus is a Liberal" "Kerry-Edwards" "No CARB DIET: NO Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Bush" "No W" "Only a Sith Deals in Absolutes" "Proud Liberal" "Somewhere in Texas a Village is Missing its Idiot "Support Our Troops -- Bring Them Home" "Support Our Troops -- Impeach Bush" "YES trees, NO Bush" FOR PRESIDENT 2008 ------------------------ "Al Gore 2008" "Barack Obama 2008" "Barbara Boxer 2008" "Bill Richardson 2008" "Dennis Kucinich 2008" "Evan Bayh 2008" "Hillary Clinton 2008" "Howard Dean 2008" "Joe Biden 2008" "John Kerry 2008" "John Edwards 2008" "Mark Warner 2008" "Russ Feingold 2008" "Wesley Clark 2008"A day after a new video surfaced showing Ray Rice hitting his then-fiancée in the face in a hotel elevator, prompting the Baltimore Ravens to release the running back and the NFL to increase his suspension from two games to indefinite, Janay Rice defended her husband and criticized the media.
"I woke up this morning feeling like I had a horrible nightmare, feeling like I'm mourning the death of my closest friend," she wrote in an Instagram post. "But to have to accept the fact that it's reality is a nightmare itself. No one knows the pain that the media & unwanted [opinions] from the public has caused my family. To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret everyday is a horrible thing.
"To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his ass off for all his life just to gain ratings is horrific. THIS IS OUR LIFE! What don't you all get. If your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take all happiness away, you've succeeded on so many levels. Just know we will continue to grow & show the world what real love is! Ravensnation we love you!"
ESPN's Josina Anderson spoke to the Rices by phone Tuesday. Asked how he was doing, Ray Rice responded, "I have to be strong for my wife. She is so strong.... We are in good spirits. We have a lot of people praying for us and we 'll continue to support each other."
Rice added, "I have to be there for [Janay] and my family right now and work through this."
After that, Ray handed his phone to his wife. "I love my husband. I support him," Janay Rice said. "I want people to respect our privacy in this family matter."
TMZ Sports released the video that showed Rice assaulting his wife on its website Monday. Earlier Tuesday TMZ reported that sources connected with the Revel Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City told TMZ Sports no one from the NFL asked the casino for the video of the couple in the elevator from the Feb. 15 incident. Instead, the league apparently relied on previously released video that showed Rice dragging his fiancée -- who is seemingly unconscious -- from the elevator before determining that he would serve a two-game suspension. The penalty was levied in July.
The Ravens said Monday that they'd not seen the video released Monday by TMZ Sports, either. Asked why the team wasn't able to view the video sooner, coach John Harbaugh told reporters at a Monday night news conference: "I don't know why that would be a hard thing to understand. It wasn't available. It wasn't there for us. It wasn't something that we ever saw or had access to."
The Associated Press reported Monday night that it had viewed a higher-quality video provided by a law enforcement official, and that Rice and Palmer could be heard shouting obscenities at each other. According to the AP, after she collapses, he drags her out of the elevator and is met by some hotel staff. One of them can be heard saying, "She's drunk, right?" And then, "No cops." Rice doesn't respond.
The video, which is slightly longer than the TMZ version and includes some audio, was shown to the AP on condition of anonymity because the official isn't authorized to release it.
The NFL repeated Tuesday that authorities did not make available the video of the assault, despite a claim by TMZ.com that the league did not ask the hotel for it. In statements, the league said it had asked New Jersey State Police for it, and had "reached out multiple times to the Atlantic City Police Department and the Atlantic County prosecutor's office."
The Ravens reached their decision to release Rice in a quick meeting between Harbaugh, owner Steve Bisciotti, general manager Ozzie Newsome and team president Dick Cass, according to Harbaugh.
"The Baltimore Ravens terminated the contract of RB Ray Rice this afternoon," the team's statement read.
Bisciotti first saw the video on television and decided almost immediately that Rice had to be released, a source told ESPN's Ed Werder. Bisciotti called a meeting to confer with other members of the organization's hierarchy. Newsome called Rice to inform him of the team's decision. Harbaugh also spoke to Rice, while Bisciotti contacted NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
The source said that Rice admitted to the Ravens from the start that he was guilty of striking Janay and, for the most part, accurately described what they eventually saw on the video. But the brutality of the assault when seen on the security video made a different impression.On Thursday in Brussels -- ahead of a NATO summit -- Trump and newly-elected French president Emmanuel Macron sat down for a talk and a handshake. And what a handshake it was!
Watch!
Here's how pool reporter Phillip Rucker of The Washington Post, who was in the room, described it:
"They shook hands for an extended period of time. Each president gripped the other's hand with considerable intensity, their knuckles turning white and their jaws clenching and faces tightening."
JUST WATCHED Trump's awkward handshakes with world leaders Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Trump's awkward handshakes with world leaders 02:08
Steve Holland, who covers the White House for Reuters, tweeted this : "The photogs noticed that Trump and Macron were gripping their hands hard and in photo below. Trump seems to just want his hand back."
Handshakes are a very big thing to this president. Trump seems to view the handshake as a sort of battle of wills and a battle for power all wrapped into one.
Trump's go-to handshake move is the tug-and-pull -- as demonstrated in these handshakes with Vice President Mike Pence and Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.
Trump also tends to hold the handshake for about 5 seconds longer than you might expect -- as in this shake with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe (which also features a "hold and tug" right in the middle!):
An honor to host Prime Minister @AbeShinzo in the United States. pic.twitter.com/f6TvfZ6sMj — President Trump (@POTUS) February 10, 2017
By now, world leaders appear to be well aware of Trump's handshake strategy. When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the White House, he was prepared
Pres. Trump and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau shake hands in the Oval Office https://t.co/dZ5dNUihd0 pic.twitter.com/SnKFjVWuKA — CNN (@CNN) February 13, 2017
And, if you watch the handshake with Macron, it's clear that Trump -- on at least one and maybe two occasions -- tries to pull away and Macron just keeps holding on.
Superficial? Absolutely. But remember that Trump is, at heart, someone who believes deeply in appearances and perceptions. So, before you roll your eyes and dismiss this all as fluff and nonsense, remember that the job Trump had right before running for president was as a star of a reality TV show.Plymouth property prices
Plymouth postcode area
January 2018 - December 2018 £230k average property price 4% average price percentage change £9.5k average price change
England + Wales January 2018 - December 2018 £295k average property price 2% average price percentage change £4.5k average price change
Plymouth house prices map shows the average property price in a given postcode sector between January 2018 - December 2018. The most affordable place was 'PL1 1' with the average price of £76.5k. The most expensive place was 'PL8 1', £601k. Postcode sector Average price % of Plymouth avg. price (£230k) PL1 1 £76.5k 33% PL1 2 £189k 82% PL1 3 £236k 103% PL1 4 £174k 76% PL1 5 £163k 71% PL10 1 £258k 112% PL11 2 £179k 78% PL11 3 £350k 153% PL12 4 £214k 93% PL12 5 £266k 116% PL12 6 £259k 113% PL13 1 £249k 108% PL13 2 £272k 118% PL14 3 £186k 81% PL14 4 £197k 86% PL14 5 £197k 86% PL14 6 £218k 95% PL15 7 £264k 115% PL15 8 £231k 101% PL15 9 £204k 89% PL16 0 £273k 119% PL17 7 £221k 96% PL17 8 £271k 118% PL18 9 £222k 97% PL19 0 £226k 98% PL19 8 £275k 120% PL19 9 £307k 134% PL2 1 £139k 61% PL2 2 £148k 64% PL2 3 £169k 74% PL20 6 £322k 140% PL20 7 £254k 111% PL21 0 £293k 127% PL21 9 £238k 104% PL22 0 £255k 111% PL23 1 £369k 161% PL24 2 £201k 88% PL25 3 £223k 97% PL25 4 £201k 87% PL25 5 £191k 83% PL26 6 £328k 143% PL26 7 £197k 86% PL26 8 £179k 78% PL27 6 £513k 223% PL27 7 £266k 116% PL28 8 £510k 222% PL29 3 £425k 185% PL3 4 £227k 99% PL3 5 £276k 120% PL3 6 £171k 74% PL30 3 £344k 150% PL30 4 £330k 144% PL30 5 £326k 142% PL31 1 £184k 80% PL31 2 £188k 82% PL32 9 £216k 94% PL33 9 £214k 93% PL34 0 £271k 118% PL35 0 £394k 172% PL4 0 £176k 77% PL4 6 £192k 84% PL4 7 £164k 72% PL4 8 £167k 73% PL4 9 £144k 63% PL5 1 £140k 61% PL5 2 £149k 65% PL5 3 £156k 68% PL5 4 £150k 65% PL6 5 £243k 106% PL6 6 £194k 85% PL6 7 £238k 104% PL6 8 £206k 90% PL7 1 £217k 94% PL7 2 £216k 94% PL7 4 £211k 92% PL7 5 £248k 108% PL8 1 £601k 262% PL8 2 £336k 147% PL9 0 £340k 148% PL9 7 £231k 101% PL9 8 £270k 118% PL9 9 £227k 99%
Plymouth house prices compared to other areas Comparison of the average property price and an average price percentage change by postcode area. Price % change compares the average property price between January 2018 - December 2018 to the average price in the previous 12 months. The size of the circle shows the number of property transactions. The bigger the circle the higher the sales volumes in postcode area.
Average price percentage change Average property price
Plymouth house price rank With the average price of £230k, Plymouth is the 42. cheapest postcode area out of 105 England and Wales' postcode areas.
Plymouth property sales share by price range shows a number of properties sold in a given price range between January 2018 - December 2018.
Property price range Market share Sales volumes under £50k 0.2% 14 £50k-£100k 6.7% 609 £100k-£150k 21% 1.9k £150k-£200k 26.4% 2.4k £200k-£250k 17.3% 1.6k £250k-£300k 10.6% 960 £300k-£400k 10.1% 918 £400k-£500k 4% 359 £500k-£750k 2.7% 241 £750k-£1M 0.8% 75 over £1M 0.4% 35
Plymouth cost comparison of new homes and older homes January 2018 - December 2018
£242k A newly built property £228k An established property
Plymouth cost comparison of houses and flats January 2018 - December 2018
£354k Detached £150k Flat £208k Semi-Detached £182k Terraced
Plymouth house prices compared to England & Wales' house prices Yearly average nominal prices
Yearly average real house prices.
Plymouth house prices new vs established Yearly average nominal prices
Plymouth house prices by property type Yearly average nominal prices
Plymouth house prices and nearby areas Yearly average nominal pricesGeorge Soros said he was confident that support for Britain to remain in the European Union would rise ahead of the June 23 vote, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Soros told the Journal there remained a good chance that the European Union will collapse due to the migration crisis, challenges in Greece and a potential British exit from the EU.
“If Britain leaves, it could unleash a general exodus, and the disintegration of the European Union will become practically unavoidable,” Soros told the Journal.
But Soros said recent strength in the British pound was a sign that a vote to exit the EU is less likely.
“I’m confident that as we get closer to the Brexit vote, the ‘remain’ camp is getting stronger,” Soros was quoted by the Journal as saying. “Markets are not always right, but in this case I agree with them.”
While betting odds have consistently indicated an In vote, opinion pollsters have so far painted contradictory pictures of how Britons will vote.
Soros bet successfully that the pound was overvalued against the Deutsche Mark in 1992, culminating in so called ‘Black Wednesday’ when John Major was forced to pull sterling out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM).
This story "George Soros Bets Britain Will Vote To Stay ‘In’ Europe" was written by Reuters.Royal Navy warship HMS Daring is to be sent to the Gulf to support US carriers that are launching bombing raids on militants from the Islamic State group.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said it would leave Portsmouth on Friday.
The Type 45 destroyer, and its 190 crew, will perform a similar role to that carried out by HMS Defender before it returned to the UK in July.
It will give air cover for US aircraft carriers, which dispatch planes on bombing raids in Iraq and Syria.
HMS Daring will also patrol busy shipping lanes and provide information to the headquarters controlling air operations against IS, which is also known as Daesh.
Mr Fallon said: "All three armed services are making a vital contribution to defeating Daesh.
"RAF aircraft are hitting the terrorists daily on the ground; the Army is providing counter-explosives training to Iraq troops; the Royal Navy helps protect coalition carriers in the Gulf as they launch strikes".
Image copyright MOD Image caption Sea Viper missiles, seen here being loaded onto a warship, can deal with threats 75 miles away
As a Type 45 destroyer, HMS Daring is armed with Sea Viper missiles which are designed to allow it to protect an entire fleet from air attacks and deal with threats up to 75 miles away.
Though they are the Royal Navy's most modern warships, earlier this year it emerged that the UK's fleet of six £1bn destroyers were to be fitted with new engines because they kept breaking down.
First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Philip Jones told the House of Commons Defence Committee in July that the gas turbine engines driving the warships "degraded catastrophically" in the Gulf's very warm seas.
He said the Royal Navy has accepted it would not be able to operate the ships "all the time in every place on every day of the year".
HMS Daring will be taking on the role previously carried out by HMS Defender, which spent nine months in the Middle East working mainly with American and French strike groups against IS.
In June, while working on counter narcotics and counter terrorist operations, HMS Defender intercepted a suspect fishing boat off the south coast of Oman and seized more than a tonne of hashish, with an estimated street value of £5.6m.× Seymour Ave. Survivors Say They Are ‘Happy’
CLEVELAND — Three women held captive for a decade want supporters to know that they are “happy and safe and continue to heal.”
That’s what attorneys representing Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight said in a letter released on behalf of the women Wednesday morning.
They are also grateful that the media and curious onlookers have disappeared from their neighborhoods, allowing them to heal.
The privacy, according to the letter, is priceless to the women:
“Perhaps the greatest gift of all – the space and time to reconnect with their families and recover and rebuild their lives. And so they say again, “Thank you. Thank you so much!”
What has also touched their hearts is the ongoing support from complete strangers, who have offered money, goods and services.
But, for now, the women are just trying to figure out what they need for the future. The letter addresses the matter, below:
“We understand some people may be confused about the best way to help. We are in direct, private and ongoing conversations with Amanda, Gina and Michelle about many matters, including your generosity. While they appreciate the generous offers of goods and services, for now, they are trying to assess what they need today and for years to come. That’s why donations to the Cleveland Courage Funds are so welcome.”
So far, the Cleveland Courage Funds have raised $650,000 from more than 6,800 individual donations. It’s a reliable way to help the women, attorneys said in the letter.
“We are confident the Cleveland Courage Funds are the legitimate, appropriate and most effective vehicles for this effort. In fact, donations to the Cleveland Courage Funds are already being distributed to the four survivors consistent with the concepts behind the trusts that are being set up. And as soon as the trusts are in place, one-hundred percent of all donations to the Cleveland Courage Funds will go into those trusts.”
*To find out how to donate, click HERE.A CANCER sufferer wearing a headscarf was distraught after she was racially abused on a visit to Weymouth.
Eve Spence, who is being treated for
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2013, it was reported that The National Organization for Marriage, a conservative organization, had forensic evidence which proved that its donors’ private information had been illegally leaked by the IRS. The IRS employees who illegally leaked this private information could get five years in prison. However, Obama refused to file any charges against these IRS criminals.
The IRS illegally leaked the private information of Christine O’Donnell the same day that she announced that she would run for U.S. Senate as a tea party candidate.
According to White House visitor logs, Obama met with Colleen Kelley, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, on March 31, 2010. The very next day, IRS employees who belonged to that union union started to target tea party organizations.
In July 2013, it was reported that Obama had met with a key IRS official who was involved in the targeting just two days before the key official had told his colleagues how to target tea party groups. The Daily Caller reported:
The Obama appointee implicated in congressional testimony in the IRS targeting scandal met with President Obama in the White House two days before offering his colleagues a new set of advice on how to scrutinize tea party and conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
IRS chief counsel William Wilkins, who was named in House Oversight testimony by retiring IRS agent Carter Hull as one of his supervisors in the improper targeting of conservative groups, met with Obama in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on April 23, 2012. Wilkins’ boss, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, visited the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on April 24, 2012, according to White House visitor logs.
On April 25, 2012, Wilkins’ office sent the exempt organizations determinations unit “additional comments on the draft guidance” for approving or denying tea party tax-exempt applications, according to the IRS inspector general’s report.
Jon Stewart said of this:
“Well, congratulations, President Barack Obama. Conspiracy theorists who generally can survive in anaerobic environments have just had an algae bloom dropped on their f***ing heads, thus removing the last arrow in your pro-governance quiver: skepticism about your opponents.”
Michael Macleod-Ball, chief of staff at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, said of this:
“Even the appearance of playing partisan politics with the tax code is about as constitutionally troubling as it gets. With the recent push to grant federal agencies broad new powers to mandate donor disclosure for advocacy groups on both the left and the right, there must be clear checks in place to prevent this from ever happening again.”
In January 2014, it was reported that the Obama administration had chosen Barbara Kay Bosserman to head the investigation of the IRS’s targeting of tea party groups. Bosserman had donated more than $6,000 to Obama’s two presidential campaigns.
In January 2014, it was reported that since Sarah Palin had announced her candidacy for vice-President in 2008, the IRS had harassed her father six different times. Prior to that, the IRS had never contacted him during the 50 years that he had worked. The report did not specify how many of these six incidents happened under President Bush, or how many happened under President Obama.
In January 2014, it was reported that during the FBI’s so-called “investigation” of the IRS’s harassment of tea party groups, the FBI had not actually interviewed any tea party groups.
In January 2014, it was reported that the IRS had demanded that Friends of Abe (a conservative organization whose members work in the entertainment industry) give the IRS enhanced access to its security protected website (which included its secret membership list), even though such a demand was not standard IRS procedure. In addition, even though the organization had applied to the IRS for tax free status two years earlier, the IRS had still not made a decision regarding the application.
In February 2014, Obama said that there was “not even a smidgeon of corruption” in the IRS’s actions.
In February 2014, it was reported that during Obama’s presidency, 100% of the established 501(c)(4) groups that had been audited by the IRS were conservative.
In February 2014, when Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly asked Obama about the IRS harassment of tea party groups, Obama said “These kinds of things keep on surfacing, in part because you and your TV station will promote them.”
In May 2014, it was reported that tea party donors had been audited by the IRS at ten times the rate of the general population.
In June 2014, the IRS claimed that Lerner’s emails to outside agencies from January 2009 through April 2011 had been “lost” when her hard drive “crashed.” Also in June 2014, the IRS claimed to have “lost” the emails from six additional IRS employees who were relevant to this scandal when their hard drives “crashed.” One of these IRS employees was Nikole Flax, who had been chief of staff to former IRS commissioner Steven Miller. Flax had made 31 visits to the White House during the time that the IRS had been targeting tea party groups. However, a private company called Sonasoft had a contract with the IRS since 2005 to back up all of the IRS’s emails. The company keeps multiple and redundant backup copies of all the IRS’s emails. The company advertised itself by saying “If the IRS uses Sonasoft products to back up their servers why wouldn’t you choose them to protect your servers?” In addition, Norman Cillo, an Army veteran who had worked in intelligence, and who had also worked as a program manager at Microsoft, listed six reasons why the IRS’s claim about “losing” the emails must be false. Also, federal law requires the IRS to keep permanent, backup copies of all of its emails at an external location. And finally, the NSA has copies of all of the emails.HANG TIME NEW JERSEY — The Cleveland Cavaliers have always been the clear favorite in the Eastern Conference. At any point in the season, you would have a hard time finding a neutral party who believed that any other East team could stop the Cavs from getting back to The Finals.
Still, the Cavs were always, at best, the third-best team in the league. They were never nearly as good offensively as the Golden State Warriors or nearly as good defensively as the San Antonio Spurs.
But Cleveland has found a new gear in the postseason. The Cavs’ haven’t been a great defensive team in the playoffs, but they haven’t needed to be, because they’ve scored a ridiculous 117 points per 100 possessions as they’ve swept through the first two rounds.
The Cavs have become the most prolific and the most proficient 3-point shooting team in the postseason. The Atlanta Hawks were the league’s best defensive team since Christmas, but couldn’t stop the Cavs’ onslaught in the conference semifinals.
The Toronto Raptors are seemingly just happy to be in the conference finals for the first time in franchise history. But there are reasons the Raptors won 56 games, including two of the three they played against the Cavs this season. They were a top-five offensive team with a much-improved defense. They’ve escaped the competitive bottom half of the East bracket and they played their most complete game of the postseason in Game 7 against the Miami Heat on Sunday.
The Cavs have the opportunity to be the first team to ever go 12-0 on its way to The Finals. To keep that from happening, the Raptors will have to find a way to slow down Cleveland’s potent offense.
Here are some statistical notes to get you ready for the Eastern Conference finals, with links to let you dive in and explore more.
Pace = Possessions per 48 minutes
OffRtg = Points scored per 100 possessions
DefRtg = Points allowed per 100 possessions
NetRtg = Point differential per 100 possessions
Cleveland Cavaliers (57-25)
First round: Beat Detroit in four games.
Conf. semis: Beat Atlanta in four games.
Pace: 91.6 (14)
OffRtg: 117.0 (1)
DefRtg: 106.6 (11)
NetRtg: +10.4 (2)
Regular season: Team stats | Player stats | Lineups
vs. Toronto: Team stats | Player stats | Lineups
Playoffs: Team stats | Player stats | Lineups
Cavs playoff notes:
Toronto Raptors (56-26)
First round: Beat Indiana in seven games.
Conf. semis: Beat Miami in seven games.
Pace: 92.0 (12)
OffRtg: 99.4 (11)
DefRtg: 101.5 (6)
NetRtg: -2.1 (9)
Regular season: Team stats | Player stats | Lineups
vs. Cleveland: Team stats | Player stats | Lineups
Playoffs: Team stats | Player stats | Lineups
Raptors playoff notes:
The matchup
Season series: Raptors won 2-1 (Home team won all three games).
Nov. 25 – Raptors 103, Cavs 99
Jan. 4 – Cavs 122, Raptors 100
Feb. 26 – Raptors 99, Cavs 97
Pace: 89.6
CLE OffRtg: 119.7 (1st vs. TOR)
TOR OffRtg: 111.1 (5th vs. CLE)
Matchup notes:
Category: 2016 NBA Playoffs, NBA.com/Stats / Tags:, Bismack Biyombo, Cleveland Cavaliers, DeMar DeRozan, J.R. Smith, John Schuhmann, Jonas Valanciunas, Kevin Love, Kyle Lowry, Kyrie Irving, LeBron James, Toronto Raptors / Comments Off on Numbers preview: Cavs-Raptors /Perhaps overlooked in all the fiery comments at President Trump’s press conference Thursday was the chief executive’s ringing endorsement of Reince Priebus, his chief of staff, who has been plagued by rumors his job was on thin ice.
"Here is my chief of staff," Trump said when discussing Priebus, the former chairman of the Republican Party during the 2016 campaign and now head of the nascent White House operations. "Really good guy, did a phenomenal job at RNC. I mean, he won the election, right? We won the presidency."
"You take a look, he's done a great job,'' Trump added.
Trump also endorsed Priebus' strong penchant for putting out fires-- stories unfavorable, or considered untrue by the administration-- that are ignited in the media.
"I see stories of chaos, chaos, yet it is the exact opposite," Trump said. "This is a fine-tuned machine and Reince happens to be doing a good job but half of his job is putting out lies by the press."
Earlier this week, Breitbart, a conservative publication once headed by Steve Bannon, the powerful White House chief strategist and an equal to Priebus in the upper echelon of the Trump White House, came out with an article that was sharply critical of the 44-year old lawyer.
The piece was one of several quoting White House sources who criticized the rollout of the Trump immigration executive order.
Bannon was furious about the report a White House source confirmed to Fox News. Bannon and Priebus then quickly spoke to reporters to counter the narrative that there was acrimony between them.
"Reince is doing an amazing job," Bannon told The Hill. "We are executing President Trump's agenda in record time. That's because Reince is getting the job done."
Other aides, many of whom were not authorized to speak to the press, have reached out to Fox News to say they believe the stories have been "unfair" toward their boss.
They privately say that the rumors are not substantive, and may represent a tiny fraction of a staff that is primarily very supportive of Priebus and his management style.
A senior White House aide described Priebus to Fox News as a "tremendous leader who built a world class political party, and that know-how and management skill, is why he's (Trump's chief of staff)."
A few blind quotes don't reflect the tremendous trust and faith everyone has in him,'' he said.
"Stories about the president not approving of the chief of staff are totally ridiculous,'' another administration official told Fox News. The president himself praised Priebus in his first-ever press conference as president. "
"Nothing could be a stronger endorsement than that,'' the official said.
Fox News’ Serafin Gomez contributed to this story.Left-leaning Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz agreed with President Donald Trump when he said the Comey investigation is a partisan issue, according to his comments Monday evening on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
WATCH:
The long-time supporter of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton argued that he doesn’t usually agree with the president, but asserted allegations that the president somehow obstructed justice by allegedly asking former FBI Director James Comey to stop an investigation into then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn are false.
The president has continued calling the move to investigate the Comey matter as an obstruction of justice a “Witch Hunt,” and went so far as to say that he was the most persecuted politician in the nation’s history during a speech in May.
The MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN agenda is doing very well despite the distraction of the Witch Hunt. Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm,.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2017
…massive regulation cuts, 36 new legislative bills signed, great new S.C.Justice, and Infrastructure, Healthcare and Tax Cuts in works! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2017
“I don’t agree with President Trump on a lot of his agenda issues,” Dershowitz began. “As you know I’m a liberal Democrat who voted enthusiastically for Hillary Clinton, but I think I’m a person of principle.”
“I realize that what Democrats are trying to do is exactly what Republican extremists tried to do to Hillary Clinton: lock her up, throw away the key.”
“The very people who are pushing for Donald Trump to be indicted or impeached would be on the other side of the issue if the shoe were on the other foot,” Dershowitz continued.
He then went on to argue that the president had the right to ask Comey to drop the investigation, and he also had the full right to fire Comey for any reason.
“They are saying that he committed obstruction of justice by simply acting on his constitutional authority. He had the right to fire Comey, Comey acknowledged that. He had the right to tell Comey to stop investigating Flynn, Comey acknowledged that,” the law professor continued.
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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]’s a famous lyric from Leonard Bernstein ’50s classic West Side Story.
“Life is all right in America…If you’re a white in America.”
It’s a line that captured the cultural struggles and injustices that preceded the civil rights era of the 1960s: The “Jets” versus the “Sharks”…”Whites” versus “Blacks”…”Them” versus “Us”.
Since the 1950s, the nation has made enormous strides toward equality, but fueling those movements has been a series of demographic changes across the country, including a boom in minority populations.
New data from the U.S. Census out Thursday shows the minority boom displays no signs of stopping.
The share of the white U.S. population has dropped to a historic low, according to new population estimates. The number of white deaths is outpacing the number of white births for the first time ever and the nation’s minority population is growing 21-times faster than the white population.
The impact: the non-Hispanic white population in America now comprises just 63% of the country, down from 80% in 1980.
Behind the numbers are some very real political implications.
In the 2012 presidential election, Democrats lost the white vote by some 20 points, but made for up it thanks to huge margins across all minority spectrums, including Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, according to data from the Brookings Institute.
The GOP’s conservative base, led by firebrands like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, are moving the party’s center further to the right.
But it’s a double-edged sword for conservatives: on the one hand, the party is desperate for fresh-faced leadership. On the other: the nation’s demographics are pointing towards a country that, on its face, is poised to move further to the left.
The real question is: can the Grand “Old” Party change their message in an effort to attract “new” recruits.
Or, will they miss the long-term war in favor of short-term battles and entrenched philosophies - - like the movie says: “Once you’re a Jet, you’re Jet all the way.”The emerging technologies on the Gartner Inc. Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017 reveal three distinct megatrends that will enable businesses to survive and thrive in the digital economy over the next five to 10 years.
Artificial intelligence (AI) everywhere, transparently immersive experiences and digital platforms are the trends that will provide unrivaled intelligence, create profoundly new experiences and offer platforms that allow organizations to connect with new business ecosystems.
The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies report is the longest-running annual Gartner Hype Cycle, providing a cross-industry perspective on the technologies and trends that business strategists, chief innovation officers, R&D leaders, entrepreneurs, global market developers and emerging-technology teams should consider in developing emerging-technology portfolios.
The Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle is unique among most Gartner Hype Cycles because it garners insights from more than 2,000 technologies into a succinct set of compelling emerging technologies and trends. This Hype Cycle specifically focuses on the set of technologies that is showing promise in delivering a high degree of competitive advantage over the next five to 10 years (see Figure 1).
"Enterprise architects who are focused on technology innovation must evaluate these high-level trends and the featured technologies, as well as the potential impact on their businesses," said Mike J. Walker, research director at Gartner. "In addition to the potential impact on businesses, these trends provide a significant opportunity for enterprise architecture leaders to help senior business and IT leaders respond to digital business opportunities and threats by creating signature-ready actionable and diagnostic deliverables that guide investment decisions."
Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017
Note: PaaS = platform as a service; UAVs = unmanned aerial vehicles
Source: Gartner (July 2017)
AI Everywhere
Artificial intelligence technologies will be the most disruptive class of technologies over the next 10 years due to radical computational power, near-endless amounts of data, and unprecedented advances in deep neural networks; these will enable organizations with AI technologies to harness data in order to adapt to new situations and solve problems that no one has ever encountered previously.
Enterprises that are seeking leverage in this theme should consider the following technologies: Deep Learning, Deep Reinforcement Learning, Artificial General Intelligence, Autonomous Vehicles, Cognitive Computing, Commercial UAVs (Drones), Conversational User Interfaces, Enterprise Taxonomy and Ontology Management, Machine Learning, Smart Dust, Smart Robots and Smart Workspace.
Transparently Immersive Experiences
Technology will continue to become more human-centric to the point where it will introduce transparency between people, businesses and things. This relationship will become much more entwined as the evolution of technology becomes more adaptive, contextual and fluid within the workplace, at home, and in interacting with businesses and other people.
Critical technologies to be considered include: 4D Printing, Augmented Reality (AR), Computer-Brain Interface, Connected Home, Human Augmentation, Nanotube Electronics, Virtual Reality (VR) and Volumetric Displays.
Digital Platforms
Emerging technologies require revolutionizing the enabling foundations that provide the volume of data needed, advanced compute power, and ubiquity-enabling ecosystems. The shift from compartmentalized technical infrastructure to ecosystem-enabling platforms is laying the foundations for entirely new business models that are forming the bridge between humans and technology.
Key platform-enabling technologies to track include: 5G, Digital Twin, Edge Computing, Blockchain, IoTPlatform, Neuromorphic Hardware, Quantum Computing, Serverless PaaS and Software-Defined Security.
"When we view these themes together, we can see how the human-centric enabling technologies within transparently immersive experiences — such as smart workspace, connected home, augmented reality, virtual reality and the growing brain-computer interface — are becoming the edge technologies that are pulling the other trends along the Hype Cycle," said Mr. Walker.
"AI Everywhere" emerging technologies are moving rapidly through the Hype Cycle. Technologies such as deep learning, autonomous learning and cognitive computing are just crossing the peak, which shows that they are key enablers of technologies that create transparent and immersive experiences.
Finally, digital platforms are rapidly moving up the Hype Cycle, illustrating the new IT realities that are possible by providing the underlining platforms that will fuel the future. Technologies such as Quantum Computing (climbing the Innovation Trigger) and Blockchain (having passed the peak) are poised to create the most transformative and dramatic impacts in the next five to 10 years.
"These megatrends illustrate that the more organizations are able to make technology an integral part of employees', partners' and customers' experiences, the more they will be able to connect their ecosystems to platforms in new and dynamic ways," said Mr. Walker.
Gartner clients can read more in the report "Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017." This research is part of the Gartner Trend Insight Report "2017 Hype Cycles Highlight Enterprise and Ecosystem Digital Disruptions." With over 1,800 profiles of technologies, services and disciplines spanning over 100 Hype Cycles, this Trend Insight Report is designed to help CIOs and IT leaders respond to the opportunities and threats affecting their businesses, take the lead in technology-enabled business innovations and help their organizations define an effective digital business strategy.
Additional analysis on emerging trends will be presented during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2017, the world's most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. Follow news and updates from the events on social media using #GartnerSYM.
Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo include:
September 18-21, Cape Town, South Africa
October 1-5, Orlando, Florida
October 23-26, Sao Paulo, Brazil
October 30-November 2, Gold Coast, Australia
October 31-November 2, Tokyo Japan
November 5-9, Barcelona, Spain
November 13-16, Goa, IndiaANALYSIS/OPINION:
On May 1, Judicial Watch obtained a 106-page document from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealing that on its first full day of operation, Oct. 1, 2013, Obamacare’s Healthcare.gov received one enrollment. That’s it — one. As in a single digit removed from absolute zero, which is as low as you can get on the numerical scale and still register as anything other than a cipher.
Out of 316 million people in the United States of America badgered with government propaganda day and night for months, one person signed up for the Obama administration’s much-ballyhooed signature achievement. Millions of people were essentially ordered, with the blessing of the Supreme Court, to sign up or face the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). One did.
How embarrassing is this sorry number for the Obama administration? Well, it is embarrassing enough that Judicial Watch had to sue HHS in order to get it to come clean about the full extent of its massive failure. Of course, everyone knew that something had gone terribly wrong with the $667 million Healthcare.gov website. As the Chicago Tribune reported, “Consumers seeking more information on their new options under the Affordable Care Act were met with long delays, error messages and a largely non-working federal insurance exchange and call center.” However, the Obama administration was adamant about not revealing the full scope of its unmitigated disaster.
Pressed for an explanation in a conference call with reporters on the afternoon of the grand launch, Marilyn Tavenner, head of the HHS Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, refused to disclose the number of people who had purchased insurance through the site, saying, “We have just decided not to release that yet.” CBS News reported, “No one knows how many people have managed to enroll. The administration refuses to release those numbers.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to deflect queries by blaming the American people for being too stupid to use the Internet.
No one really knew the full extent of the Healthcare.gov disaster until Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in November 2013 and finally obtained the full report on May 1. What the full report showed was a failure so massive that had the scope and scan been fully known at the outset, it could have led to the collapse of Obamacare.
According to the government’s own (carefully concealed) records: On Oct. 1, there were 43,208 accounts created and one enrollment.
As of Oct. 31, there were 1,319,425 accounts created nationwide, but only 30,512 actual enrollments in Obamacare.
At 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 1, the end of the first day, Brigid M. Russell, the senior adviser at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, sent out an email to her staff with a subject line celebrating “2 enrollments!” The body copy of the email read: “We have our second official [Federally Facilitated Marketplace] enrollment! The first two Form 834s sent out are to: 1) CareSource in Ohio, 2) BCBS of North Carolina.”
Official figures contained in the HHS report provide conflicting figures as to the number of enrollments. Federally Facilitated Marketplace statistics show 23,259 cumulative to-date applications submitted as of Oct. 2 and 286 completed plan selections. Earlier numbers show 356 enrollments created as of 7 p.m. on Oct. 2, which were completed with Form 834s applications sent.
An Oct. 2 email from HHS Special Assistant Marianne Bowen indicated serious problems with congressional enrollments: “The Congressional issue (68 attempts for Direct enrollment) was an issue stemming from incomplete applications being sent through (started, not finished, sent anyway) and the way the issuers are assigning unique numbers. Turns out there were only 4 complete Direct Enrollment applications that went through, the other 64 were not complete.” (The U.S. Congress has approximately 24,000 professional staffers.)
On Oct. 2, the Obamacare website had 70 million page views but only 5 million were unique visitors, and 48 percent of registrations failed. The large number of page views may have been the result of visitors repeatedly hitting the “refresh” button due to long waiting times.
When news first broke of the Healthcare.gov disaster, late-night comedian Jay Leno joked, “The good news is that Obamacare does cover Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, the result of pressing the computer trying to get through to the stupid Obamacare website.” In fact, there was no good news with Obamacare, and that’s why the Obama administration foisted a news blackout on the American people.
Shortly after Judicial Watch released the full details of the website launch disaster, support for Obamacare plummeted to an all-time low of 26 percent. Perhaps the Obama administration knew from the outset that if the American people had known the full extent of the billion-dollar debacle on the day of the launch, 26 percent support may have been the all-time high.
Tom Fitton is president of Judicial Watch and author of “The Corruption Chronicles” (Threshold Editions, 2012).
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Fox has suspended production on Bryan Singer’s Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” due to the director’s “unexpected unavailability.”
“Twentieth Century Fox Film has temporarily halted production on Bohemian Rhapsody due to the unexpected unavailability of Bryan Singer,” a Twentieth Century Fox Film spokesperson told TheWrap in a statement.
A representative for Singer told the BBC the absence was due to “a personal health matter concerning Bryan and his family,” which was confirmed by an individual with knowledge of the situation.
Also Read: 'Bohemian Rhapsody': Rami Malek Stuns as Freddie Mercury in New On-Set Photo
“Bohemian Rhapsody” follows Queen from the band’s inception in 1970, when Mercury teamed with Brian May and Roger Taylor, until their famous 1985 Live Aid performance.
Malek joined the project from Graham King of GK Films last November, replacing Sacha Baron Cohen and Ben Whishaw, who had both previously been attached to play Mercury. Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, Ben Hardy, Gwilym Lee, Joe Mazzello and Lucy Boynton also star in the film.
Justin Haythe (“Red Sparrow”) wrote the script with King, Beach and Singer producing. Denis O’Sullivan, Arnon Milchan and Jane Rosenthal are executive producers.Somewhere in the City is quite often known for finding the quirky features in Jax. However, today we want to introduce you to something weird. There’s quietly and slowly been a little movement in our city, and we’ve been watching and seeing it evolve more and more into the potential it holds. SitC couldn’t wait to get an interview with the founder of Make Jax Weird. This may sound a little familiar if you’ve heard people in Austin, Texas consistently saying, “Keep Austin Weird.” The idea didn’t originate from there, though; it actually originated from Fort Worth, Texas where they don’t say, “keep” they say, “Make Fort Worth Weird.” Now, calm yourself down; you may think Jacksonville is already weird but we like the idea of continuously making it weird. If you haven’t heard of this little craze that we expect to have an outbreak, let us tell you exactly what Make Jax Weird is.
It’s simply a movement anyone can get involved in. It’s an idea that we can look at our city through the filters of different, creative, innovative, sustainable, local, and needless to say, weird. We sat down with the founder of the idea, but this person wants to stay anonymous. When you don’t know who started it, there isn’t a stero-type or judgement attached. There’s only curiosity, and that engages you to continue to be ever more interested. The founder also really wanted to make it a point that anyone can make Jacksonville weird. If you were to see and/or know the founder, they would be fearful that you’d only attribute the movement to them. It’s intended to create a community-focused movement through all ages, genders, and essentially through every demographic.
Although Make Jax Weird sprouted from ideas in Austin and Fort Worth, the idea sat in someone’s mind for a whole year, wondering how they could possibly recreate and mold it in a way that fit our city. Our interviewee told us they felt the city had a lost identity. Now, we’re all just adding to the weirdness, and our city is on the cusp of something greater than itself. Make Jax Weird says, “Don’t just be or do, take responsibility for your city.” If you have an idea, instead of mulling it over in your mind, act upon it. So after they mulled the idea of making Jax weird, they simply just started an Instagram account and started hashtagging with #makejaxweird.
They first popped up on our radar through their Instagram account. We started to follow them to see what kind of weird path they would be taking. If you go through the hashtags, you’ll discover photos of local businesses stepping out of the norm, parks, people, food trucks, the river, bike racks, bridges, fire breathers, buildings, festivals, and the list can go on (and you can add to it). Anything can be weird, because it’s just how we view our city. Like we mentioned before, we saw that this Instagram account held a lot of potential, and we liked where they took it next. They ordered a bulk amount of lovely green stickers that simply said, “Make Jax Weird.” You can easily get your hands on a couple of stickers by going to their website and purchasing some for $2. If you have an adventurous spirit, you can also hunt out the places where a team of weird people leave them around our city. I got a good handful of these stickers. I’ve been sticking them in some of my favorite places in our city.
Where is Make Jax Weird heading? The goals for Make Jax Weird is that it’d sustain itself through connections and everyone taking ownership. The stickers started out green but there are intended to be new editions of stickers. The color indigo just came out! Keep looking forward to different colors! If you haven’t gotten an idea of how you can take part yet, let’s break it down to some action steps for you: Support the movement by buying stickers so that Make Jax Weird can order more, go out into your community and neighborhood to find those “weird” places, start going sticker crazy, and make sure you’re hashtagging with #makejaxweird. Most importantly, don’t forget to be weird yourself, as we believe that it’s not just a place or event that makes up Jacksonville, it’s the characters inside of it.
Amanda Gibson
Photography by Morgan BurdenDonald Duck talk, formally called buccal speech, is an alaryngeal form of vocalization which uses the inner cheek to produce sound rather than the larynx.[1][2][3][4] The speech is most closely associated with the Disney cartoon character Donald Duck whose voice was created by Clarence Nash, who performed it from 1934 to 1984.[5][6]
Nash discovered buccal speech while trying to mimic his pet goat Mary. In his days before Disney, Nash performed in vaudeville shows where he often spoke in his "nervous baby goat" voice. Later when he auditioned at Walt Disney Productions, Walt Disney interpreted Nash's voice as that of a duck, at which point the idea for Donald Duck came about.[7] Buccal speech was also used by voice actor Red Coffey for the character Quacker in MGM cartoons, and by Jimmy Weldon for the character Yakky Doodle in Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
Production [ edit ]
Buccal speech is created with one of the buccal or cheek sides of the vocal tract. Both the air chamber and the replacement glottis are formed between the cheek and upper jaw. Buccal speech is produced when a person creates an airbubble between the cheek and the jaw on one side and then uses muscular action to drive the air through a small gap between or behind the teeth into the mouth. The sound so produced makes a high rough sound. This then is articulated to make speech.[1][2] The speech sounds made in this way are difficult to hear and have a raised pitch. The technique can be also be used to sing,[1] and is usually acquired as a taught or self-learned skill and used for entertainment.
Other cases [ edit ]
Donald Duck-like speech is described to occur after pseudobulbar dysarthria in which speech gains a high-pitched "strangulated" quality. [8] [9] [10]
Donald Duck speech effect is described (usually as an undesired phenomenon) in audio engineering when speech is time compressed, rate controlled, or accelerated. [11]
The term is sometimes also used to refer to the frequency-shifted speech from an improperly tuned single sideband modulation (SSB) radiotelephone receiver, or the (nearly unintelligible) sound of a SSB signal on a conventional amplitude modulation (AM) receiver. [12]
A high pitched nasal voice resembling Donald Duck is sometimes noted in individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome.[13]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]Invitation-only charge card issued by American Express
Front side of a card.
Hong Kong Centurion Invitation Kit
The American Express Centurion Card, known informally as the Amex Black Card, is an invitation-only charge card issued by American Express[1] to platinum card holders after they meet certain criteria. There are three different issues of the Centurion Card: personal, business, and corporate.[2]
History [ edit ]
In 1999 American Express introduced the Centurion Card to cater to the very wealthy.[3] The card was initially available only to selected users of the company's Platinum Card. To become a Centurion cardholder, one must meet American Express eligibility criteria. Cardholders are required to pay an annual fee, and in some countries also an initiation fee. (In the United States, the initiation fee is $7,500 in addition to the $2,500 annual fee from each cardholder).[4] In addition to a variety of benefits, the card itself is made of anodized titanium[4] with the information and numbers laser etched into the metal. (It should be noted that in some markets the plastic version of the card is still issued, with or without the titanium card.) The plastic card and 2014 and earlier Centurion cards include embossed information on the card. The Centurion 2015 Card introduced laser etching. In some locations, such as Israel, EMV "chip" plastic cards which also include the ExpressPay contactless payment technology are issued. American Express created the card line amid rumors and urban legends in the 1980s that it produced an ultra-exclusive black card for elite users who could purchase anything with it.[5]
Jerry Seinfeld claimed in a 2018 episode of his web show "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" (with guest John Mulaney) that American Express began issuing the Black Card after Seinfeld asked the Amex president about it, and that Seinfeld (who was their ad pitchman) was given the first one. [6]
Features [ edit ]
Availability and fees [ edit ]
The Centurion Card is invitation-only after appropriate net worth with American Express, credit, and spending criteria are met.[4] American Express does not publicly disclose the requirements necessary for getting or keeping a card, except that the cardholder needs to have a substantial net worth, as well as having been a Platinum card holder.[4]
While the eligibility criteria are subject to speculation, most reliable sources agree that Centurion Card holders have historically spent US$250,000 or more per year on lower-level American Express cards, and have annual incomes of around US$1.3 million and net worths of at least US$16 million.[7]
Benefits [ edit ]
The card, available for personal and business use, offers services such as a dedicated concierge and travel agent; complimentary companion airline tickets on international flights on selected airlines with the purchase of a full-fare ticket; personal shoppers at retailers such as Dot & Vic's Rathon Station, Gucci, Escada, and Saks Fifth Avenue; access to airport clubs; first-class flight upgrades; membership
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, effectively killing the bill. Garden City Democratic Rep. John McCrostie joined seven Republican legislators in voting against Senate Bill 1146aa. Plummer Democratic Rep. Paulette Jordan was not present for the vote.
"It's a tie," said Committee Chair Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, who voted with four Republicans and three Democrats in favor of the bill, sponsored by Boise Republican Sen. Curt McKenzie.
Members of the public who had endured the marathon, sat stunned after spending the day imploring lawmakers to help their children.
"I'll try to contain my emotions," said Holli Bunderson, whose son suffered his first seizure when he was 10 months old. He has since had a tumor and a cyst removed from his brain and been diagnosed with autism and limbic rage syndrome, which triggers violent seizures that wrack his 7-year-old body.
Dr. David Bettis, a pediatric neurologist who works with many of the Idaho families coping with their children's severe epilepsy, cautioned lawmakers, "not to throw the babies out of with the bathwater."
"I would urge you not to overemphasize the bathwater," he said. "Let's keep in mind that these children deserve this kind of help. Yes, I struggle with the illegal transport of the drug as much as anyone, but that's the part of the bathwater. We can work that out."
Natalie Stevens said she was prepared to testify before the House committee because she was an expert.
"I'm an expert on my daughter," Stevens said. Her daughter is 11-year-old Marley, who suffers between two and 100 seizures every day.
"You've heard the word'seizure' over and over today," said Stevens, "but when you hear it over and over, you forget what that entails. 'Seizure' means Marley can never be out of my sight. It means that she has scars from biting her tongue all the time. It means that her breathing stops. It means missing school and missing work. It means sleepless nights and agonizing days.
"Seizures are our prison," she added "We'll gladly risk this. We're already in prison. We would rather be arrested and have an affirmative defense."
Opponents of the bill brought out the big guns, figuratively, with Idaho police, sheriffs, prosecutors and Elisha Figueroa, director of the Idaho Office of Drug Policy, pushing hard against SB 1146aa.
"Yes, this is heart wrenching, but I want to be clear: this is not hemp oil you can buy at the Co-op. This is marijuana, a Schedule One drug, and Idaho will be violating federal law if this passes," said Figueroa, who was appointed as drug czar by Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter.
"We have a very real criminal element in this state that is looking for a shield for their activity, and this law does just that," he added.
Figueroa urged the committee to instead support Senate Bill 1156, which would direct the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to administer a special program including trials and oversight of the pharmaceutical drug Epidiolex.
The Epidiolex trial would include approximately 25 to 30 people, but at least one estimate during the March 30 State Affairs Committee hearing indicated that there approximately 1,200 Idaho children suffering from severe seizures.On June 25, 1894, Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, a young mother of three small children, stood before a crowd of 500 friends, family, suffragists and curious onlookers at the Massachusetts State House. Then, declaring she would circle the world, she climbed onto a 42-pound Columbia bicycle and “sailed away like a kite down Beacon Street.”
Fifteen months later one New York newspaper called it “the most extraordinary journey ever undertaken by a woman.”
The trip was reportedly set in motion by a wager that required Annie not only to circle the earth by bicycle in 15 months, but to earn $5,000 en route, as well. This was no mere test of a woman's physical endurance and mental fortitude; it was a test of a woman's ability to fend for herself in the world.
Annie turned every Victorian notion of female propriety on its ear. Not only did she abandon, temporarily, her role of wife and mother, but for most of the journey she rode a man's bicycle attired in a man's riding suit. She earned her way selling photographs of herself, appearing as an attraction in stores, and by turning herself into a mobile billboard, renting space on her body and her bicycle to advertisers eager to benefit from this colorful spectacle on wheels.
Outlandish, brash, and charismatic - a master of public relations, a consummate self-promoter, and a skillful creator of her own myth - Annie was a woman of boundless chutzpah. Indeed, as Annie Cohen Kopchovsky reinvented herself as a new woman - the daring globetrotter and adventurer, "Mlle. Annie Londonderry" - she became one of the most celebrated women of the gay '90s. Yet, until now, her remarkable story has been lost to history.Sainsbury’s is set to be redesigned in an attempt to encourage shoppers to eat less meat, reported The Guardian.
The supermarket giant is teaming up with Oxford University scientists who say that reducing animal product consumption would improve people’s health and combat climate change.
Proposals include: giving vouchers and loyalty points to shoppers who buy vegan and vegetarian products; placing vegan and vegetarian products on the same shelves as meat; and providing leaflets with recipes and information about how shoppers can eat less meat.
It follows the example of Sainsbury’s new vegan cheese range, which surpassed expected sales by 300% recently.
The project will begin next week and is funded as part of Our Planet, Our Health, a £5 million Wellcome Trust Initiative.
Marco Springmann, who leads the Oxford scientists who are collaborating with Sainsbury’s said: “the food system is responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore a major driver of climate change.”
In fact, animal agriculture is the leading cause of climate change according to the UN.
A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report has stated
This increased awareness could at least partly explain why the number of vegans in the UK has increased by 360% in the last decade, while vegan food sales have increased by 1500% in the last year.There are a few things most certainly true of torture. The first is that once a country or society opens the door it becomes the proverbial greased pig, a very slippery and insidious creature to deal with. Secondly, where we undertake torture we grant the so called terrorists who haunt our world their greatest victory. Where we willingly collapse hard won human rights and civil liberties- supposedly the very things we hold sacred-and among the things we are defending -we grant the enemy his greatest victory for he has ripped the fabric of our society. It is also in the greasy nature of torture that where it is detected its practitioners simply make it an even more covert activity.
US president Barack Obama is in an epic struggle with the greased pig of torture. He promised to close Guantanamo but can no longer do so as the closure has now been delayed at least another year thanks to the US Senate vetoing the funds to do so.
The pig gets even greasier though as simultaneous to the failure to close Guantanamo comes the announcement that the equally infamous Bagram prison in Afghanistan is to be expanded. So, maybe, just maybe, the Guantanamo torture facility is not being closed at all- just relocated closer to the action and even farther from any sort of scrutiny.
A little more grease is added when it has just been revealed the CIA has been operating one of its “rendition” facilities in a former horse riding academy in Lithuania. To this day it is a well kept secret just how many such facilities are in operation around the world.
The greased pig of torture is a globe trotter, a bounder and respects no borders. This is the very reason international law must prevail with exceptions made for no country big or small- another subject for another time.
President Obama is not alone in his battle. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper has just been confronted with the greased pig of torture. So far Harper has been running from the pig, terrified of getting any of that nauseous ikky stuff on his impeccable attire; or should we say his impeccable hypocrisy. Unruffled, no grease on his hands, he surveys the scene with a sublime indifference.
Harper, of course, leads the only Western government that has steadfastly refused to repatriate its citizens from Quantanamo. All others, even apple polishing Britain, have successfully done so. The citizen in question for Harper and Canada is Omar Khadr, the child soldier at the age of 15 years captured in Afghanistan.
The Khadr case has long since taken the measure of this government's lack of commitment to genuine proactive human rights and revealed its coldhearted disposition on torture.
If Harper does not lose any sleep over the plight of Omar Khadr the testimony of Richard Colvin might just prick his recumbent soul. Colvin, a former Canadian diplomat in Afghanistan, has testified before a Commons committee Canada has been turning over prisoners destined to be tortured. We have, it seems, some compelling need to help fill Bagram prison and contribute to its necessary expansion.
Defense Minister Peter Mackay invokes his experience as crown prosecutor in trying to discredit Colvin's testimony but he is up against a witness of unimpeachable credentials and one still employed in our Washington embassy- an intelligence officer no less- who's very job it is to know such things. Mackay's attempts at character assassination serve only to betray his political desperation.
Canada's military is deeply integrated into that of the US. Since the 2004 torture scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison it is well known the US has been practicing torture. Only the utterly nave would be believe that Canada's military could avoid being complicit in torture and the breaking of international law in this close and utterly compliant relationship. It now remains to be seen how many other NATO countries serving there are also complicit in torture. The British army for one is embroiled in a series of torture accusations dating back to the Iraq war.
As long as this not so cuddly little pig has the run of the house all of us get smeared and the blame does not lie totally with our leaders. We too are refusing to wrestle this not so cuddly little pig as we drift toward being torture tolerant societies. Stark testimony to this is not only our lack of outrage to torture connected to the less than authentic war on terror but also domestic torture. Domestic torture comes in the form of our apparent tolerance for the use of the tasers by our police forces. Both the UN and Amnesty International consider the taser a form of torture. It was never intended as a lethal weapon, but it now has a proven lethality, and a growing list of victims.
It is a time worn political cliche our leaders are only as good as we make them, and right now we are not making them very good.
President Obama has just returned from China. Prime Minister Harper is due to go there in the next few weeks. Gone are the days when Western leaders can step off a plane and start lecturing Chinese leaders on human rights and civil liberties. We have squandered our moral authority and our moral compass is suffering a grotesque deflection- courtesy of the ruinous war on terror. Not only do our leaders arrive in that country as economic supplicants, but also as human rights and civil liberties violators. The most they can do now is compare notes with the Chinese on mutual and pervasive indiscretions.
Robert Billyard 2009On May 21, Texas School Board member Cynthia Dunbar opened the board’s meeting with an invocation: “Whether we look to the first charter of Virginia, or the charter of New England, or the charter of Massachusetts Bay, or the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the same objective is present—a Christian land governed by Christian principles.”[i] The board then voted nine to five, along party lines, to adopt new standards that will be used to teach the state’s 4.8 million students—resisting the pleas of educators, historians, and even Rod Paige, a former U.S. secretary of education under President George W. Bush. The new standards emphasize the role of Christianity in U.S. history and promote conservative values. A New York Times editorial pointed out that the Texas board did back down on a few of its “most outrageous efforts”—such as renaming the slave trade, the “Atlantic triangular trade”—but it nevertheless managed “to justify injecting more religion into government.” According to the Times, the curriculum differentiates between the Founders’ protection of religious freedom and “separation of church and state,”[ii] which it deplores.
Other states will feel the effects of the Texas decision, since the state is the second-largest purchaser of textbooks in the United States (behind California) and, as the Chronicle of Higher Education noted, “national publishers often tailor their texts to [Texas] standards.”[iii] A California state senator responded by introducing a bill that would ensure his state would not be using any of the new Texas guidelines.[iv]
The historian Eric Foner points out that the problem with the changes in the Texas standards is not the inclusion of the role that modern conservatism has played. His own textbook, Give Me Liberty! (2004), includes a chapter titled “The Conservative Resurgence.” Rather, he says, the problem is “what the new standards tell us about conservatives’ overall vision of American history and society and how they hope to instill that vision in the young.”[v] Foner explains,
The standards run from kindergarten through high school, and certain themes obsessively recur. Judging from the updated social studies curriculum, conservatives want students to come away from a Texas education with a favorable impression of: women who adhere to traditional gender roles, the Confederacy, some parts of the Constitution, capitalism, the military and religion. They do not think students should learn about women who demanded greater equality; other parts of the Constitution; slavery, Reconstruction and the unequal treatment of nonwhites generally; environmentalists; labor unions; federal economic regulation; or foreigners.”
He continues,
Students in several grades will be required to understand the “benefits” (but none of the drawbacks) of capitalism. The economic system, however, dares not speak its name—it is referred to throughout as “free enterprise.” Labor unions are conspicuous by their absence... Clearly, the Texas Board of Education seeks to inculcate children with a history that celebrates the achievements of our past while ignoring its shortcomings, and that largely ignores those who have struggled to make this a fairer, more equal society.
The Textbooks’ Political Influence
Of course, children who learn from textbooks that teach these ideas grow up to be adults who vote, hold office, and make public policy. Thus, changes to public-school curricula have a broad impact. Significant numbers of homeschooled students raised on creationism and Christian revisionist textbooks have already entered professions such as law, education, and politics. In a 2007 article in the New Yorker, Hanna Rosin described Patrick Henry College, the first college founded specifically for the advanced education of Christian homeschooled students. It “trains young Christians to be politicians,” Rosin writes. During the George W. Bush administration, when the article was written,
Of the school’s sixty-one graduates through the class of 2004, two have jobs in the White House; six are on the staffs of conservative members of Congress; eight are in federal agencies; and one helps Senator Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania, and his wife, Karen, homeschool their six children. Two are at the F.B.I., and another worked for the Coalition Provisional Authority, in Iraq.[vi]
A recent poll indicated that, even before the adoption of the new curriculum, nearly a third of Texans believed that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time, and skepticism about evolution has become widespread and mainstream throughout the United States.[vii] The website of Rick Warren’s Saddleback megachurch used to state unequivocally that “Man and dinosaurs lived at the same time,” and that man was given dominion over dinosaurs, until the statements drew attention from the press and the site was revised.[viii] During the most recent presidential election, three Republican candidates—Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, and Mike Huckabee—raised their hands during the first GOP primary debate to indicate that they do not believe in biological evolution.[ix] Texan Ron Paul, a medical doctor, did not raise his hand, but later clarified his beliefs in a campaign appearance, stating, “It’s a theory, the theory of evolution, and I don’t accept it as a theory.”[x]
Creationist beliefs such as these are having a direct impact on energy and food policies. Increasingly sophisticated “young earth creationist” texts and museums,[xi] which claim that the earth is only a few thousand years old, insist that coal, gas, and oil were formed in the relatively recent past, not over millions of years. Social science texts written from this biblical point of view, which are widely used by Christian homeschoolers and which promote the kinds of ideas that are found in the Texas curriculum standards, teach that the availability of natural resources to a nation depends on its righteousness or lack thereof. For example, the textbook America’s Providential History tells students,
A secular society will lack faith in God’s providence and consequently men will find fewer natural resources…The secular or socialist has a limited resource mentality and views the world as a pie (there is only so much) that needs to be cut up so that everyone can get a piece. In contrast, the Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God’s earth. The resource are waiting to be tapped.”[xii]
The worldview described in America’s Providential History is being expressed and acted upon in statehouses around the United States. Florida State Representative Charles Van Zant, during questioning on a bill that would allow offshore drilling as close as three miles to the Florida coast, said, of the idea that the world’s petroleum supply is limited:
Some people would like to think that. Estimates might show that. But that doesn’t mean that at all. We happen to worship a God who made it all out of nothing anyway. And if we ran out, I certainly believe he could make some more.”[xiii]
(Van Zant is the same legislator who proposed a sweeping anti-abortion bill in the Florida House this year, which would make any attempt to induce an abortion a first-degree felony.)[xiv]
State Senator Sylvia Allen of Arizona was captured on video by the Arizona Guardian, during a hearing about opening up uranium mining, claiming that “the earth has been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws and somehow it hasn’t been done away with.”[xv] She argues, “It is time to focus on the technology that we have and look forward to the future.” What was once considered obscure revisionism by little-known Religious Right propagandists can now be heard regularly from politicians.
The Battle for the Social Sciences
Chris Rodda, a senior researcher at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has collected hundreds of examples of “faux history” quotes that have been used on the floor of the U.S. Congress. Like creationism, the Right’s revisionist history is a not only a religious phenomenon but also an effort to control public policy. Evangelical and fundamentalist children are indoctrinated into what is sometimes referred to as “biblical capitalism,” [xvi] the teaching that an unregulated market system is mandated by God and dictated in the Bible. Textbooks that preach biblical capitalism blend free-market and religious fundamentalism and promote political activism. As Frederick Clarkson points out in his article “History is Powerful,” in the Spring 2007 issue of Public Eye,[xvii] “the contest for control of the narrative of American history is well underway.”
Clarkson explains that the Reconstructionist theology of the late Rousas J. Rushdoony and his son-in-law, Gary North, provides the foundation for merging the “free market gospel” with biblical law to create biblical capitalism. Rushdoony, Clarkson says, believed that “God actively intervenes in and guides history, and that God’s role can be retroactively discerned, from creation to the predestined Kingdom of God on Earth.” In Rushdoony’s 1965 book, The Nature of the American System, he claims that the Founding Fathers were not men of the secular Enlightenment but rather were planning a “Christian nation.”
Considered the father of modern Christian homeschooling, Rushdoony believed that children should be removed from public schools and raised in pure environments, where they could be trained for a holy war against liberalism and secularism. North explains the strategy’s ultimate goal:
“So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God. Murder, abortion, and pornography will be illegal. God’s law will be enforced. It will take time. A minority religion cannot do this. Theocracy must flow from the hearts of a majority of citizens, just as compulsory education came only after most people had their children in schools of some sort. [xviii]
Undermining Public Education
Although parents may decide to homeschool their children for any number of reasons, the proportion of parents who homeschool in order to “provide religious or moral instruction increased from 72 percent to 83 percent” between 2003 and 2007, says the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES).[xix] Such homeschooling has begun to take a bite out of the budgets of state education systems, because state support is based on number of enrolled students. As reported in Time, “The state of Florida has 41,128 children (1.7 percent) learning at home this year, up from 10,039 in the 1991 – 92 school year; those kids represent a loss of nearly $130 million from school budgets in that state.”[xx] And the percentage of students being homeschooled in Florida is actually well-below the national average: NCES estimates that the number of homeschooled students in the United States has increased from approximately 850,000 in 1999 (or 1.75 percent of the school-age population) to 1,508,000 in 2007 (or 2.9 percent).
The Alliance for the Separation of School and State,[xxi] whose stated goal is the elimination of public education, claims that the numbers are even higher, with almost two million students being homeschooled. Signatories of the alliance’s proclamation, “I publicly proclaim that I favor ending government involvement in public education,” include such conservative notables as Rep. Ron Paul; Don Hodel, the energy secretary under Ronald Reagan; Dinesh D’Souza, a policy analyst under Reagan; Tim LaHaye, minister and the author of the apocalyptic Left Behind novels; Howard Phillips, the founder of the U.S. Taxpayer’s Party (now the Constitution Party); Joseph Farah, the editor of the conservative website Worldnet Daily; and John Rosemond, a syndicated columnist on child rearing.
The effect of all this? The Time article quotes Ray Simon, the director of the Arkansas Department of Education, who says,
A third of our support for schools comes from property taxes. If a large number of a community’s parents do not fully believe in the school system, it gets more difficult to pass those property taxes. And that directly impacts the schools’ ability to operate.
Looking at the Textbooks
In 2003, Frances Paterson, an associate professor at Valdosta State College in Georgia and an expert on religion and education, conducted a study of the texts published by A Beka Press, Bob Jones University Press, and the School of Tomorrow/Accelerated Christian Education,[xxii] which are used by Christian homeschoolers, in adult education programs, and in “as many as 10,000 evangelical and fundamentalist Christian schools. (And you may be paying for them with your taxes. Paterson found that vouchers were being used to subsidize private schools in Milwaukee and Cleveland that used the texts she studied).[xxiii]
Paterson describes the message of the texts: “Democrats are deluded, liberals are villains, and conservatives are heroes. This is part of a pattern where descriptions used for people, groups, and movements clearly imply that some are unacceptable.”[xxiv] Another theme she identifies is that “the lack of material progress in various Third World countries and among indigenous peoples can be attributed to their religious beliefs... All the texts are imbued with an arrogance and hostility toward non-Western religions that is truly breathtaking.”[xxv] Paterson explained in recent correspondence with me that she now hears politicians repeating the fundamentalist teachings of the texts she studied. “No doubt they strike a resonant note with individuals who read the same ideas in their school books,” she said.
The A Beka texts are particularly popular. They are published by Pensacola Christian College, founded by Arlene and Beka Horton, who later added their publishing arm after becoming disgruntled with what they viewed as the secularization of teaching techniques by Bob Jones University.[xxvi] A Beka curricula are carefully written: “Entire lessons were scripted so that no open-ended discussion leading to questions that might challenge the Truth would occur,” said one critic. [xxvii] A Beka advertises that 40,000 homeschool students were registered in their A Beka Academy programs in the school year 2009 – 2010. (This number does not include the homeschoolers who use A Beka texts but not its service program, which provides a structure for grading and transcripts; nor does it include private schools that use A Beka texts.[xxviii])
Building on Paterson’s research, I examined U.S. history and economics textbooks published by A Beka and others. Although most were originally published in the 1990s or earlier, they are still very much in use. My study, summarized in the accompanying chart, provides a window into the narratives of this worldview, which is also promoted by the Texas curriculum standards; the purposes that these narratives serve in determining public policy; and a warning of what we can expect in future battles over public school curricula.
Progressives watching Tea Party and antihealthcare-reform rallies may find it easy to poke fun at misspelled signs and racist outbursts, and to disregard the social and political potential of Christian nationalism. However, the attackers of public education are sophisticated, disciplined, persistent politicians, who have moved their battle from the schoolhouse to the statehouse and are continuing to expand their reach. They hope to transform our nation into the Christian United States, and their multiple, complementary tactics have brought them closer to their goal.
Text Publisher In Use Since Number in circulation Themes Quote Economics, Work and Prosperity in Christian Perspective[xxix] A Beka 1989 Approximately 90,000 Globalization means the U.S. will become subordinate to other nations; global warming is a myth; government should refrain from regulating business. “Global environmentalists have said and written enough to leave no doubt that their goal is to destroy the prosperous economies of the world’s richest nations.” United States History: Heritage of Freedom A Beka 1982 Approximately 160,000 The damaging influences of “Liberalism in American Life” include the social gospel, socialism, secular psychology, economic determinism, pragmatism, progressive education, secular humanism, and existentialism. The Taft-Hartley Act removed “certain labor abuses…to curb the growing power of labor unions over individuals and employers.”[xxx] What Would Thomas Jefferson Think about This? Bluestocking Press 1994 The Uncle Eric series (11 titles including this one) advertises 300,000 copies sold Americans are “statists” who deify the federal government, obeying it rather than God. “Unions did not bring better lighting to the factories, Thomas Edison did.”[xxxi] America’s Providential History Providence Foundation 1989 Approximately 150,000 Three ways of looking at history are the “pagan view,” in which the state rules the people; the “modern Christian view,” in which God rules the church but has nothing to do with politics; and the “biblical view,” in which God “is sovereign over man, out of which flows the government of the state and the church and the home.” “After the [Civil] [W]ar an ungodly, radical Republican element gained control of the Congress. They wanted to centralize power and shape the nation according to their philosophy.”
[David Barton Sidebar]
In early February, Glenn Beck announced his “American Revival,” a series of all-day events to be held in stadiums around the United States, whose purpose the conservative journal Human Events described as “creating a pathway to enable Americans to walk away from the nightmare of government control and back to the freedom-loving founders of the United States and the Constitution.”[xxxii] Eight-thousand people attended the first revival on March 27 in Orlando, Florida, while 7,000 showed up in Phoenix, Arizona, on April 10. Other, similarly themed events this spring included April’s Awakening 2010 conference at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, sponsored by the Freedom Federation, a coalition of Christian Right groups.
One thing all these events had in common was a view of U.S. history informed by Christian nationalism and free-market economics. Another was the presence of David Barton, one of the main promoters of this ideology through his books and his organization, Wallbuilders. At Beck’s revival, Barton gave “a nonstop historical summary of the Christian basis of the Founding Father’s faith, their merging of the Bible’s teachings into the framework of the Constitution, and the clear understanding they all had that America was founded as God’s chosen nation,” according to Human Events. Barton is leading his own Great Awakening Tour this summer, in which participants travel for ten days to “the sites of previous awakenings as we anticipate the next one.”[xxxiii] His list of special guests includes former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Senator Rick Santorum, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, and New Apostolic leader Lou Engle.
People for the American Way (PFAW) calls David Barton “The Right’s Favorite Pseudo-Historian.” [xxxiv] The Texas Freedom Network has described him as a “professional propagandist,”[xxxv] while Senator Arlen Specter, when he was still a Republican, said that Barton’s “pseudo-scholarship would hardly be worth discussing, let alone disproving, were it not for the fact that it is taken so very seriously by so many people.”[xxxvi] Indeed, Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State described Barton’s right-wing classic, The Myth of Separation (1989), as “riddled with factual errors, half truths and distortions.” Along with other researchers and historians, he has debunked many of Barton’s claims.[xxxvii] In 1995, Barton was forced to admit that more than a dozen quotes in the book cannot be reliably confirmed.
Nevertheless, Barton and his cottage industry Wallbuilders have become increasingly powerful political forces. Wallbuilders’ goals are to
exert a direct and positive influence in government, education, and the family by (1) educating the nation concerning the Godly foundation of our country; (2) providing information to federal, state, and local officials as they develop public policies which reflect Biblical values; and (3) encouraging Christians to be involved in the civic arena.[xxxviii]
Barton served as the vice chair of the Texas Republican Party from 1998 to 2006, during which time, in 2004, the Texas GOP platform asserted that “America is a Christian Nation” and referred to the “myth of separation of church and state.”[xxxix] That same year, the Texas Freedom Network reported, “Barton served as a political consultant for the Republican National Committee, traveling the country and speaking at about 300 RNC-sponsored lunches for local evangelical pastors... and encouraged pastors to endorse political candidates from the pulpit.”[xl] Barton teamed up with Newt Gingrich in 2008 to bring together economic and social conservatives through Gingrich’s organization, Renewing American Leadership, whose mission is to promote religious conservatives’ political activism “to preserve America’s Judeo-Christian heritage by defending and promoting the three pillars of American civilization: freedom, faith and free markets.”[xli]. Gingrich has visited economically conservative groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Tax Reform “to make the case for taking religious conservatives more seriously.”[xlii]
The State of the First Amendment 2007 national survey found that “65% of Americans believe that the founders intended America to be a Christian nation and 55% believe that the Constitution establishes America as a Christian nation.”[xliii] Barton can some of the credit for this. He was one of the “experts” appointed by the Texas School Board to advise them during the current curriculum controversy and in an affidavit posted on his website from a case in Kentucky claims,
I work as a consultant to national history textbook publishers and have been appointed by the State Boards of Education in States such as California and Texas to help write the American history and government standards for students in those States. Additionally, I consult with Governors and State Boards of Education in several other States and have testified in numerous State Legislatures on American history.[xliv]Lyft, the on-demand ride-sharing app best known by the fuzzy pink moustaches on its cars, launched its service Thursday in Lexington, Louisville and 22 other new U.S. markets.
To mark the occasion, the rapidly growing taxi-like service is offering free rides in its new markets through May 8.
Lyft.com's expansion nearly doubles the startup's U.S. markets and includes smaller cities including Fresno, Calif.; Lincoln, Neb.; and Corpus Christi, Texas.
The move comes as rival Uber (Uber.com) also launched Thursday in Louisville and last month in Cincinnati. It's available in 100 cities worldwide.
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San Francisco-based Lyft says it is now available in 60 U.S. cities, up from just one — San Francisco — at the beginning of 2013. It launched in Cincinnati last month.
Lyft works through a smartphone app available at Apple's App Store, Google's Android marketplace and at Lyft.com. The app charges the rider payment from a saved credit card and operates as a sort of hybrid between a citizen-operated taxi and a bespoke car service. Drivers are hired locally and receive 80 percent of the passenger payment.
A Lyft client can request a ride with a single tap, watch the route of the approaching car and rate the experience afterward.
Prices for rides in Lexington, according to a fare table at Lyft.com, will be calculated based on a combination of time and distance. Charges are stated on the site as $1.90 a mile and 30 cents a minute. There is a $1.20 pickup fee and a $1 fee for "trust and safety," which the company says goes to support safety standards and pay for driver background checks and liability insurance. The minimum fare is $5. There is a $5 cancellation fee.
Lyft says it will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week in Lexington. Its service area covers most of Fayette County.
Ride-sharing apps are growing in popularity as people look beyond cabs and car rentals to get around. But they also face regulatory scrutiny and opposition from traditional taxi services.
In Cincinnati, officials say Lyft and Uber might be violating the city's laws governing taxicabs, but The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that city leaders are considering changing those rules.
The city of Columbus, Ohio, sued Uber earlier this month, claiming that the service violates its public vehicle laws.
Last week, the Ohio Department of Insurance warned Uber and Lyft riders and drivers in that state to check their insurance policies for potential gaps that could leave them without coverage in a wreck.These days, your favorite rapper is probably a big part of the social media universe.
That is certainly true of Wale. The DC emcee uses Twitter to communicate with fans --- and to sometimes get real salty.
Salty Wale came out over the weekend. And one of those grains attracted the ire of YesJulz, the big bootied so called Queen of Snapchat.
So the two proceeded to exchange social media unpleasantries.
Y'all make ppl famous.. And be mad they famous. Fuck u culture vultures Ol "I got 3 black friends" head ass — Wale (@Wale) August 13, 2016
& a man that takes shots at a lady Bc he is upset she gets more views than all his music videos combined is pretty corny.But, #humbleseason — Julz (@YesJulz) August 14, 2016
Atleast he knows who to follow to learn how to market his music. Glad I can be of assistance. pic.twitter.com/b4zkPP588F — Julz (@YesJulz) August 14, 2016
I would blast those emails where ur team reached out 2our agency to market your single &we kindly declined Bc but I'll keep it professional — Julz (@YesJulz) August 14, 2016
I was down to promote PYT till my team told me we shouldn't because he disrespects women consistently and now I see they were right.Bless up — Julz (@YesJulz) August 14, 2016
Nah I'm giving him some attention he seems to need it no one listens to his music these days ☹️ https://t.co/m8Q5fgZRcg — Julz (@YesJulz) August 14, 2016
Moaney in the middle.. U can come on here and show out all u want.. We know u think black women hate u. We know u think black men want u — Wale (@Wale) August 14, 2016
What do you think? Or do you think YesJulz should just let that sex tape drop.Jontele Gordon is accused of trying to orchestrate a for-hire murder plot from behind bars in the Monroe County Jail.
Lakeisha Gordon is accused of offering son advice on how to kill three people he believed were responsible for his arrest.
Lakeisha Goodwin, 43, and Jontele Goodwin, 26, were both arrested and arraigned on charges of solicitation to commit murder and witness intimidation on Tuesday.
- The Michigan State Police said a mother and son were arrested and charged with trying to orchestrate the murder of three people who he believed were responsible for his arrest, including a police officer.
Lakeisha Goodwin, 43
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iders and was asked why he wanted to be elected for another three years. Rudd's answer was entirely retrospective. He could not articulate what he wanted to do in government for the next three years. Saturday's election result has proved that Labor still runs the best ground game in Australian politics, with its field campaign in target seats effectively containing Labor's loss. Its volunteer effort resulted in more than 1.2 million telephone calls to undecided voters, and ''online donations'' has now become the biggest donor to the ALP.Five minutes into the VGX, a glitzy American video game awards show held last Saturday, one of the hosts made a joke at the expense of transgender people from the stage. According to numerous bloggers, he assured attendees (and the show’s great many television viewers) that the Nintendo character Wario had not undergone sex reassignment surgery. The writer Samantha Allen – herself an ardent game player – wrote eloquently about the effect the comment had on her at the Border House blog, a site for video game players who belong to marginalised groups. “When I hear a trans joke in a nationally broadcast television show,” she writes, “I’m no longer the confident woman that I’ve become over the last couple of years; I’m a scared little girl cowering in the corner, reeling from the ridicule”.
The show host's comment is just the latest in what has been a bumper year for ill-advised video game-related ‘comedy’. At the industry’s flagship event E3 in June, a male Microsoft representative told a female colleague during the company’s press conference to “just let it happen,” as he attacked her when demonstrating the fighting game Killer Instinct. “It’ll be over soon,” he said, drawing a salacious comparison between his on-screen domination and a forced sexual encounter. “I don't like this," his colleague said in the reportedly improvised exchange, for which Microsoft later apologised.
These faux pas have not been limited to the US. Microsoft publically severed ties with a prominent YouTube presenter after he appeared on stage during a launch event for the company's Xbox One console last month. KSI, as the 18-year-old is known, is famed for his ‘shock-jock’ approach to presenting. He was banned from the Eurogamer video game conference in 2012 after making inappropriate comments to women on film, and he’s been widely criticised for his ‘rape face’ series of videos. In each incident the humour’s subtext has been clear: video games are the dominion of a particular demographic. Those outside of this group are ripe for ridicule.
Video games are the most profitable medium in the entertainment industry. In the early 1990s Nintendo generated more annual profits than all of the American film studios combined. But despite its size, the medium’s audience is often referred to as a homogenous group. Players and commentators talk of the ‘gaming community’, as if the cross-cultural, socially diverse mass of humans who play video games is somehow uniform in gender, race, age and class. The idiocy of the term is only too clear when applied to other media such as literature (the ‘reading community’?), music (the ‘listening community’?) or film (the ‘observing community’?).
The term is a miserable legacy of the medium’s niche past, where video games were viewed as the sole preserve of white, western indoors-y teenagers. The cliché has proven indelible. ‘Gamers’ (a term that further segregates ‘players’, while adding unwelcome ghost notes that call to mind the gambling industry) are routinely represented in media as socially inept boys with poor hygiene and a proclivity for impotent rage, perhaps expressed down a Britney-style head mic while playing online shooters, or typed wrathfully onto an internet forum. Gamers are depicted as the contemporary nerd group, a mildly downtrodden crowd, shunned by the jocks and achievers. Gamers are the losers who spend their days in darkened bedrooms furiously tapping on controllers or keyboards in a solitary pursuit that sits close to masturbation in the mind.
The stereotype is powerful and, while it presents non-gamers with an image of the typical player, also informs gamers. Many gain instruction as to how the world views them and the expectation, as is so often the case, becomes self-fulfilling: they play to type. But the ‘gaming community’ is not a homogenous group. The BBC estimates that 100% of British teenagers play video games in some form or other. Within the next century ‘gamers’ will be a term that encompasses every gay and transgender person, every girl and woman, every politician in the cabinet, everyone with a title in the House of Lords, every teacher, nurse, banker, social worker, dustman and paedophile. Video games and their players will be acknowledged as ubiquitous, and the medium’s commentators will be free to move from advocacy (the endless articles and television programmes that, beneath the angle, exist primarily to plead the case that games matter) to more rounded criticism.
But for now, gamers are dishonestly classed as a standardized tribe. Who gains from maintaining the pervading stereotype? There is an argument to say that the game-makers and publishers benefit: they are more easily able to target their marketing to a large and discrete group (“this is for the players” states Sony’s current advertising campaign for its PlayStation 4, for example). But this isn’t quite true: see Nintendo’s gargantuan efforts during the past five years to reach people outside of the traditional gamer demographic. In truth, it’s gamers who fit within the demographic that benefit the most: here, within the artifice of a ‘community’ they find a place to belong, a place where they fit, are understood and are free to be themselves and, together with like-minded people, enjoy a sense of collective power.
There is nothing deplorable about this; the urge to form groups with like-minded people is a universal one. But when that collective power is turned against those on the margins of the group, or those who present valid criticisms of its unifying subject (such as the American-Canadian feminist Anita Sarkeesian, who has been subject to everything from verbal abuse to threats of violence following her Tropes vs. Women series) it becomes problematic. Sarkeesian, for example,was e-mailed images of herself being raped by video game characters.
There are many reasons that video games are a potent draw to the human mind, but perhaps none more so than the fact that they are endlessly fair and just. They reward you for your efforts with empirical, unflinching fairness. Work hard in a game and you level up. Take the path that's opened to you and persevere with it and you can save the world. Every player is given an equal chance to succeed. As such, there is a prelapsarian quality to video games that makes them irresistible, especially to people whose experiences in life have been of injustice and arch unfairness.
If you are a member of a downtrodden marginalised group, what better salve could there be than a video game, the great contemporary leveller? Games do not distinguish between privilege and under-privilege, between rich and poor, between gay and straight, between loved and abused: in their dimension, everybody is given an equal opportunity. The sense of betrayal then, when the ‘community’ around games does not reflect these qualities can be devastating, especially for a person who has grown to love the medium for those very things that its dominant group of participants fail to embody.
The remedy is, as always, education. Education establishes empathy, and video games are better poised than almost any other medium to participate in this work. They allow us to inhabit the shoes of ‘others’, to view the world through their eyes and to experience the challenges that they endure. Mattie Brice’s Mainichi offers an arresting glimpse into life as a mixed race transgender woman and the daily challenges faced. Games that explore this subject matter can help us understand the lives and challenges of other human beings. If executed well by the creator and absorbed properly by the player, these works can even have a transformative effect both for the individual and, in turn, the ‘community’ of players that exists around games. The solution, then, might yet be found within.Human activities have led to massive influxes of pollutants, degrading the habitat of species and simplifying their biodiversity. However, the interaction between food web complexity, pollution and stability is still poorly understood. In this study we evaluate the effect exerted by accumulable pollutants on the relationship between complexity and stability of food webs. We built model food webs with different levels of richness and connectance, and used a bioenergetic model to project the dynamics of species biomasses. Further, we developed appropriate expressions for the dynamics of bioaccumulated and environmental pollutants. We additionally analyzed attributes of organisms’ and communities as determinants of species persistence (stability). We found that the positive effect of complexity on stability was enhanced as pollutant stress increased. Additionally we showed that the number of basal species and the maximum trophic level shape the complexity–stability relationship in polluted systems, and that in‐degree of consumers determines species extinction in polluted environments. Our study indicates that the form of biodiversity and the complexity of interaction networks are essential to understand and project the effects of pollution and other ecosystem threats.
Methods Using the algorithm widely known as the ‘niche model’ (Williams and Martinez 2000), we built a set of 19 600 model food webs of varying levels of species richness and network connectance. This algorithm generates model food webs whose structural properties are close to those observed in empirical trophic networks (Williams and Martinez 2008). To evaluate the effect of complexity on food web stability over a gradient of pollutant stress, we generated food webs with the following levels of connectance: 0.1, 0.125, 0.15, 0.175, 0.2, 0.225 and 0.25; and richness: 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50. For each combination of connectance and richness we used 100 food webs. Empirical and model food webs show certain structural attributes that change systematically with connectance and richness (Riede et al. 2010). We evaluated the importance of these covariates as determinants of the complexity–stability relationship in polluted and unpolluted environments. Thus for each level of connectance and richness 100 food webs were selected for each of the following four types of networks: 1) with no topological constraints (hereafter non‐constrained FWs), 2) with five producer species (hereafter P‐FWs), 3) with maximum trophic level within 4 ± 0.2 (hereafter TL‐FWs), and 4) with three top predators (hereafter T‐FWs). The number of producers used to select P‐FWs and the value of the maximum trophic level used to select TL‐FWs were taken from average values of this attributes obtained in non‐ constrained food webs at intermediate levels of both connectance and richness (Supplementary material Appendix 1 Fig. A5). The number of top predators used to select T‐Fws was chosen arbitrarily. To model the biomass dynamics of populations within the food web we implemented the bioenergetic model of Yodzis and Innes (1992) generalized by Williams and Martinez (2004), in which the temporal change of biomass density of species i, B i, is represented by: (1) where r i = 0 and x i = 0 for consumer and producer species respectively. The first two terms depict logistic growth rate for producers and exponential decrease for consumers in the absence of interactions. The last two terms correspond respectively to increase and decrease in biomass due to predation. Function F is the functional response of con sumers. Function κ i (Supplementary material Appendix 1 Eq. A10) represents the harmful effect of the pollutant on the growth rate of species i and allowed us to evaluate four different scenarios for pollutant stress: without stress, low stress, medium stress and high stress. We used a generic gradient of pollutant stress and avoid referring to specific values associated with a particular pollutant. We additionally modeled the dynamics of the amount of pollutant accumulated within the population A i (Kooi et al. 2008) and the pollutant in the environment C as: (2) where the first two terms correspond to the inputs of pollutant to species i from the environment and food, res pectively. The last three terms describe the losses of pollutant from species i due to: 1) metabolic losses of accumulated pollutant, 2) predation, and 3) excretion and egestion of accumulated pollutant, respectively. Function G is the functional response in terms of accumulated pollutant. The dynamics of the pollutant in the environment C was modeled as: (3) where the first and last terms represent the input of pollutant to the environment (Supplementary material Appendix 1 Eq. A9) and the decay rate of the pollutant. Models of both biomass and pollutant dynamics have allometric para meters, whose values were obtained from Brose et al. (2006) and Hendriks et al. (2001). Values of allometric parameters scale to the power of body mass (Supplementary material Appendix 1 Eq. A2–A4). For detailed information about the model, parameter definitions and values see Supplementary material Appendix 1. Finally, we coupled the dynamics of species and pollutant to the topological structure obtained from the niche model and ran one simulation of 5000 time steps for each food web (Supplementary material Appendix 2 Fig. A1). Initial values for biomasses were chosen randomly from a uniform distribution between 0.05 and 1, while initial values for accumulated pollutant and for pollutant in the environment were set to zero. Species with densities below 10−30 were considered to be extinct and forced to zero. There is no permanent pollutant stress exerted on the community. A pulse of pollutant perturbed the species during the phase of transient dynamics, since the pollutant was degraded at the end of each simulation. This pulse of pollutant acts via reducing the species’ growth rate. Stability was measured at the end of each simulation as species persistence, defined as the fraction of the initial species that exhibited positive population densities at the end of a simulation. The effect of species richness and network connectance on community stability was obtained through a multiple regression analysis (see details in the Supplementary material). Additionally, at the end of each simulation we recorded in each food web the following characteristics of extinct species: 1) trophic level (following the algorithm of Levine 1980), 2) in‐degree (number of species that are prey of the focal species), and 3) out‐degree (number of species that predate on the focal species). For these measures we calculated their mean values in extinct species for a given level of connectance and richness over all simulations divided by the corresponding mean value for all species for the respective level of connectance and richness over all simulations. All codes were implemented and executed in MATLAB (R2011b, Mathworks Inc.).
Acknowledgements LGN acknowledges support from a CONICYT doctoral scholarship and MECESUP grant UCH 0803. This study was partially supported by FONDECYT grant 1120958 to RRJ.
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Wet Hot American Summer, the camp movie spoof that finally gave vegetable cans the onscreen representation they deserve, hardly seemed destined to become a franchise. It made less than $300,000 at the box office in 2001, and the critical response to it was mixed, with reactions ranging from “hilarious” to “cinematic torture.” (One of the tortured? Roger Ebert.)
But here we are, 17 years later, with Wet Hot American Summer so firmly established as a cult classic that it has yielded not just a Netflix series prequel — 2015’s Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp — but a second, Netflix series sequel, Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later, which begins streaming Friday. I’m not sure if that officially makes Wet Hot American Summer a franchise. But, at the very least, it confirms that Team Camp Firewood is capable of finding a seemingly endless supply of sublimely ridiculous comedy in sex-crazed counselors (well, now former counselors), bizarre side plots involving political cover-ups, and, yes, that still unwavering commitment to giving canned goods a voice. (Mitch! The can of vegetables is Mitch! Remember his name!)
Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later is basically eight episodes of unabashed retro-fueled silliness that has no interest in trying to make anything resembling sense as far as of plot or continuity is concerned. In fact, not making sense is one of the show’s trademarks. In the spirit of MTV’s The State – the ’90s sketch-comedy series that starred several of the main Wet Hot players, including creators David Wain and Michael Showalter — Ten Years Later has a strong improvisatory, “let’s just run with this” streak running through it at all times. If you told me some of these episodes were shot a few minutes after the first or second drafts of the scripts were yanked off the printer, I’d say, “I guess that makes sense.” In this case, I mean that as a compliment. Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later is fun precisely because it seems to be flying by the seat of its early-’90s jeans, feeling free to do whatever it wants, any old time.
As implied by that reference to a Soup Dragons song and by the Ten Years Later in the show’s title, the action at Firewood picks up in 1991, exactly a decade after the events depicted in the movie and prequel, as the whole gang of former counselors reconvenes for a weekend-long reunion. When I say the whole gang, I do mean pretty much everyone from the original cast, including Showalter’s Coop, who still carries a torch for Katie (Marguerite Moreau), who, in turn, may finally have some real flames burning for him; Susie (Amy Poehler), now a semi-successful movie producer who dresses like someone who fell directly out of a Madonna video; Lindsay (Elizabeth Banks), a working broadcast journalist hungry for a substantive scoop; Neil (Joe Lo Truglio), who’s still holding on to some personal insecurities, as well as a mullet that can’t be helping matters; Victor (Ken Marino), who’s continuing to grapple with his status as a virgin; Andy (Paul Rudd), who has transformed from regular jackass into jackass who looks exactly like Matt Dillon’s character in Singles; Beth (Janeane Garofalo), who now owns the camp but is contemplating (gasp!) selling it; and McKinley (Michael Ian Black) and Ben, who are now raising an infant daughter together.
Yeah, so, we need to have a word about Ben. In the first two iterations of Wet Hot American Summer, he was played by Bradley Cooper, but due to scheduling conflicts, Cooper couldn’t tackle the role this time. So Adam Scott has taken over the part, an extremely noticeable change considering that the two actors don’t look a lot like alike. But Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later will not be daunted by such matters, which is why the switcheroo is quickly explained in episode one by noting that Ben got an extremely transformative nose job.
A couple of other old camp friends — Claire (Sarah Burns) and Mark (Mark Feuerstein) — show up at the reunion, too, and are really excited to see everyone again! The thing is, they were neither seen nor mentioned in the movie or First Day of Camp, though footage of the two is inserted in some flashbacks to make us think that they were there in 1981 the whole time. Basically, this makes them the Nikki and Paulo of Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later. On one hand, it’s completely absurd to add two more former Firewooders to the mix on a show that already has a full-scale army of returning characters, as well as other newly added ones. (I didn’t even mention yet that Zak Orth, Molly Shannon, A.D. Myles, Marisa Ryan, Christopher Meloni, Chris Pine, Jason Schwartzman, Josh Charles, Kristen Wiig, Lake Bell, and a whole slew of others are along for the ride, including, yes, the voice of H. Jon Benjamin as Mitch.) But cramming Claire and Mark into the story is fully in keeping with the Wet Hot American Summer ethos: that nothing is ever too much or too random to make its way onto the screen.
Normally at this point, I’d try to succinctly summarize the plot — or in this case, plots, very much plural — but let’s just say that it has to do with breakups and new romance, weird threesomes that involve mask-wearing, the long-standing rivalry between Camp Firewood and the snobs at Camp Tigerclaw, and, most crucially, a clear-and-present danger that presents itself thanks to a nefarious plot put in place by former president Ronald Reagan (Showalter in makeup) and President George H.W. Bush (Black, in slightly less makeup).
Honestly, none of that matters, though. What makes Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later so bingeable is the amount of talent that comes together and is clearly so up for anything. You toggle from one episode to the next, curious to see who might pop up unexpectedly (Marlo Thomas? Perhaps!) and what weirdness will transpire next, whether it’s Poehler getting into delicious fights with the new reigning king of the Firewood theater world, played by a wonderfully catty John Early, or Mitch trying to help David Hyde Pierce’s Professor Henry Newman remember how they know each other. (“I’m Beth’s friend. We met in the city that one time. I’m a can of vegetables.”) Because there’s so much going on, certain characters inevitably get short shrift. For example, I was desperate to see more of Rudd doing his irritated Andy routine, arguably the best part of the original movie. But that still didn’t stop me from motoring through the episodes at a happy clip.
Whether it’s intentional or not, there’s also something fascinating about the way that Wet Hot American Summer, as a series, plays with our ideas about nostalgia. The film primarily toyed with the tropes introduced in late-’70s and early-’80s summer-camp movies like Meatballs and Little Darlings, but also took that material to more gleefully depraved places in a way that made the audience feel simultaneously connected to and completely divorced from our memories of that era. First Day of Camp pulled off a different version of the same trick by audaciously and hilariously using the same cast of actors to play their characters in 1981, even though they had clearly aged by 14 years. And in Ten Years Later, perceptions of how people fit into the Firewood story and what’s motivating them are constantly shifting.
Wet Hot American Summer, the entire series, seems to be telling us that it’s possible to go home again, but that when you get there, things may look and feel very different than you remember. At least that’s what I think the message is. That, and that it’s also really freaky to watch a can of vegetables having doggy-style sex in a restroom stall. Mitch Forever!Amanda Houser of Suffern with Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year during a symbolic signing of New York’s medical marijuana legislation. (Photo11: AP file)
ALBANY, N.Y. — The 10-year-old girl stood smiling at the governor's side as he signed a medical marijuana bill into law last July.
Amanda Houser was so excited for the event, her mother said, her health problems — a rare form of epilepsy — were nearly forgotten for the day. And the photo from the New York City event of Amanda bashfully holding her cheeks next to Gov. Andrew Cuomo is one of the more memorable images from his time in office.
But the good feelings from the event have gradually subsided, and ill patients are increasingly frustrated that, nearly a year later, they still can't access medical marijuana in New York.
"She really shined that day, knowing that she might get the medicine," Amanda's mother, Maryanne, of Suffern, Rockland County, said. "She asks: 'When am I going to get it?' She's tired of being different from the other kids."
As New York nears awarding licenses to the companies who will grow and distribute the medical marijuana, critics are concerned the system won't be in place by the state's expected Jan. 1 target. They are also questioning how readily available the drug will be throughout the state.
In the meantime, some state lawmakers – Democrats and Republicans -- are pressing for a bill to allow for emergency access to the drug for patients with most urgent needs, such as children with severe epilepsy. They are seeking to have the bill passed before the legislative session ends June 17.
After the law was approved a year ago, it started an 18-month clock for the state Health Department to have the program underway. The drug will be available in non-smokeable forms, such as pills, oils and vapors.
"My biggest concern right now is how long it's going to take for the children with epilepsy and other people with real life-threatening conditions to get any medication," said Assembly Health Committee chairman Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, the long-time champion of legalized medical marijuana.
Sue Nill Kidera of Pittsford is hoping to be able to use medical marijuana to ease the nausea associated with treating her colon cancer. (Photo11: Jamie Germano/@jgermano1/ / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Sue Nill Kidera, 58, of Pittsford, Monroe County, was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2005. She believes medical marijuana would help her and fellow cancer patients with nausea, appetite and pain.
"It's very frustrating. It's very political here. And I don't think it should have anything to do with politics," she said.
The state expects to award five contracts to private marijuana growers, who will each be permitted to open up to four dispensaries and distribute the drug to patients in New York certified by their doctors.
The state Department of Health has defended its process. Cuomo sought to get emergency rules in place to get medical marijuana into New York quicker, but the federal government rejected his request.
"Our top priority is to deliver relief to those in pain and we are doing so as expeditiously as possible under current federal guidelines and within the confines of the Compassionate Care Act, which Assemblyman Gottfried sponsored, supported and passed through his own house," Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said in a statement.
He continued that, "The last thing that anyone would want is legal complications to arise from importing marijuana products over state lines without federal approval, or for unnecessary delays with the implementation of the current program to come as a result of layering a separate process on top of it."
Earlier this month, the state pushed back a deadline by a week to June 5 to apply for a license to grow and distribute medical marijuana.
It appears dozens, if not hundreds of companies, are interested in growing and distributing the medical marijuana — including at least three companies in the Rochester area and several more in the Hudson Valley.
The state said the delay is the result of a high number of questions about the application process. But the Health Department has refused to discuss its deliberations or provide an estimate of how many applications it has received.
The goal, advocates said, is to have the system up and running by January— a tight time frame because the contracts won't be approved until at least July.
"Ultimately, what meeting the timeline means is that there is not an excessive delay for patient access, and that's what it comes back to," said Mark Doherty, the project manager for Butler Evergreen, which is proposing a distribution center in Wayne County near Rochester.
Medical marijuana is expected to be a benefit not only for patients, but for the state's economy and its research institutions. The University of Rochester, for example, hopes to partner with distributors to gain knowledge about how the drug can help the ill.
“Ultimately, what meeting the timeline means is that there is not an excessive delay for patient access, and that's what it comes back to. ” Mark Doherty, project manager, Butler Evergreen
"Several companies are approaching academic institutions for proposed partnerships, and we're interested in that," said Peter Robinson, UR's chief operating officer. "But the partnership is really going to end up most likely as a research relationship."
Medical marijuana in New York could grow over the next five years into a $1 billion a year industry, according to an estimate from GreenWave Advisors, a Manhattan-based marijuana research firm. The drug will be taxed at 7% of gross sales, with proceeds split between the state and the counties where the drug was sold and manufactured.
Applicants are required to pay a $10,000 non-refundable application fee in addition to a $200,000 registration fee — which would be refunded to the entities not selected.
Interested companies "are taking a long-term view because the capital requirements are pretty exorbitant," GreenWave's founder Matt Karnes said. "And what's unique about New York is that the grower has to manufacture his own product. So not only do you have to have the expertise to cultivate, but then you have to purchase the equipment to infuse the product and to develop the products that are in conformity with the law."
For families of sick children, the medicine can't arrive soon enough. In western New York, three children died over the past year as their families advocated for the drug to be available.
Other families have faced the decision of whether to wait for medical marijuana to be available in New York or go to other states and quietly it bring it back home. Some have moved to other states, such as Colorado or
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, “We make a lot fewer shoes in the U.S. than we do overseas, but the point is we’re trying to make more [shoes] here, not less. When agreements like this go into place, what that says to us is that our president and our trade negotiators, they don’t want us to make more products here.”
As Buchanan noted in The Great Betrayal, “In the name of ‘free trade’ we let foreign companies — abetted by the regimes that own them — collude and kill U.S. companies, using tactics that would have brought criminal indictments if done by such a conspiracy in the United States.”
These multilateral trade agreements also require a multilateral government to enforce them, and this, of necessity, leads to a dilution of American national sovereignty. If Americans are presently disgusted with an overbearing federal bureaucracy and federal judges imposing their will on the states, local communities, and individuals, they will be ill about the power our new bosses at a super-national body created to enforce “trade rules” will be afforded to make edicts. And those Americans concerned about the deleterious effects of uncontrolled immigration should be aware that “the free movement of labor across international borders” is a cardinal principle of far too many of these “free trade” fanatics.
Sadly, everything is offered up on the altar of so-called free trade — even the continued sovereignty and independence of the United States of America.
Hopefully, many more companies will follow the path of New Balance, and fight back against the push for globalization.
Steve Byas is a professor of history at Hillsdale Free Will Baptist College (soon to be Randall University) in Moore, Oklahoma.Flood watch in North Bay as El Niño storm dumps heavy rain
Jim Wesley checks the water level as walks along the Russian River in Monte Rio. Jim Wesley checks the water level as walks along the Russian River in Monte Rio. Photo: Leah Millis Leah Millis, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Leah Millis Leah Millis, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close Flood watch in North Bay as El Niño storm dumps heavy rain 1 / 30 Back to Gallery
The first of a pair of storms pounded Northern California on Thursday, bringing heavy bands of rain to the North Bay, causing minor flooding and mudslides, and raising the specter that the flood-prone Russian River might spill its banks.
The National Weather Service’s hazardous outlook remained in place for the most of the Bay Area as on-and-off downpours were forecast to continue Friday. Parts of Sonoma and Napa counties were expecting as much 4 inches of rain by Friday evening, igniting fear that a region thirsty for rain might get too much too fast.
The Russian River, with its long history of surging into streets and homes in the redwood-covered towns west of Santa Rosa, was expected to hit flood stage in Guerneville at 9 p.m Friday. River levels were expected to top out Saturday morning just shy of 3 feet above the 32-foot flood level, forecasters said — a cause for some worry but probably not enough of a deluge to cause major problems.
Video: North Bay Sees Wet Weather
“If you’re in that area, it’s a concern,” said Bob Benjamin, a forecaster for the National Weather Service. “But it doesn’t look like it’s going to be expansive flooding.”
Residents along the river, some of whom still remember the 1986 flood that submerged most of Guerneville, weren’t fretting Thursday — at least not yet.
“This one is going to be minor unless it continues past the weekend,” said Richard Evangelisti, 81, as he stood outside the True Value Hardware store across River Road from the roiling, brown stream of water that skirts his community.
RUSSIAN RIVER: Flood forecast at Guerneville gauge The image below is a real-time updated chart using automated forecast data. This image reflects the best information available at the time this article was loaded in your browser.
FLOOD IMPACTS: Complete NOAA River Conditions and flood impacts
His wife, Jacquie — also 81 and a descendant of the Guernes, who founded the town — has lived in Guerneville her entire life and knows enough to have stocked up with food, especially since flooding tends to block the roads she uses to get downtown.
“We’ve seen many floods,” she said, noting that she and her husband have generators, camping stoves and other equipment at the ready.
“On Valentine’s Day 1986, it was 48.5 feet and the water was up to here,” Richard added, holding his arm straight above his head. “You could row a boat in downtown Guerneville.”
Well upstream, water managers released supplies at Lake Sonoma earlier this week for the first time in five years to prevent the reservoir from filling up and having to discharge water when the storms arrive.
The Napa River in St. Helena was also projected to run slightly above flood stage Friday, peaking at around 3 p.m., according to the weather service. Navarro Creek in Mendocino County was expected to swell even higher above its banks between Friday morning and Sunday morning, but the rural waterway is far enough away from most homes as to not cause big problems.
The surging rivers are the result of an atmospheric river off the Pacific Ocean that forecasters say will keep parts of Northern California mostly wet through Monday. The North Bay is likely to bear the brunt of the system.
By Thursday evening, Santa Rosa had recorded 2.46 inches of rain, Point Reyes Station 1.77 inches and Napa an 1.97 inches. The hilly Sonoma County community of Venado had already logged 4.08 inches, with Mt. Tamalpais not far behind at 3.82 inches. The storm arrived later in San Francisco, dropping just 0.82 inches of rain by Thursday evening. The city was expected to pick up 1.5 inches through Friday.
Farther south, flash flood concerns through Niles Canyon delayed eastbound Altamont Commuter Express trains for up to 30 minutes through the evening as officials inspected tracks through the area where a mudslide derailed a train Monday night.
Conditions were forecast to mostly dry out by Saturday morning, according to the weather service, with a chance of showers on Saturday before another storm moves in Sunday.
Highway 1 along the coast was one of Thursday’s problem spots. The road was closed in Sonoma County at the community of Valley Ford and at Freestone Valley Ford Road because of flooding, according to the California Highway Patrol. There was also a tricky passage just south of the community of Tomales in Marin County because of a slide.
But the biggest threat remained the Russian River. Folks in Guerneville bought sandbags and prepared as best they could as the rain came down, though many longtime residents mostly shrugged.
Chris Reid, the manager at the True Value store, said he sold a pallet of sandbags in the morning, but didn’t expect a rush on flood supplies until things got more serious.
“We’ve sold some, but we probably won’t sell a lot of sandbags until it starts to flood,” Reid said. “If we hit flood stage, it’s probably only going to go a few feet over. We’d need four or five days straight of heavy rain for it to really get bad. I’ll be open as long as people can get here.”
Since the Russian River flooded during the El Niño deluge of 1997-98, more than half of the homes or rentals in the flood plain have been raised on stilts, providing better protection and greater assurances for those who live there. Still, the community is vulnerable.
Bobby Singh, 34, surveyed the raging waters in front of the house his wife’s grandmother has owned for 60 years.
“It’s kind of scary right now,” said Singh as he leaned over the soggy bank to see how a partially submerged dock built this past summer was faring. “If there are three more days of rain, the water is going to come.”
Peter Fimrite, Hamed Aleaziz and Kurtis Alexander are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Twitter: @haleaziz, @kurtisalexander, @pfimriteAlthough we're very much on Diego Costa watch on the striker front, there's some intriguing news from Germany that might mean we don't chase after the Atletico Madrid centre forward after all. With the impending arrival of Robert Lewandowski at the Allianz Arena, Mario Mandzukic is going to be even more out of favour than he was before, and that could mean good news for any team in the hunt for a new striker. Which would be us:
Reports from Germany about a 25-30M€ offer + Mandzukic for David Luiz from Bayern Munich. #CFC — Francois Piraux (@F8Piraux) May 15, 2014
Piraux is citing Bild, who claim that Mandzukic's representatives have already met with Chelsea and that this deal is very close to completion. That's not to say it's going to happen -- Bild aren't always accurate and swap deals virtually never happen in real life -- but this is a very interesting idea. Using Mandzukic as a makeweight in a David Luiz deal would have several benefits for Chelsea, the most important of which is the fact that there would be no transfer fee included in Manzukic's Financial Fair Play hit.
But is he good enough? I think so. He's the sort of striker who can excel against packed defences, using strength and aerial ability to open teams up, and that's where we've been most lacking since Didier Drogba moved on. I don't think this move would be in addition to Diego Costa -- for me it's one of the other, and I'd probably choose Mandzukic given the ~€70 million financial swing between the two, even if it does come along with the need to spend money on a midfielder.
Oh, and speaking of midfielders, if I'm Chelsea this is my counteroffer: David Luiz and €20 million for Javi Martinez and Mario Mandzukic. A boy can always dream, right?Haas driver Grosjean crashed heavily near the end of the session after he hit a dislodged drain cover at Turn 12, his right rear tyre exploding and his car being sent into the wall at high speed.
The Frenchman walked away uninjured but the session was stopped and not restarted as the FIA looked at the issue.
Massa, whose career nearly came to an end after being hit on the head by a spring from another car during qualifying for the 2009 Hungarian GP, was the car running behind the Haas.
"Fortunately this time, nothing flew over my car, and it was good also that Romain didn't have any issue with the accident – for sure his car not, but him, he's OK," Massa told Motorsport.com.
"I think the FIA need to control everything in the right way, so we don't have these things anymore.
"I was just the car behind, the first thing I thought was I had already a spring on my head, so maybe a drain is a little bit too much!
"I could see that maybe he passed over something, but I didn't know exactly what it was. But fortunately nothing happened," the Williams driver added.
Grosjean called for action to make sure incidents like this do not happen again.
"I have just seen the footage and apparently a drain came out," he said. "It was on the racing line and I had a big hit and impact on rear right, and I see the tyre is not there any more – I was spinning and heading to the wall, so not ideal.
"I think they need to sort things out, it is a shame – hopefully we find a good set-up for tomorrow and the drains stay in place.
"I am good, I am fine. That is the most important thing, we need to prepare the car and I am sure the circuit is going to sort things out."
Additonal reporting by Adam CooperIntroduction
Have you heard? They are telling us that lifting weights under Valsalva isn’t just unsafe, it may soon be illegal. Perhaps not by statute, but in terms of the standard of coaching practice and tort liability. Not long ago, one of the denizens of the Starting Strength forum sent me an article from an online legal journal published specifically for the fitness community [1]. It describes a malpractice case brought against a trainer and facility for failing to warn a client against the “dangers of Valsalva.” The case settled after expert testimony for the defense was undermined by pivotal new data showing that hemorrhagic stroke caused by weightlifting under Valsalva “is not rare at all.”
The message is clear: warning clients against Valsalva – indeed, actively intervening to prevent Valsalva – is the new professional standard for coaches. Allowing your clients to lift under Valsalva is legally indefensible. And actually coaching them to do so. You’re just asking for a trail of corpses leading right to the courthouse steps.
There’s more. The American Heart Association Scientific Statement on Resistance Exercise discourages lifting under Valsalva [2], although they cite no good clinical evidence of an increased risk of stroke. Exercise science papers are often careful to mention that subjects were not permitted to perform Valsalva [3]. A number of physiologic studies in humans and animals claim to show that lifting under Valsalva predisposes to cerebral hemorrhage [4,5]. And there are case reports of individuals blowing an O-ring in their heads while lifting weights – presumably under Valsalva.
Athletes who engage in serious, programmatic, heavy resistance training will do so under Valsalva – whether they want to or not, as we shall see. And a very small number of them do, in fact, suffer hemorrhagic strokes. But is this a cause-effect relationship? Is there either a physiologic or evidentiary basis for claiming that the Valsalva is unsafe under a load? Are you going to die?
The answer to the last question is definitely yes…although probably not today. The answers to the other questions are rather murkier. Let’s try for some clarity, or at least some full-frontal nerdity.
The Valsalva Maneuver: Background
Valsalva refers to a Dead Italian Dude named Antonio Maria Valsalva (1666-1723). He was a brilliant physician, surgeon and anatomist. He championed humanitarian reforms in the treatment of the mentally ill, he helped pioneer anatomic pathology, and he wore one badass wig. His work is remembered in a half-dozen eponyms: the Valsalva antrum of the ear, the aortic sinus of Valsalva, Valsalva’s muscle, Valsalva’s ligament, tineae Valsalva, and, of course, the Valsalva maneuver. He is also honored eponymously in the Valsalva device, a unit incorporated into space suits so astronauts working outside the spacecraft can pop their ears without taking off their helmets (which would defeat the purpose). This great physician-scientist reportedly died of a stroke in Bologna at the age of 57. It is not clear whether Valsalva stroked under Valsalva, although it seems a good bet that he was not in a squat rack or a spacesuit at the time.
Valsalva’s principle interest was otology. He was passionate about the ear, and he gave us the first modern description of the Eustachian tube [6]. He was obsessed with the relationship between the ear and the cranial vault. The Valsalva maneuver, which at the time of this writing stands accused of causing cerebral pathology, was first described by Valsalva as a way to treat pathology. The idea was that exhaling against a closed glottis would cause “salubrious air” to rise against the meninges (the membranes that enclose the brain) and force pathological intracranial material (pus, blood, gunk, goobers, schmutz) through “new foramina” linking the intracranial vault to the ear.
I will explain the expurgation of praeternatural cranial matters: he who has inflated his mouth and nose
allows air to reach as far as the dura mater... if with occluded mouth and nostrils air is compressed inwardly,
this action will extrude sanies from the middle ear, a remedial exercise, to be repeated, [for] extrusion of
praeter-natural cerebral matter either via the wound, via the nostrils, via the mouth, or via the auditory
meatus... with great benefit...
De aure humana tractatus -Antonio Maria Valsalva, 1704
Valsalva’s “new foramina” appear to have been figments of his fevered Mediterranean imagination, and in fact the cranial vault is not normally in communication with the ear canal (for which you should be grateful). Jellinek has surveyed Valsalva’s writings [7] and concluded that his sole interest in the maneuver was its supposed demonstration of these non-existent tunnels between the brain pan and the ear. But this great man might rest easier knowing the maneuver that bears his name was subsequently found to have important implications for brain physiology after all.
Figure 1. Obligatory Pictures of Old Stuff for Historical Reference. Left, Antonio Valsalva and his wig. Middle, Valsalva’s anatomy of the ear, demonstrating the Eustachian tube. Right, First edition of the manuscript in which Valsalva and his wig described the Valsalva maneuver for the expurgation of schmutz from the brain. (Images reproduced under Creative Commons license or under doctrine of Public Domain.)
Physiology of the Valsalva Maneuver
In the three centuries since Valsalva’s death, the physiologic consequences of holding breath against a closed glottis have led to the use of the maneuver in basic research and clinical medicine. In my own practice, I have asked patients to “take a deep breath and bear down” on hundreds if not thousands of occasions – during deliveries (where it has been pro forma for centuries), during vascular procedures (to fill the jugular or subclavian with blood and make it easier and safer to insert or remove a central venous catheter)[8], or in the setting of supraventricular tachycardia, to restore sinus rhythm (where it occasionally works, but not nearly as often as we would like)[9]. To date, no patient has ever stroked in front of me during a medical Valsalva. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The consequences of the Valsalva with immediate relevance for us are its effects on thoracoabdominal cavitary pressure, its effects on hemodynamics, and its effects on intracranial pressure.
That the Valsalva causes a steep increase in thoracic and abdominal cavitary pressures in support of the spine is not an issue of contention [10]. This of course is the principle reason for its use in structural barbell lifts. Holding a large breath against a closed glottis creates a “balloon” of relatively incompressible gas in the thorax, and, via the diaphragm, a corresponding pressure increase in the abdomen. These pressures support the spine and resist vertebral shear forces [11,12,13] in a way that probably protects against orthopedic injury. Although no randomized trial of this hypothesis exists as far as I know, this putative, protective and desirable effect of Valsalva does not seem to be at issue.
Figure 2. Synergistic effect of Valsalva and spinal erector isometric contraction in the promotion of spinal stability under a load that generates a vertebral shear stress. (Reproduced with permission from, 3d Ed 2011, The Aasgaard Company.)
The hemodynamic effects of Valsalva deserve rather more detailed attention, and indeed they remain an area of ongoing study. Table 1 summarizes the effects of four phases of the Valsalva on hemodynamic parameters [14,15]
Table 1. Classical physiological effects of a sustained (30-35 sec) Valsalva. ITP-IAP=intrathoracic-intraabdominal pressure; BP=blood pressure; HR=heart rate; SV=stroke volume; ICP=intracranial pressure; CPP = cerebral perfusion pressure.
In Phase I, we take a deep breath and hold it against a closed glottis. This produces an immediate increase in thoracic pressure and a slight increase in left ventricular stroke volume, cardiac output and blood pressure. Because cardiac output is relatively stable or slightly increased, there is little initial change in heart rate.
In Phase II, the “strain” continues. Decreased filling of the heart leads to a fall in stroke volume and cardiac output. The resultant drop in blood pressure triggers compensatory increases in heart rate and systemic vascular resistance, causing the blood pressure to rise again.
When the pressure is released in Phase III, the aorta and great vessels suddenly expand, and cardiac transmural pressures fall. This results in a further decrease in cardiac output and blood pressure. This phase is brief, as within a few heartbeats blood has filled the heart and preload has recovered.
During Phase IV, or recovery, we observe a sudden rapid rise in blood pressure, as the restored preload primes the heart for a surge in stroke volume. Increased cardiac output and vascular resistance jack up the blood pressure – the frequently-described “overshoot.” These hemodynamic responses are represented in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Changes in systolic blood pressure (mmHg) and pulse (BPM) during a classic sustained Valsalva maneuver. Data adapted from various sources by the author.
Such is the classical description of a Valsalva maneuver lasting about 20-30 seconds. The situation with exercise is more complicated, and more poorly described. Valsalva under a load tends to be rather more brief, and the hemodynamic demands of the movement are superimposed on a truncated version of the maneuver [4]. When a lifter is performing any but the most protracted squat, there may be no Phase II, because the rep just doesn’t last that long.
Under a load, the blood pressure rises during Valsalva. Narloch et al have speculated that this is due to augmentation of venous return by the pump action of the muscles. This speculation is reasonable, but it is just that – speculation. Nevertheless, it seems clear that resisting a load under a Valsalva generates a much more dramatic increase in blood pressure than performing the same exercise without Valsalva. Systolic blood pressures in excess of 300 mmHg are not uncommon in the literature [10,16]. It is important to note, however, that exercise without Valsalva also precipitates very marked increases in blood pressure, although not as dramatically [17].
In summary, then, lifting weights causes your blood pressure to shoot up. If you lift weights under Valsalva, this hemodynamic response may be quite exaggerated, and your blood pressure can get very, very high indeed. For our present purposes, that’s important, because it is this increase in blood pressure that is invoked as the precipitant for intracranial hemorrhage in the setting of resistance training:
You lift weights under Valsalva.
Your blood pressure goes up.
You blow an O-ring.
You stroke
That’s what we are asked to believe. But before we swallow, maybe we should take a closer look at how strokes happen, and the role of intracranial pressure.
Stroke me, Stroke me
A stroke is a brain injury arising from a cerebrovascular catastrophe (often called a “cerebrovascular accident”). Stroke comes in two major flavors: ischemic and hemorrhagic. An ischemic stroke occurs when the blood supply to a brain region is cut off. This is by far the most common variety of stroke, but it is not where our present interest lies.
Hemorrhagic strokes comprise about 15-20% of all cerebrovascular accidents, and occur when the rupture of a blood vessel results in bleeding into the cranial vault [18]. A “bleed” can be one of several varieties. Traumatic bleeds (epidurals and subdurals) are not the focus of this discussion (but try not to drop the barbell on your head). Intraparenchymal hemorrhages are bleeding directly into the brain tissue, frequently in the setting of severe uncontrolled hypertension. They are rarely described in the context of resistance training.
Intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) in the setting of resistance training and other strenuous activities is almost always of the variety known as subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). This term refers to the location of the bleeding, between two layers of the meninges, the membranes that enclose the brain. SAH occurs between the two innermost layers, the arachnoid mater and the pia mater.
Figure 4. Cranial computed tomographic (CT) image of a patient with subarachnoid hemorrhage. In this technique, brain matter is gray and bleeding is gray-white. This patient has an extensive hemorrhage, with blood tracking in the fissures of the cerebral cortex, and also collecting in the perimesencephalic cistern and supracellar cisterns (arrow), near the brainstem and pituitary. It is instructive to compare this image with Figure 5. Image by James Heilman MD; reproduced from Wikipedia under Creative Commons License.
Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is most commonly caused by rupture of asaccular cerebral aneurysm (CA). (SAH can also arise from other lesions, including tumors, arteriovenous malformations, and from trauma. We will not consider such lesions here.) The saccular aneurysm is the most common form of CA, the so-called “berry aneurysm.” These are small, spheroid outpouchings of a cerebral artery that occur primarily at branch points in the arterial tree, particularly in the Circle of Willis. The Circle is a roundabout formation of cerebral arteries at the base of the brain uniting the anterior circulation from the carotid arteries with the posterior circulation from the vertebral arteries.
Berry aneurysms lurk in the heads of about 1-6% of the general population [18]. Berries are congenital, although environmental and behavioral factors appear to have an impact on their postnatal development and risk of rupture. Genetic factors that predispose to CA include female sex and alterations in genes for various connective tissue proteins and proteases. Risk factors contributing to development and rupture of congenital CA include smoking, hypertension, heavy alcohol use, and increasing age.
Figure 5. The Circle of Willis. The circle connects the anterior circulation (from the carotid via the middle cerebral artery) and posterior circulation (from the vertebral arteries via the basilar and posterior communicating arteries) in a ring of vessels at the base of the brain (center). The incidences of congenital aneurysm by vascular site are indicated by the vessel color and corresponding thermogram at the left. It is instructive to compare this image with Figure 4. Image by Nicholas Zaorsky MD; reproduced from Wikipedia under Creative Commons license.
The most important factor in the rate of CA rupture appears to be aneurysmal size. The International Study of Unruptured Intracranial Aneurysms [19] investigated the natural history and clinical outcome in 4060 patients with unruptured CA. They found that the rate of rupture for lesions less than 7mm in diameter was 0-2.5% over five years, while the five-year rupture rate for very large aneurysms (>25mm) was up to 50%. A larger aneurysm creates hemodynamic, histological and biophysical conditions that favor rupture [18].
Looking at the literature on ICH and lifting, we find that most ICHs were of the SAH variety, and those that underwent anatomical investigation were almost always associated with ruptured berry CAs. The epidemiology of this rare phenomenon is still sketchy, but it is fair to say the literature gives us no indication that resistance training increases the risk of ICH in the absence of severe uncontrolled hypertension, coagulopathy, congenital aneurysm or other underlying cerebrovascular pathology. In other words, if you don’t already have a time bomb in your head, it probably won’t go off, no matter how much you lift and grunt.
This means that any consideration of an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke while lifting under Valsalva is practically restricted to those who have such lesions. This is both a reassurance (because the incidence of such lesions in the population is so low) and a concern (because people who have such a monster in their head generally don’t know it, and there’s no quick-cheap-and-easy way to screen for them).
Nevertheless, the laws of chance dictate that some people with berries are going to get under the bar. Many if not most of them are going to hold their breath. When they do, blood pressure will shoot up, increasing the intravascular stress on the aneurysm. Doesn’t the Valsalva pose a clear and present danger to them?
There are two complementary approaches to analyzing this question, and neither of them can call on enough data to give us a definitive answer. The first approach is to consider the dynamics of aneurysmal rupture in the setting of resistance training with Valsalva – the physiological evidence. The second approach is to survey the epidemiologic data – the clinical experience of what actually happens to human populations when they lift under Valsalva. We will consider each in turn.
The Physiological Evidence
Several factors influence aneurysm rupture, but for our purposes the critical variable is cerebrovascular transmural pressure (TMP), the net force across the wall of the aneurysm. Transmural pressure is the difference between the (1) internal (arterial) pressure, which is more-or-less equivalent to the cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP), and (2) the intracranial pressure (ICP). The intracranial pressure is the pressure transmitted through the cerebrospinal fluid, which circulates throughout the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) within the closed sac of the meninges. The CPP normally ranges from between 70 and 85 mmHg in a resting adult, while the normal value for the intracranial pressure is about 5-15 mmHg [20]. This means the resting mean TMP should be about 55-75 mmHg, although direct measurement of this value in humans is rarely reported in the literature.
Now, what happens when you lift? Let’s call this condition RT, or resistance training without Valsalva. Resistance training jacks up the systemic blood pressure, which drives up the CPP, increasing the pressure gradient across the aneurysmal wall (TMP) [4,17,21].
What happens when we add Valsalva to the mix? Let’s call this condition RT+V. Existing data [10,22,23] indicates that RT+V drives up the arterial blood pressure even further, with a corresponding dramatic increase in CPP and intravascular stress. Rupture is now imminent. She's gonna blow.
Except it’s not that simple. Our analysis must take into account the profound effect of Valsalva on intracranial pressure, the other critical factor in the pressure across the aneurysmal wall.
In the 1930s, Hamilton developed a new “differential manometer” which allowed direct invasive measurement of rapid changes in vascular and cavitary pressures [14,24]. This work yielded the first modern picture of the hemodynamics of the Valsalva maneuver. Hamilton’s technique allowed him to record cerebrospinal fluid pressure, and he showed that the increase in thoracic pressure produced by Valsalva is transmitted directly to the cerebrospinal fluid, thereby increasing the ICP.
…changes occur in the spinal pressure during straining and coughing which protect the arterial tree within the craniospinal canal from these unusual stresses. Thus a simultaneous sudden rise of arterial and spinal pressures of 100 mmHg…leaves the net arterial pressure unaffected.
This was such a seminal observation that Hamilton’s papers are still widely quoted today in the literature on Valsalva and intracranial pressure.
Figure 6. Hemodynamic and anatomic relationships pertaining to aneurysmal rupture. The cerebral artery and its aneurysm occupy the subarachnoid space, overlying the brain tissue. Mean arterial pressure (MAP) is transmitted to the cerebral artery as the cerebral arterial pressure (CAP). CAP is defined here as the pressure applied to the walls of the aneurysm from within, and is counteracted (but not necessarily balanced) by the intracranial pressure (ICP) which is transmitted through the cerebrospinal fluid. (Image prepared by the author.)
The increase in ICP with Valsalva has been verified in multiple investigations since Hamilton’s paper appeared. Of particular interest are Prabhakar’s measurement of CPP and ICP (allowing derivation of TMP) in patients undergoing neuroendoscopic procedures via a cerebral ventriculostomy [25], and Haykowski’s measurements of ICP during bicep curls in patients with neurosurgical drains [26]. Haykowski’s contribution is particularly important. His invasive measurements of ICP and MAP demonstrated that the RT condition generated higher calculated TMPs than the RT+V condition. If the results of Haykowski’s direct measurements in living human beings are correct, then lifting weights with a Valsalva generates less stress across the vascular wall than lifting weights without a Valsalva. These findings are a direct and important challenge to the conventional view of the “dangers of Valsalva.”
In 2012 Niewiadomski et al [27] published an important investigation of the effect of the Valsalva maneuver on the hemodynamic response to resistance exercise. Twelve Polish bros (“broskis”) performed concentric and eccentric leg press exercises while their blood pressure, heart rate and mouth pressure (an indirect measurement of intrathoracic and intracranial pressures) were recorded. As expected, Valsalva markedly increased systolic and diastolic blood pressures at rest and during exercise. Stronger Valsalva in conjunction with heavier loads produced the largest blood pressure spikes. The authors derived values for arterial transmural pressures during systole (when pressure is the highest). They found that Valsalva decreased transmural pressures. No broskis died or stroked out during the experiments. Again, this work directly and substantially challenged the idea that Valsalva increases the risk of ICH in the RT+V condition, and supports a model in which the increased ICP with breath-holding moderates the TMP.
Figure 7. Mechanism for vascular protective effect of Valsalva. The rise in vascular pressure caused by work against a load under Valsalva is counteracted by a simultaneous increase in intracranial pressure transmitted via the cerebrospinal fluid. The volume of the skull, which is fixed, limits the volume and pressure of these two systems and stabilizes vascular structures, rather than predisposing them to rupture. Reproduced with permission from Starting Strength, 3rd Ed 2011; The Aasgaard Company.
The accumulation of papers like those of Prabhakar, Haykowski and Niewiadomski allowed for an important systematic review by Hackett in 2013 [10]. The best evidence showed that RT+V increases blood pressure, but not as much as Valsalva alone. The authors recommend that the Valsalva should not be exaggerated under a load, but it should not be avoided, either, considering the moderating effect of Valsalva on TMP. A theoretical caveat to this model is that release of the classical prolonged Valsalva produces an overshoot in systemic blood pressure, even as ICP falls, potentially increasing the TMP. This dynamic has not been described, however, and there is data suggesting that CPP does not overshoot after Valsalva [28]. In summary, the physiologic data, while flawed, clearly indicates that (a) RT raises blood pressure; (b) RT+V raises it even more; and (c) the high intrathoracic pressures generated in the RT+V condition are transmitted to the cerebrospinal fluid and cranial vault, increasing ICP and moderating changes in transmural pressure – a protective effect [29].
Another critical point emerges from the physiological data. Multiple authors have observed that, notwithstanding any physiologic effects the Valsalva may have, it is an everyday occurrence and is virtually unavoidable under heavy loading, even when the lifter is instructed not to do it [15,17,10,16,30]. Of course, anybody who’s ever squatted or deadlifted any serious weight, or found themselves confronted by the exigent necessity of lifting a heavy object off an injured child, already knows this.
The implication is as obvious as it is far-reaching.
Prohibiting the Valsalva is tantamount to a prohibition of heavy lifting itself.
Clinical and Coaching Experience
It’s one thing to drill holes in people’s heads, ram catheters into their spinal canals, cannulate their arteries, and then make them do leg presses. That gets us physiological data, which is important for our overall understanding, but not definitive. Physiological reasoning, even when based on the best data, often turns out to be dead wrong in the clinical setting.
For a definitive, practical, real-life understanding of the interaction between Valsalva and the risk of hemorrhagic stroke from aneurysmal rupture, we need to look at the large, controlled, longitudinal clinical studies with relevant clinical endpoints that examine what actually happens to lifters, with and without intracranial lesions, with and without Valsalva. So let’s look at those.
Oh, wait. Sorry. There aren't any.
That’s right. For all the Strum und Drang about Valsalva and popped berries, nobody has ever demonstrated a cause-and-effect relationship between RT+V and intracranial hemorrhage, even in susceptible populations. It’s easy to see why. Berry aneurysms are rare. Atraumatic SAH is quite rare – about 9 strokes/100,000 patient-years [31]. And blowing an SAH under the bar? That is exceedingly, incredibly, fantasticially rare. Studying such a rare clinical phenomenon in a controlled manner is virtually impossible. A phenomenon this uncommon forces us to rely on isolated case reports, laboratory data, and physiological reasoning.
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. The SPEP statement avoids this crucial step of normalization, but acquiesces in its own way by refusing to name the primary agent and beneficiary of the hate speech it condemns: President-Elect Donald Trump. Instead, the statement employs the passive voice and refers simply to the hate speech “mobilized and emboldened by the election.” This acquiescence and deferral to the passive voice—with the agent named through the preposition ‘by’ being not a person but a thing—perpetuates another form of normalization. Do we not risk being complicit in the crimes we condemn if we are unwilling to name the perpetrators of those crimes?
I do not know if philosophy has any special role to play in resisting Donald Trump in 2016. It is certainly not the moment to hunker down to work out fine philological details—work that I normally value. If we work on thinkers who were oppressed by totalitarian regimes of any kind, we should learn from and teach about their resistance. If we work on thinkers who became perpetrators, we should learn from and teach about what lead them to become complicit. But this is what many of us already do everyday in the classroom anyways. We should teach ceaselessly about language and the power to manipulate language, as exemplified by Marianne Constable’s “When Words Cease to Matter.” We should teach about power. We should be in classrooms, in discussion groups and anywhere where students need to be listened to.
But we should not pretend that the infamously ‘strange’ life of the philosopher is somehow so ‘abnormal’ in Trump’s world that being a philosopher is in and of itself an act of resistance. Hence, I disagree that the APA’s statement that “the work of philosophers and humanists is needed now more than ever” is in and of itself valid. Philosophy per se is not the answer to anything, though certain kinds of philosophy may help lead us to some answers about our current dire predicament. After the release of Jewish and politically ‘undesirable’ professors from service in Germany in 1933, the discipline of philosophy by and large settled back into business as usual, resuming all the normal conferences, publications and deadlines. Philosophers of many stripes, much like humanists and academics from many fields, played a crucial role in all stages of National Socialist violence. I therefore say this especially to the philosophers who—like me—are white and male: being a self-styled economic and intellectual gadfly does not qualify as resistance. Philosophy alone is not an act of resistance. It may even be an act of complicity.
Adam Knowles is Assistant Teaching Professor of Philosophy at Drexel University, where he is currently preparing a manuscript entitled The Measure of Silence: Heidegger, Language and the Greeks. He received his PhD from the New School for Social Research in 2014. His research combines influences from Continental philosophy, phenomenology, Ancient Greek philosophy, ethics and feminism, drawing especially on Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Irigaray and Derrida.
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What do you think about this issue? Weigh in on the discussion in the comments below, or if you’d be interested in writing a blog post in response, contact us on the submission form here.After a winter full of earth-toned root vegetables, seeing bright red strawberries with their sexy sweet perfume at the market is like seeing the light of a warm fire in the middle of a blizzard.
For me I love getting the first strawberries of the season because they are always the sweetest and most flavorful. To enjoy the seductive perfume of the season’s first berries for more than a week or two, I like to freeze them.
This makes that sweet smell of spring available to me any time of the year. While they’re not quite the same as eating a fresh one, if you freeze them right, they’re great for pies, smoothies and on ice cream.
So how do you freeze a strawberry the right way? Well, before I get into that, let’s talk about the science of freezing. Food “freezes” when the water molecules inside the food, drops below 32 degrees F. At this point the water molecules stop moving and form a solid crystalline structure.
The structure and how large the crystals are depend on how quickly the water is frozen. The longer it takes to freeze, the larger the crystals grow. When large crystals form, they rupture the cell walls of the strawberry. When the ice melts, the gaping voids the ice crystals created collapse, and the water, along with the contents of the cells leak out all over the place.
Small crystals on the other hand do not damage the cells as much and so when a strawberry that’s been quickly frozen is defrosted, it retains much of the original characteristics of the fresh strawberry.
In large commercial operations such as manufactures of frozen foods, they have special freezers that freeze food in minutes or even seconds. Unfortunately, your average home freezer will take hours to freeze a bag of food.
One option available to the daring is to use liquid nitrogen. Since liquid nitrogen boils at -321 degrees F, it will freeze strawberries almost instantly. That’s also why ice cream made with liquid nitrogen is so smooth in texture. The danger here is that it will freeze your fingers almost as fast as the strawberries, so you need to be wearing proper gloves and eye protection when working with liquid nitrogen.
Since most of us don’t have a Dewar of liquid nitrogen sitting around, the next best thing is to freeze the berries as quickly as possible in your home freezer. Here are a few tips to get your strawberries frozen in the shortest time possible:
Smaller is better – It takes less time to freeze smaller objects, so cutting your strawberries into quarters will make them freeze faster Give them space – If your strawberries are crammed together it’s the same as having one giant strawberry, so arrange them in a single layer. Aluminum is a great thermal conductor, so arranging them in a single layer on an aluminum baking-sheet is a good way to freeze them, once they’re frozen you can transfer them to a freezer bag. If you don’t have room for a baking sheet, you can arrange the strawberries in a single layer in a freezer bag, then sandwich the bag between ice packs. Go to the source – figure out where the cooling elements are in your freezer and put your strawberries near them (this is usually the back of the freezer).
To illustrate the difference you can make by freezing quickly vs. slowly, I cut a strawberry in half, wrapped one in plastic wrap and stuck it between two ice packs. The other half got wrapped in plastic and thrown in with a larger bag of whole fresh strawberries.
While the strawberry on the right still leaked some liquid, it was far less than the one on the left. It’s even more apparent in the photo below where I sliced the berries in half. The one that took a long time to freeze was mushy, so when I cut into it, the red color on the outside bled into the white center. The quickly frozen strawberry on the right maintained its shape much better.
One of my favorite uses for frozen strawberries is to turn them into smoothies. The beauty here is that since the strawberries are frozen, there’s no need to add ice, which prevents your smoothie from getting watered down.
I like using maple syrup to sweeten strawberries because the earthy flavor is a nice pairing with the bright strawberries, but it also has the added benefit of being vegan friendly. Make this with tofu and soymilk instead of yogurt and milk and you’ll have a vegan smoothie.
Use frozen strawberries to make smoothies for a sweet drink that is not watered down. Marc Matsumoto of NoRecipes shares his recipe in a full post at the Fresh Tastes blog. Ingredients 9 ounces frozen strawberries
1/2 cup yogurt (or silken tofu)
1/2 cup milk (or soy milk)
2 tablespoons maple syrup Directions Add all the ingredients to a blender. Unless you have a very high-powered blender it will struggle with whole frozen strawberries, so be sure you use Marc's technique for freezing strawberries and cutting them up before you use them. Blend until smooth. Tips/Techniques Marc Matsumoto shares his tips for Marc Matsumoto shares his tips for freezing strawberries in a post on the Fresh Tastes blog.
Marc Matsumoto is a culinary consultant and recipe repairman who shares his passion for good food through his website norecipes.com. For Marc, food is a life long journey of exploration, discovery and experimentation and he shares his escapades through his blog in the hopes that he inspires others to find their own culinary adventures. Marc’s been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and has made multiple appearances on NPR and the Food Network.Doom Review Copies Won’t Be Available Until Launch Day
Bethesda has revealed that Doom reviews won’t be appearing until at least launch day on Friday, May 13.
In a statement sent to IGN about Doom review copies, Bethesda explained that, since the servers won’t be live until Friday, they won’t be sending the game out ahead of time:
DOOM is a robust game comprised of a single-player campaign, online multiplayer, and SnapMap. We believe all three elements are important parts of the complete DOOM experience, and are meant to be experienced as part of a complete package. As DOOM’s SnapMap and multiplayer modes both require access to a server that won’t be live prior to launch, review copies will arrive on launch day.
As detailed last week, Doom’s servers go live on May 13 at 12am local time in Europe and 12am ET in North America.
Additionally, digital pre-loads for Doom on PlayStation 4 will be available on May 11 at 12am local time in Europe and 12am ET in North America. It requires a roughly 50GB install.
Will you be getting Doom on Friday?
[Source: IGN]Eagle Butte Mine is one of the many open-pit mines that characterize Wyoming and the western mining industry. - Hayley Hershman/Marketplace
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Editor's note: Over the past couple years, we’ve talked to the mayors of three different cities: Dalton, Georgia; Gillette, Wyoming; and Corvallis, Oregon. They're all different places with different people, economies and politics. We spoke to each mayor right before the election, and now we’re checking in with these cities by visiting each place. The first city we visited was the carpet capital of the world. Next up, Gillette, Wyoming
Gillette, Wyoming, is a small city of just over 30,000 people. Its economy is deeply dependent on the extraction industry: oil, gas, uranium and especially coal. Wyoming produces about 40 percent of American coal, and Campbell County, where Gillette is located, produces more than 80 percent of Wyoming’s coal.
Wyoming uses western mining — not the underground maze you might imagine when you think of a coal mine, but a collection of huge, open pits. They look like quarries with cliffs for sides, and looking down from the ledge, the 50-foot trucks inside seem like Matchbox cars.
It’s been a rough couple of years for coal and for Gillette. Residents felt punished by environmental regulations and the shift away from coal on the energy market. Coal production fell to its lowest level in decades, and the mines in town laid off hundreds of workers.
Most people in Gillette were bracing for Hillary Clinton to win the election and expected things to get harder. Louise Carter King, the mayor of Gillette, said a Clinton victory would be "the final nail in the coffin" for the city.
Train cars pulling coal along the railroad in Gillette. - Hayley Hershman/Marketplace
Things changed overnight on November 8.
"It was like a switch had been flipped in this town," Carter King said. "People went to restaurants that next day. They were full, people were bustling. Just the whole attitude changed in the community. It’s just the attitude and hope, and it was just great."
Carter King has been in office for about two years. Her father, Herb Carter, was the city’s mayor in the '80s, and back then, this was a boom-and-bust town. Men came to work in the mines and lived in hotels or trailers. When the job was done, they went back to wherever they were from. “Gillette Syndrome” was the era’s shorthand for problems like crime and high costs in a transient place.
Carter-King is trying to build a more stable Gillette, a place where people stay and raise their kids. There are more restaurants now, sports fields and new subdivisions that meet Wyoming grassland.
But all of this depends on the industries that make the city’s economy run. It’s not an exaggeration to say that many people here feel like President Donald Trump is bringing their town back to life. Since taking office, he has already reversed two Obama-era coal regulations. He opposes the Clean Power Plan, which aims to cut carbon emissions and shift away from coal power, and even though he gives the mayor some pause, she says, "as far as energy goes, we feel that he is good for our community, and as a mayor, that is my top concern."
Thanks to coal, Campbell County traditionally brings in more revenue than any other county in the state. Revenue from taxes on the industry goes to the city, the schools and into funding places that help create a more stable, permanent community.
People here are optimistic about the economy and the extraction industry under the new administration, but no matter who’s in the White House, they know the city has to diversify because the future of the coal market is uncertain. Patrick Hladky and his brother run Cyclone Drilling, an oil rig company started by their father.
"Natural gas is in competition for power generation," Hladky said. "The downturn in coal was less to do with regulation by the federal government and more to do with the price of natural gas."
Workers give a tour of the facilities at Atlas Carbon, an activated carbon facility. - Hayley Hershman/Marketplace
That is a difficult thing to say out loud in Gillette, where coal is part of the way of life. This is a city that is proud of what it does. Many people feel that coal has been demonized, while the reality for the people here is that coal feeds families.
"What fails to make the press is that these people are out here providing a product that the American people need," said Paul Hladky, Patrick's brother. "When the light switch comes on, it comes from coal generation or natural gas, and when you go to the filling station, you fill up with oil from a domestic source."
The economics of coal may be hard to escape, but the economy is picking up a little here. Even though more work is automated these days, the coal mines have hired some workers back and the Hladky brothers are getting ready to put another rig in the field to drill for oil. Twenty-five of their rigs have been sitting idle in a yard while they wait for the energy markets to shift.
Across town, there's a business that represents the future of Gillette. Atlas Carbon makes activated carbon, which is used in everyday items, like a Brita water filter or Biore pore strips. Atlas Carbon produces huge chemical filters for water and air that remove pollutants like mercury from coal in power plants.
The facilities at Atlas Carbon. - Hayley Hershman/Marketplace
The company employs 12 people. It can't fill the jobs gap left by the mine layoffs, but its leaders hope to hire more people as the local economy and their production process pick up.
"You’ll see signs around town saying 'Stay strong, Gillette,' and the community’s really rallied around, and we think it’s gonna improve," said Michael Jones, the chief engineer at Atlas Carbon. "And those things are bright for the community going forward."
Atlas Carbon is banking on the future of coal and extraction — not just for its own business making activated carbon, but for power plants, where burning fossil fuel creates electricity. Dry Fork Station is one of the newest coal-fired power plants in the country, running on coal extracted only yards away. It uses activated carbon to clean up its emissions.
Dry Fork Station, one of the newest power plants in the nation. - Hayley Hershman/Marketplace
Gillette is proud of it and its new technology. Plant manager Tom Stalcup said that at Dry Fork Station's grand opening, "there were so many people that didn't think we were running, and it was one of the questions from the crowd, 'Are you even running?' And we said, 'We’re not only running, but we’re at full capacity right now.'"
You cannot see any smoke in the sky at the plant. That matters to people in the town, because even though activated carbon doesn’t remove all emissions or greenhouse gases, people in Gillette are sensitive to the charge that they do not care about the environment that they live in.
"Why would we do something to ruin our own air?" Mayor Louise Carter-King said. "Why would we want do that?"
It is a constant balancing act in Gillette between the industry that keeps its economy going and the natural beauty and quality of life that make people want to stay here.
“I think the best compliment I can give is not to say how much your programs have taught me (a ton), but how much Marketplace has motivated me to go out and teach myself.” – Michael in Arlington, VA As a nonprofit news organization, what matters to us is the same thing that matters to you: being a source for trustworthy, independent news that makes people smarter about business and the economy. So if Marketplace has helped you understand the economy better, make more informed financial decisions or just encouraged you to think differently, we’re asking you to give a little something back. Become a Marketplace Investor today – in whatever amount is right for you – and keep public service journalism strong. We’re grateful for your support. BEFORE YOU GOWhen senior U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's "ongoing indifference and disregard" for scientific evidence linking chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, to repetitive hits to the head (whether concussive or subconcussive), he was being polite.
When Sen. Blumenthal wrote that the NHL "would prefer that athletes remain ignorant of potentially very serious threats to their health," he was right.
Just as he, the ranking member of the Senate's Consumer Protection subcommittee, was right when he concluded the following:
"Most puzzling is why you attack others for asking these profoundly important questions. Instead of aggressively seeking to advance the science surrounding concussions, you accuse the ‘media’, ‘media consultants’, lawyers and players of ‘fear mongering’. Your letter suggests that seeking facts about concussions and CTE could instill ‘unwarranted fears’ that lead to ‘depression’ and'suicide.' Your leadership guides professional players who are admired and revered by junior, college, amateur and youth hockey players. Your failure to take a safety issue seriously could have ramifications for players at every level, seriously affecting public health…The NHL has a duty to behave responsibly in light of its public trust."
In recent weeks, Bettman has doubled down with a 24-page letter denying any link between CTE and the repetitive blows to the head that come with playing in the NHL.
In it, he drew on a few main arguments. First, the commissioner argued that research has concluded that CTE cannot yet be diagnosed in living patients. Second, he plucked cautious phrasing from the Boston University's CTE Center and the National Institutes of Health's research -- which has largely found irrefutable overwhelming evidence of CTE in athletes in contact sports such as boxing and football -- to suggest that research is in its "infancy" and thus not absolute.
But despite the current inability to diagnose CTE in living patients, we have years of scientific study, evidence and opinion has still led experts to the same conclusions. Nearly 90 years of scientific conclusions on contact to the head and CTE suggest that even though research into the disease isn't complete, there are certain things we know.
Gary Bettman wants us to believe that what experts know about head trauma, concussions, repetitive blows to the head, and CTE isn't sufficient to prove a link. But they know a lot. Here's what they've found:
At least six former NHL players (Derek Boogaard, Reg Fleming, Bob Probert, Rick Martin, Steve Montador and Larry Zeidel) have been diagnosed with CTE post-mortem.
The United States' Third Circuit Court ruled that there is a link between playing football and developing CTE. In March, the NFL plainly admitted (after years of denial) the link, telling a congressional committee that "The answer to that question is certainly yes," which the Third Circuit Court called "conceding something already known."
The CTE Center at Boston University has, for years now, said that they "believe CTE is caused by repetitive head trauma." They further describe CTE as "a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic subconcussive hits to the head."
The Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory at Harvard Medical School agrees:
"CTE is thought to result from repetitive brain trauma … CTE has been observed most often in professional athletes who are involved in contact sports."
Michael Strong, the dean of Western’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, emphasized that denial of a link stems from ignorance.
"You don’t ever hear anybody at the other end of the pipeline saying, ‘we don’t really think stroke is related to hypertension because nobody has ever proved it,’" he said. "Here, we’ve got somebody (Bettman) at the other end of the pipeline saying, ‘well we don’t really think there’s a relationship between CTE and concussion and playing sports.’ It makes no sense to say something like that."
Bennet Omalu, the doctor who first found CTE in NFL players, states unequivocally that "CTE is a progressive degenerative disease that afflicts the brain of people who have suffered repeated concussions and traumatic brain injuries." When Omalu finished his third study into CTE in NFL players, he concluded that he was "absolutely not" surprised that CTE was evidenced in all three studies.
The Mayo Clinic calls CTE "brain degeneration likely caused by repeated head traumas."
American Academy of Neurology meeting found that 40 per cent of retired NFL players showed sings of traumatic brain injury based on scans.
A 2016 Jama Neurology study "associated" CTE with repetitive head trauma.
CTE was first described in 1928 as characteristic of boxers "who take considerable head punishment."
A study conducted by Brandon Gavett, Robert Stern and Ann McKee posits in its first sentence that "it has been understood for decades that certain sporting activities may increase an athlete's risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease later in life."
They found that "CTE has recently been found to occur after other causes of repeated head trauma, suggesting that any repeated blows to the head, such as those that occur in American football, hockey, soccer, professional wrestling, and physical abuse, can also lead to neurodegenerative changes."
In Brain Imaging and Behaviour's paper, "Chronic traumatic encephalopathy: neurodegeneration following repetitive concussive and subconcussive brain trauma," concludes that CTE affects, in particular, "contact sport athletes and those with a history of military combat" and that "repetitive brain trauma" is the only established risk factor for CTE.
Another Robert Stern and Ann McKee study, alongside CTE researchers and experts Robert Cantu and Christopher Nowinski, links "participation in contact sports" to CTE.
Their study, titled "Long-term Consequences of Repetitive Brain Trauma: Chronic Traumic Encephalopathy," concludes that "Given the millions of youth, high school, collegiate, and professional athletes participating in contact sports that involve repetitive brain trauma, as well as military personnel exposed to repeated brain trauma from blast and other injuries in the military, CTE represents an important public health issue."
And that's just the tip of an iceberg of growing scientific evidence and opinion on the topic. Just as the NFL was forced into conceding the link between CTE and contact to the head, so too will the NHL have to someday. Until then, Bettman's voiced ignorance impacts the decisions of both healthy and concussed hockey players and their parents. None of his commentary should be taken seriously, and all future coverage of his stances on science in hockey (regarding CTE or otherwise) should be matched against evidence and experts.The adjective wonky has two unrelated senses that are both used throughout the English-speaking world. Its older and more commonly used definition is unstable, defective, unreliable, or wobbly. For instance, a bad knee or a table with loose fittings might be called wonky, as might a person who behaves unpredictably. The word’s second sense is studiously concerned with minutiae. It connotes the kind of expertise that only a long-time insider within a given field can have, and it often comes up in politics, where a wonky person is one who is immersed in the details of policy.
Wonky in its second sense comes from the slightly older noun wonk, which emerged in the United States in the late 20th century as slang for a studious person concerned with minutiae.1 Wonk‘s origins are not known, however. Wonky in the first sense came about in the early 20th century, is British in origin, and has no corresponding noun,2 so it doesn’t appear that the two senses of wonky share a common origin.
Wonkish, also originally American, is synonymous with wonky in that word’s second sense, so it means concerned with minute details, studious, etc. It entered the language around 1990, about two decades later than the second sense of wonky, and perhaps represents an effort to avoid possible confusion caused by wonky‘s two unrelated definitions. Wonkish remains most common in the U.S., but has spread elsewhere over the last few years.
Examples
Wonky sometimes means unstable, defective, unreliable, or wobbly—for example:
The asteroid has a slightly wonky orbit that brings it close to Earth roughly every six years. [CBC] The prettiest real-life example I can think of is the wonky-eyed jewel squid of Australian waters, whose left eye is much larger than its right. [The Ancestor’s Tale, Richard Dawkins] These include unfamiliar brand names, drinks containing sediment, wonky labels, poor quality print, spelling mistakes, and bottles on display filled to different levels. [Guardian]
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Sometimes it means studiously concerned with minutiae:
At the same time the creators aim to give the show enough wonky tidbits to keep political junkies happy. [Co.Create] Phil Swagel, the wonky assistant secretary for economic policy, emphasized the necessity of being bold and not avoiding addressing the problems for fear of political fallout. [Too Big to Fail, Adrew Ross Sorkin] How the former OMB director, ostensibly one of the Senate Republicans’ more wonky members, can find this confusing is a mystery. [MSNBC]
And wonkish means the same:
I use my three-minute public comment to make wonkish analyses of the 54-page ordinance that is now in its fifth draft. [Slate] But it remains to be seen whether wonkish topics and thoughtful op-eds, no matter how sharply displayed, can ever be sexy enough to attract the masses. [Chicago Tribune] The entire drama was, in many ways, the worst sort of wonkish political brinkmanship, a tedious game of partisan Washington grandstanding. [Irish Times]
References
1. Wonky (2) in the OED (subscription required) ↩
2. Wonky (1) in the OED ↩The U.S.A.’s recent heartbreaking exit against Belgium in the World Cup may have left a bad taste in many Americans’ mouths, but I don't think any country is feeling more pain after this past week than Brazil. After practically bankrupting themselves to host the cup in the first place, which incited mass riots and civil demonstrations, the Brazilian national team went on to do the unthinkable – give their country hope, and then painfully snatch it away. Neymar fractured a vertebrae, their captain and alleged "brain" of the defense was suspended for a crucial game, and Brazil suffered one of the most embarrassing defeats in the history of sports. To make things worse, their arch rival, Argentina, advanced to the World Cup final on Brazilian soil in a penalty shootout. Sure, Argentina may have lost to Germany yesterday, but Brazil’s annihilation (again) at the hands of the Dutch this weekend capped off the most agonizing finish to the Cup that any Brazilian could have imagined. For the "Community" fans in the room, you could say that Brazil just endured the darkest timeline.
All of this "soccer" nonsense got me thinking about the darkest timeline for the Texans. Just how much worse could this possibly get? Andre Johnson wants out, Teddy Bridgewater is a Viking, and the team just came off of an embarrassing (and unexpected) 2-14 season. Could it possibly get more painful than that?
Yes. Yes it can.
2014
The Texans have a decent bounce back from their disastrous 2013 season, posting a somewhat respectable 9-7 record. They do not make the playoffs, but inspire some hope in the fan base for the coming years under O’Brien. Ryan Fitzpatrick performs decently well, but the team is clearly carrying him rather than the other way around. Johnson still wants out, but nobody is willing to take his enormous contract so he stays in Houston. Meanwhile in Minnesota, Teddy Bridgewater leads the Vikings to a second round playoff exit that is in no way his fault. In fact, he performed brilliantly for the entire season by rookie standards. In Cleveland, Johnny Manziel sits behind a resurgent Brian Hoyer, who somehow leads Cleveland to a 10-6 record without Josh Gordon being on the field. Houston’s position in the draft is in the middle of the pack, which unfortunately results in missing out on every top flight quarterback in this class.
2015
Ryan Fitzpatrick has a middling start to the season in his first six games before giving way to a sophomore Tom Savage. Savage performs just well enough in his second season to inspire some confidence in his future, which tempers Bill O’Brien’s desire to draft yet another young quarterback with a high pick. Savage has the job…for now. The Texans finish 9-7 and yet again barely miss the playoffs. Andre Johnson is losing his mind with frustration, and it is starting to get to J.J. Watt. Johnson finally gets his wish and is traded to New England to make one last run at a ring with an elderly Tom Brady. J.J. Watt is reluctant to sign an extension and is franchise tagged. Back in Minnesota, Teddy Bridgewater and Cordarelle Patterson have become the most dangerous young offensive duo in the league. The pairing brings the Vikings their first Super Bowl victory in franchise history. Manziel continues to sit behind Hoyer, who has had two spectacular seasons in a row with the Browns. Cleveland trades Manziel to Tennessee in the off season, not wanting to risk Manziel’s considerable fan base interfering with Hoyer’s success.
2016
The Texans collapse again. Tom Savage does not develop as expected and leads the Texans to yet another first overall pick. Jadeveon Clowney finishes his third straight season without ever registering double digit sacks. Not wanting to be stuck on a bad team for his entire career like Andre Johnson, J.J. Watt leaves for the Baltimore Ravens in free agency, where he will eventually win two Super Bowls and become a first ballot Hall of Famer. Teddy Bridgewater leads the Vikings to a second straight Super Bowl appearance, which happens to be played in NRG Stadium. His opponent, of course, is a scrappy Tennessee Titans team lead by none other than Johnny Manziel. In spectacularly painful fashion (for Texans fans), Manziel wins a ring in his first season a starter while being just a short drive from College Station. Houston collectively drowns itself in alcohol.
I for one cannot imagine anything more miserable than that timeline. Andre Johnson is gone, J.J. Watt is gone, and Johnny Manziel helps the Titans of all teams win a championship in Houston. I almost need a drink just thinking about it. Before some of you go throw yourself off the nearest cliff, however, just keep in mind that absolutely none of this is likely to happen. Bill O’Brien is a great coach, Jadeveon Clowney is a great player, and the Browns going 10-6 violates multiple laws of physics. It just can’t happen…right? RIGHT?If you use Safari on your Mac for your private browsing needs, you might want to stop. MacIssues points out that all those URLs you visit in private mode are still saved in a database file that anyone with your computer can look at.
Safari saves all the favicon images and URLs you visit in the ~/Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db file. You can open that file with any SQLite browser. Once you do, you'll find a full list of all the URLs you've ever visited in Safari, private mode or otherwise, in the PageURL table. Obviously it takes a bit of work to get to this file so nobody's going to see it by accident, but if you're worried about anyone snooping in on your personal computer, it's probably best not to use Safari for your private browsing. For now, you can simply delete the Webpageicon.db file to get rid of that entire history.
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Safari bug saves Web page URLs in Private Mode | MacIssuesEnglish mixed martial arts fighter
This article is about the martial artist. For the politician, see John Hathaway (politician)
John Lawrence Hathaway (born 1 July 1987) is an English former mixed martial artist who competed in the welterweight division.
Mixed martial arts career [ edit ]
Background and early career [ edit ]
Formerly an open-side flanker for local rugby team Hove RFC, Hathaway decided to make the transition to mixed martial arts after watching the Ultimate Fighting championship on television. He made his professional MMA debut on 25 June 2006, defeating his opponent via rear naked choke in the first round.
John Hathaway currently trains at London Shootfighters.[2] Hathaway also trained in the US with American Top Team and 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu with Eddie Bravo.[2]
Ultimate Fighting Championship [ edit ]
After signing a four fight deal, Hathaway was scheduled to fight undefeated Tom Egan at UFC 93. He made an impressive UFC debut, scoring a dominant first round TKO win over Egan via elbows.
Hathaway defeated the debuting Rick Story via unanimous decision at UFC 99.[3]
Hathaway's next fight was against Paul Taylor at UFC 105.[4] Hathaway won a unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-26).
Hathaway then faced the biggest fight of his career as he fought Diego Sanchez on 29 May 2010 at UFC 114, in Sanchez' return to welterweight.[5] In the first round, Hathaway dropped Sanchez with a knee to the head, as Sanchez attempted a takedown. Hathaway then dominated with ground and pound. The rest of the fight saw Hathaway utilize his reach advantage to dominate the striking, which gave him the unanimous decision victory.
Hathaway was expected to face Dong Hyun Kim at UFC 120,[6] but Kim was forced out of the bout with an injury and replaced by Mike Pyle.[7] Hathaway lost to Pyle via unanimous decision after being overmatched by the heavy underdog. This loss was also the first of his career.
Hathaway fought Kris McCray on 26 March 2011 at UFC Fight Night 24.[8] The fight was closely contested throughout. However, Hathaway walked away the winner via split decision.
Hathaway was expected to face Pascal Krauss on 5 November 2011 at UFC 138.[9] However, on 30 August Krauss pulled out of the bout citing a shoulder injury, and was replaced by Matt Brown.[10] On 17 October, Hathaway himself was forced to pull out of the bout due to an undisclosed injury. As a result, Brown was pulled from the card and shifted to UFC 139.[11]
Hathaway/Krauss took place on 5 May 2012 at UFC on Fox 3.[12] He won the fight via unanimous decision.
Hathaway beat John Maguire via unanimous decision on 29 September 2012 at UFC on Fuel TV 5.[13]
Hathaway was expected to face Erick Silva on 8 June 2013 at UFC on Fuel TV 10.[14] However, Hathaway was pulled from the bout in late April and replaced by Jason High.[15]
Hathaway returned from his extended hiatus to face Dong Hyun Kim on 1 March 2014 at The Ultimate Fighter: China Finale.[16] He lost the fight via third round knockout due to a spinning back elbow.[17]
Hathaway was expected to face Gunnar Nelson on 11 July 2015 at UFC 189.[18] However, Hathaway pulled out of the bout on 23 June citing injury, and was replaced by Brandon Thatch.[19]
Personal life [ edit ]
John Hathaway was diagnosed with Crohn's disease some time in 2010.[20] This has prevented him from fighting since 2014.
Championships and achievements [ edit ]
Freestyle Wrestling British National Freestyle wrestling Runner up (Two times) NEWA freestyle wrestling champion (One time)
Mixed martial arts record [ edit ]
Professional record breakdown 19 matches 17 wins 2 losses By knockout 5 1 By submission 4 0 By decision 8 1
See also [ edit ]With less than a year to wait until the people of Scotland decide whether or not political autonomy is the right way forward for us I wanted to put together a piece and ask you, the readers what your thoughts are. I will highlight some of the main concerns, or so I think that the Scottish people may have about and what positive input we can muster from these same points.
Let me state for the record that I in no way have any credentials to form a professional opinion on this, I’m just a very interested electorate. For now though, I am leaning ever so slightly to the Yes vote but like most, still want answers to very important issues regarding healthcare, currency and energy policy, to name but a few. The SNP will release its whitepaper on the 26th November and within it will outline their vision for Scotland and form the backbone of its policies should us Scots say “aye”.
Economy
Whoever you listen to or depending on what paper
|
. She said she believes the man in the garage was the one who was killed.
Boone said she knows the woman who lives in the home, and believes that she is on the run. Police have not confirmed that detail.
Boone said she sent a text message to the woman, urging her to turn herself in, but did not immediately receive any reply.
Another neighbor, Dana Trischler, lives next door to the duplex. She said a family — a mother, her boyfriend and her two daughters — has lived in the duplex for about a year. She said they are renters.
Boone estimated that the two girls who live at the duplex are roughly 8 and 14 years old. Boone said she believes the girls are now at the home of a grandparent. She said she believes the girls’ biological father discovered the body when he arrived to gather some of the children’s clothes.
Trischler said other people also frequently stay at the duplex — sometimes in tents in the backyard.
Trischler said visitors would come and go from the residence at all hours. Sometimes, visitors would knock on the garage door in the middle of the night and be let in soon after, she said.
Trischler said the frequency of visitors made her uneasy, and that she tried to keep to herself.
According to Lane County tax records, the home is owned by Alder and Ash LLC, a Eugene company that owns six properties.
Follow Chelsea on Twitter @chelseagorrow. Email [email protected] week, 120 American players gathered in a Las Vegas casino in the hope of a shot at the pros in South Korea. If they succeed, money, rules and culture shock beckon
On a table, in a ballroom, before two sober men in sober suits, a small wooden box shaped like an octagon rolled in circles carrying the immediate future of Korea’s professional basketball league.
The box sat on a stand like an old fashioned Rolodex. Inside the box, marbles the size of peas rattled against the sides like nails in a package. Anyone who stumbled into the Grand Ballroom of the Palms Casino Resort on Tuesday morning, and encountered the nearly 120 basketball players watching a spinning wooden box with a mix of bewilderment, anticipation and disinterest would have thought it the most ridiculous thing they saw in a city of absurd.
This would be the lottery for the Korean Basketball League Draft.
There are more than 100 basketball leagues in more than 50 countries with many processes for player acquisition, but only one league has a four-day tryout and draft for the two American players each team is allowed to have. And only that league comes here, to Las Vegas, bringing along all the coaches, scouts and general managers from its 10 teams, who sit behind tables draped with team banners watching hours of games played by players on whom they already have years of video evidence.
In virtually every other league, teams sign American players as free agents. But the KBL does not believe that such open-market bidding is fair to their less-fortunate franchises. They feel the most democratic way is to fly everybody to Las Vegas for a tryout and a draft.
“We want to make sure our teams that do not do well the season previously have a good chance to pick up better players,” said Jaemin Lee, the KBL’s director of basketball operations.
And so here in the Palms, basketball egalitarianism plays out in a room tucked far in the back of the casino, past the baccarat tables, the all-day buffet and the forest of Outback Jack slot machines. For more than two hours, the players will sit in straight rows of ballroom chairs enduring roll calls, speeches and the mysterious rattling of marbles inside a wooden box to replicate what the NBA does with ping pong balls. They will do this because the 20 jobs that will be filled in the two-round draft are as good as any in international basketball, with $20,000 to $30,000 a month salaries paid regularly in American dollars, tax free.
And that is worth watching a wooden box shaped like an octagon spin on a Rolodex stand.
The box stopped spinning. A marble dropped out. One of the sober men in the sober suits picked it up and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.
“Blue,” he said.
The Seoul Samsung Thunders had won the first pick.
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“It’s a ridiculous process but this is what they do,” said Rod Benson a 30-year-old forward who played in college at the University of California said as he stood in lobby outside the grand ballroom.
Benson, 6ft 10in and 30 years old, is exactly what KBL teams want in an American player. He is a tall man in a league of mostly short players. He is thoughtful, older and willing to embrace the rigid structure of a basketball culture like none in the US. Because of this, he has been playing in the KBL since 2010, coming here every summer from his condo in Hollywood to play two days of basketball before coaches who already know what he can do and sit through a draft where he has been sure to be picked.
Benson and the KBL have been good for each other. He has played in championships with two different teams, cherishing most his time with Wonju Dongbu Pormy, located in what he describes as “the North Dakota of Korea,” a cold city in the north. He has learned to survive in a league where many foreign players struggle because he understands the absurdity of what his coaches demand and does his best to make them happy.
“They will tell you to do something that’s basically impossible and that gets frustrating,” he said. “But they say it is not impossible they have seen it done. That’s just an example. They ask you to do something that is impossible every time and believe it is possible.”
He chuckled.
“Just keep doing what they tell you to do,” he continued. “The more eager you are and the more you show you are trying to do what they want you to do the more they will respect you. If you show you are not into it and you are not coachable they will send you home. Just be coachable and try your best.”
Still, even Benson has clashed with the KBL system. This is easy to do. Teams practice constantly – far more than in the US or most countries. Coaches demand a lot of their American players and do not tolerate any hint of laziness. Sometimes it isn’t enough to try to do the impossible and believe it is possible. The smallest slight, like a refusal to acknowledge an elder could be interpreted as a lack of sincerity.
Earlier this year, the Changwon LG Sakers kicked American Davon Jefferson off the team during the playoffs after he bent down to stretch during the playing of the Korean national anthem. The team said his dismissal was for an accumulation of misbehavior, but the message was clear: no American, no matter how good is more important than honor of cultural traditions.
Benson was sent home early last season in a dispute with a team for which he helped win two championships, Ulsan Mobis Phoebis. The team said he wasn’t playing hard. Benson said the team seemed to forget the two titles to which he contributed. Soon he was gone. On Tuesday, as Samsung’s coaches and scouts huddled to make the first pick he felt an anxiety like none he had in previous KBL drafts. Did his release last year hurt him? Will anyone draft him or is his name spoiled in the league forever?
International basketball is a minefield for all American players. It sounds glamorous, travel the world, play basketball and get paid. But reality is a far more treacherous thing. Many foreign teams are not solvent. Promises mean nothing once the players arrive. Contracts are ignored or simply disappear.
“Take everybody here, put him in the auditorium and ask who has a horror story about playing overseas and just about every one is going to raise their hand,” said one international basketball expert during a break from the tryouts, which are held at a high school west of the Strip.
He is right. Soon the stories spill out. One player told of a team’s media campaign to destroy his reputation. Another said his apartment in Russia had been ransacked in his team’s attempt to charge him for damages and therefore keep the money it still owed him. Ron Howard, a guard who played at Marquette and Valparaiso, has never seen the final $90,000 a team in China owes him after a season that actually went well.
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“I can always say I have $90,000 in China someplace,” he said with a laugh.
KBL teams don’t have the same financial problems as those in other countries. They are owned by local corporations which why is there are franchises named “LG” and “Samsung.” Making payroll is not an issue. The $200,000 salary for a first-round pick in Las Vegas helps give the KBL a reputation as one of the best-paying basketball leagues in the world.
The hint of the good, dependable money is why players fly here, stay at their own expense and go through the tryout process. Since one of the many quirks of the KBL rules is that teams can only replace foreign players with those who attend the tryout and draft, simply coming here for a week and staying through the draft guarantees a possibility of being signed when another player gets hurt or sent home.
This year’s tryout is the first for Howard, who has played in Australia, Israel and Puerto Rico in addition to the NBA Development League. He would not have been wanted here before. In the previous 18 years the KBL has existed and run the tryout and draft, teams have come in search of forwards and centers. Each team brought a Korean point guard to Las Vegas whose sole responsibility was to run an offense with four big men. He wasn’t even allowed to shoot.
After last season, the league decided the tall Americans were slowing their games. They wanted a faster, more exciting game so they changed the draft rules. Starting this year each team must take one player 6ft 4in or under, meaning that instead of picking two forwards each club will effectively have to select a forward and a guard.
This means an opportunity for Howard but a greater worry for Benson and other big men accustomed to coasting through KBL drafts. Ten jobs once certain to be given to men like him are now gone.
No one may be more affected by the rule change than forward Chris Massie. He is one of the more improbable stories in the draft having never played high school basketball. He had been working three years as an electrician when was discovered in a late-night Houston pickup game frequented by overseas players home for the summer. A junior college in Oxnard, California, offered a scholarship and soon he found himself the target of a recruiting war between John Calipari at Memphis and Cincinnati’s Bob Huggins which is something like being caught in crossfire at the OK Corral.
Massie picked Memphis and turned his two seasons there into a 13-year international career, which is only the second thing for which he is famous. He is more known as the elusive “Chris,” husband of Mal on the Real Housewives of Atlanta. He has made a handful of appearances on the show, most of which involve resolving disputes between Mal and her sister Cynthia Bailey. These were not enjoyable experiences, however. He is happier being the 6ft 9in forward in Korea, popular the last two seasons for his manners and unselfish play.
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In another year, he would have been certain to be picked in the draft. But he will be 38 in September and with half the spots going to guards he settled into his seat at the draft with a vague sense of uncertainty.
“I with I didn’t have to go through this tryout all over again,” he said.
To watch the Korean Basketball League draft in Las Vegas is to feel like you’ve been dropped into an NBA draft from 30 years ago – only in an alternate universe. Team executives and league officials wear suits and sit behind tables. The players wear shorts and t-shirts and sit in the rows of chairs across the back of the room. After the top of the lottery is determined the octagon box is put away and the remaining marbles are placed in small gold balls that are dropped in a round tin like a Bundt cake pan, rolled around and pulled back out thus determining the rest of the first round.
Even though 95% of the people in the room are American all announcements are made in Korean and translated into English. There are rules and the rules are read in Korean and English. The most significant is that each drafted player must immediately walk to a second, smaller ballroom with high ceilings, a chandelier and a single table surrounded by chairs and finalize a blank contract he has already signed. Refusal to do so results in a five-year ban from the league.
This is done because sometimes drafted players have better offers elsewhere and so agents lurk nearby, clutching cell phones signaling to their clients. At one point an agent appeared to traverse the room to catch his player before he went to sign a contract, presumably to keep him from signing, but the door closed before he could get there.
Before the official for Samsung could walk up to a spelling bee-style microphone and announce the team’s pick in Korean, a bang came from the back of the room. Ira Clark, a former star at the University of Texas, and a respected forward in KBL last season, burst through the doors. He had missed three roll calls and was on the verge of being banned from the draft when he stalked down the center aisle with arms upraised and three fingers pointed to the ceiling, shouting that yes, indeed “IRA CLARK IS HERE.”
He sat with the scouts of one of the teams before being told to take his assigned seat. Clark wobbled back to the players’ section, where he briefly stood on his chair. A moment later, when Samsung made former Missouri forward Ricardo Ratliffe their No1 pick, Clark howled.
“CHAMP-EEEEE-OWWWNN!” Clark shouted over and over – an apparent reference to Ratliffe’s standing as the KBL’s top player.
The KBL officials looked perplexed about what to do with one of the players heckling their draft. Warnings were issued. Still, Clark persisted.
“DID I SAY SOMETHING WRONG?” Clark yelled.
The officials didn’t seem to know what to say. They tried to hush him and for a few moments he was quiet. But when former Mississippi State forward Charles Rhodes was selected. Clark began again.
“CHARLES RHODES! AWESOME SHIT BABY!” Clark boomed.
Eventually, Clark stopped shouting at the draft. Needless to say, he did not get drafted but he was also careful to not leave and sacrifice his KBL future the way David Sutton, another KBL veteran did after he failed to be picked in the first round. He was gone by the time he was chosen in the second round, leading to an awkward discovery that a draft pick had left the draft.
This may be the last year of the KBL tryout and draft. Agents have been telling their clients that next summer the league could go to a free agent system like everyone else. One KBL official said the teams are divided on the idea of the Las Vegas draft. It is a sensitive and controversial topic inside the league.
But on Tuesday, the 10 teams each took their two players and they presented each with a jersey and a cap as they exited the signing room. It was an odd image – the league officials in suits and the players in shorts and jerseys. Benson, who wore camouflage short pants and calf-high socks decorated with fish, was ecstatic when he was taken by his beloved former team in the North Dakota of Korea.
“I’ve never been nervous for this before but this year I was … a little bit,” he said. “But it actually worked out perfectly because I’m on the best team and we have a shot to go back to the championship.”
As the executive from the Samsung team announced the draft’s final selection in Korean, Howard thought for a moment he heard his name.
“Nah,” he thought. “That can’t be right.”
Then the pick was translated into English.
“Ron Howard.”
“This is excellent, it actually did happen,” he said later, still wearing his Samsung jersey and hat. He had come to Las Vegas to keep his name in the pool of players, he hadn’t expected to be chosen and land a $20,000-a-month job. “It’s a desirable league. It’s very professional as you can see.”
In the back of the room, Massie pulled a black backpack onto his shoulders and slowly walked toward the doors. His name had not been called. He said he was fine, he had interest from teams in other countries, but still there was sadness in the way he slumped from the room.
Rhodes gave him a hug and said: “See you in a couple weeks.”
Massie smiled. He already knew a third of the players wearing caps and jerseys would not last more than a month past their 1 August reporting date. His phone will ring soon enough. He was sure of it.
“I’ll probably only miss the preseason,” he said.
Then he stepped out the doors of the grand ballroom, past the baccarat tables where some undrafted players had already stopped in attempt to change their luck. Behind him lingered the smiles and hopes of 20 players meeting coaches who already wanted to talk strategy. The executives were gone. The banners were coming down.
And what had to be the most improbable show in all of Las Vegas on all of Tuesday had come to an end.Google is getting into the restaurant delivery and home services businesses – nope, not in the U.S., but rather in parts of India. The company has quietly launched a new app called Areo which currently only works in Bangalore and Mumbai, India, allowing users to order meals from nearby restaurants or schedule appointments with local service professionals, including electricians, painters, cleaners, plumbers, and more.
The app was first spotted by The Android Soul blog, then confirmed with Google by The Economic Times.
Areo popped up on the Google Play Store on April 12, 2017, where the company briefly explains how the product works. The idea is to consolidate both food delivery and home services in a single app, where you can search for dishes or restaurants – even filter by vegetarian options – or book appointment times with local pros. Users can also pay in the app, the description indicates, via card, netbanking, or cash on delivery.
With Areo, Google is basically acting as the middleman – that is, it’s not running its own food delivery or home services business, but is rather working with service providers in the area.
Launch partners include UrbanClap and Zimmber on the home services side, and Freshmenu, Box8 and Faasos for food ordering, The ET reports. For payments, it’s working with TimesofMoney’s DirecPay, but not Android Pay, oddly, they also discovered.
Google said it isn’t yet charging its partners for the service, but rather characterized Areo as an experiment.
This isn’t Google’s first time in the delivery space, however. The company continues to operate its rapid-delivery service Google Express in the U.S., which delivers items from stores like Costco, Walgreens, Toys R Us, Petsmart, Whole Foods and several others. That service has had its ups and downs, however, as Google rethought the model. For example, last fall Google announced it was killing the part of the business that would deliver perishables.
Google also isn’t the only major tech company to try to make ordering home services something that can be done from your phone. Amazon, too, operates a Home Services business where customers can search and book with area pros for things like home theater installation, home improvement, assembly, house cleaning, lawn care, and more.
The Areo app is live on the Google Play Store, but only available in the above cities in India. Google has not announced its plans to bring it to other markets at this time.Final Oakland Raider Grades @ Kansas City Chiefs; Week 14:
Kansas City Chiefs 21 (10-3)
Oakland Raiders 13 (10-3)
In a cold winter night that resembled days of old, the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Raiders 21-13. Maybe traveling Raiders fans knew something when a flight from Oakland to Kansas City actually ran out of alcohol serving thirsty fans; this would be a tough one. The Raiders lost to the Chiefs and went from the #1 seed to the #5 seed in a NY minute.
http://www.sfgate.com/raiders/article/Airplane-Raiders-fans-Kansas-City-no-alcohol-10784175.php
Maybe though it was having 3 turnovers in KC territory and ending up with only 6 points from it. Maybe it was a bad day for the offense and Derek Carr. The Raiders found out living on the edge against bad to average teams is a lot easier than magical comebacks against a good team like the Chiefs.
Quarterback:
I thought annoying Cris Collinsworth was going to start a Gofundme account for Derek Carr’s pinkie. His over dramatics make Jack Buck seem pleasant. Carr was interviewed after the game by ESPN and others and he said he was fine. Funny how he was fine against Buffalo and now some fans have him near death. Carr said he wasn’t cold and his hand felt so good he didn’t even wear a glove. “I just had a bad game”.
Carr is now 1-5 against the Chiefs and in the last 2 games at Arrowhead he has been off target amazingly on 29 passes. This wasn’t a one time thing. Why do they have his number? In the first game the Chiefs blitzed constantly. In this game with Justin Houston back they didn’t have to. Since high school Carr’s weakness is throwing under pressure. For most of the year he hasn’t had any pressure. Kansas City’s pass rush had him off balance all night. Carr floated 2 long passes that were wide open; too much loft.
Since last year against Minnesota, some teams try to take away the deep ball by playing 2 deep zone; the safeties playing back to protect the CB’s. Kansas City has done that a lot against Carr. When you don’t have to blitz to get a pass rush it makes it even more successful.
GRADE: D-
Carr was 17 for 41 for 117 yards with no TD’s or interceptions. In 2 games against KC he has 1 TD pass. NOT a coincidence. There were several times when KC was a sucker for a screen and I thought Carr didn’t audible as well as he has in past games. Just a bad day all around.
Running Backs:
The second the Chiefs leader LB Derrick Johnson blew out his Achilles heel, the Raiders run game excelled. The Chiefs really don’t have a solid LB backup to replace Johnson and it showed. Latavius Murray ran for over 100 yards and the Raiders avg. 4.3 yards a carry for RB’s. Not a bad night with 135 yards.
Grade B-
The Raiders RB’s never got too involved in the passing game which hurt the Raiders. Part of that was Carr but it was an issue.
Offensive Line:
When I wrote last week that the Raiders offensive line was the co MVP of the NFL some laughed. No one’s laughing now. When they don’t protect Carr well, he struggles.
With Cris Collinsworth’s dramatics about Keleche Osemele not playing, you would have thought the Raiders should just forfeit and give up. The Raiders run game rushed for 135 yards without him. In the passing game at times they struggled protecting Carr which is job 1 for this unit and that’s where he was really missed. Carr was flushed out of the pocket for much of the night and was uncomfortable for most of the game.
Grade C
Just like in the first game, Carr was forced out of the pocket and had to throw quicker than he wanted to. Not a bad game on the ground but the pass protection didn’t cut it.
Wide Receivers:
The television media sure isn’t saying much, but on the long pass to Amari Cooper, many KC Chiefs fans online have said that it was obvious that the ball hit a wire coming from the tv camera that floats around the stadium for better views. They didn’t say a word during the game about it. Cooper said he was ready to catch it and then suddenly it just dropped straight down.
Overall a tough game. With Carr being off and catches being dropped, this was the worst passing game for the Raiders. Seth Roberts dropped 2 passes in the red zone and Crabtree and Cooper had their issues too. Bad game all around.
GRADE: D-
The worst game of the year for this unit.
Defensive Line:
Overall a good game. The Raiders obviously made it a point to stop the run and they did. Dan Williams clogged the middle and Justin Ellis even pitched in. Bruce Irvin did have his issues at times against the run but the Raiders pass rush was pretty good with Kahlil Mack causing another turnover.
Grade: B+
One of their better games. Even with the Chiefs quick passing game and getting only 1 sack on the night, the Raiders put pressure on Alex Smith often.
Linebackers:
Another rough game. The Raiders plan for TE Travis Kelce was to put a LB on him and then if needed have a Safety give help. The help was often not there or late and Kelce over matched the LB’s. They played better in the run game this week but part of that was the excellent play of the DL.
Grade C
The Raiders had to stop Kelce and they didnt.
Defensive Backs:
All year David Amerson has struggled against fast WR who can go deep. He was burned again this week. In the medium to short passes he’s good; the deep ball though; not so much.
TJ Carrie seems to have gotten his confidence back; he had 2 solid plays and a key interception that helped the Raiders get back into the game. The safeties again struggled with help on deep balls. Nate Allen’s angles were as bad as Nelson’s have been. Alex Smith was 3-3 on passes 30 yards or longer. Again, Alex Smith.
Grade C
The Raiders defense was torched in the 1st half but played better in the second including the DB’s.
Coaching:
The Raiders need to come out no huddle right from the beginning. Against Buffalo and in other comebacks, the no huddle has been highly successful. Why not use it early? You can’t expect to start slow every game and come back and win. Punting to Tyreek Hill at all was another head scratcher.
The worst blunder though was with 2:06 to go in the game with 3rd and 1 at the KC 14. Instead of running the ball the Raiders threw to Andre Holmes in the corner which was well defended. On the next play Austin Howard commits a penalty and now it’s 4th and 6. Pass defended to the left side; game over. The Chiefs without Johnson could not stop the run anymore and to not run the ball was a huge mistake. There was plenty of time and the Raiders had 2 time outs. The Raiders on their last drive ran the ball 6 times for 30 yards. You can’t run the ball twice for 1 yard?
Grade D+
All Jack Del Rio’s jokes about the Raiders penalties didn’t seem so funny anymore. Austin Howard’s penalty on the last drive really hurt them. They have to start better on offense; go no huddle immediately.
Special Teams:
Janikowski was perfect on the night but then it got ugly. Jack Del Rio admitted that the Raiders were trying to punt to the left but then Marquette King kicked the ball in the middle of the field and Tyreek Hill ran the punt back for a TD against only 4 defenders. Travis Kelce’s riding the horse dance in front of King was loved by the media and Chiefs fans alike. The Raiders gave up 172 yards in the return game and their own return game was invisible. Worst game of the year for this group.
Raiders long snapper Jon Condo had a poor snap that was muffed by Marquette King which cost the Raiders 3 points. King didn’t do a good job of securing it either.
Grade D
Janikowski good; everything else a train wreck.
Conclusion:
Alex Smith is 9-1 in games against the Raiders and Derek Carr is 1-5 against KC. Until the Raiders can solve the Chiefs quick passing game and keep defenders off of Carr, this trend will continue.
Why This Loss Isn’t as Bad As First Thought:
Dry your eyes Raider fans. Let’s look at why this loss isn’t as bad as you think.
First, to the fans that said it was too cold for the Raiders to play well, I’m sorry but that is ridiculous. Al Davis didn’t say “Just Win Baby Unless It’s Cold”. The weather was a steady 20F and if you can’t play in cold then you are not going to do much in the post season. KC torched the Raiders in the first half. Funny how the cold didn’t hurt them.
No, Derek Carr’s finger wasn’t falling off. He just had a bad game. Against Buffalo he was just fine. In Kansas City he was harassed all night; it happens. Even Carr said he was fine and they will bounce back.
DENVER: Denver has the hardest schedule in the NFL the last 4 weeks. They go to Tennessee Sunday and then host New England. They also have to go to Arrowhead on Christmas day and then host the Raiders on New Years day. Hard to think with their struggles with run defense and QB that they will sweep.
KANSAS CITY: KC has an easier road but they are not the same team without LB Derrick Johnson. If people think they are going to stop the run with backup LB’s and hybrid safeties playing in the middle, they are crazy.
The Chiefs have Tennessee and DeMarco Murray at home next week; they host Denver and then they are on the road to SD who were destroying them in week 1 until the Philip Rivers express swallowed the olive late in the game. If Denver concentrates on their run game, I see the Chiefs losing to Denver.
RAIDERS: The Raiders lick their wounds and travel to SD. They’ve won 3 in a row there and tend to score at will against the Chargers who have given up over 30 points in the last 3 meetings in San Diego. It won’t be easy but its very winnable. They then host the Colts who have little to no defense and a poor OL but they also have Andrew Luck who can carry them to a win against anyone. Then the game in Denver on New Years Day. Yes it will be cold.
Jims Jamz:
Obviously you go week by week (save the emails) but for the sake of looking ahead, Denver probably loses at least another game and the Raiders should win at least 2 of those games. Again SHOULD. I see the worst case scenario is that the Raiders finish 1 game behind or tied with KC. If that happens the Raiders will be in the playoffs. I don’t see KC sweeping but there is a possibility because they always play Denver tough and have already beaten them once on the road. I just think the Broncos will gut out a win with no Johnson at LB. They can’t look past the running game of Tennessee.
Outside of New England; just like most of the NFL; the rest of the AFC just isn’t very good. Houston is tied for first place in the AFC South at 6-6 with a -50 point differential!
Look for a big game from the Raiders in San Diego. They weren’t ready for prime time yet and that was a bad loss in KC, but a Chargers game is just what they need.
During times like these, fans either throw players under the bus or blindly make excuses. The Raiders will do neither. They will own up that they lost, and will come back with a great effort next week. If my scenario rings true and Denver beats KC, then the Raiders can win the west in Denver on the last game of the year. Wow won’t that be fun. Get ready for a wild ride. The fun is just beginning and with every week, comes a new story and scenario. Even after a bad loss, I’m sure for Raider fans this sure beats NFL draft talk this time of year.
AdvertisementsBudding fintech entrepreneurs can now embellish their academic credentials by enrolling on a financial technology applications course at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The seven-week Fintech Ventures course is being run by The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and the Finance Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management, in collaboration with the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Harvard Law School. It is being billed as the first graduate-level course in the US to focus on building innovative financial technology businesses.
“MIT has always been at the forefront in financial innovation and as financial technology is becoming more important in the financial world, we thought it was imperative to have a class covering this new trend,” says Antoinette Schoar, Michael M. Koerner (1949) professor of entrepreneurial finance, who co-leads the course together with Bill Aulet, managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.
Students enrolled in the class will get to explore different sub-industries within the fintech space, including consumer finance, payments, trading and cryptocurrencies. Students will be asked to develop business plans for their own ventures in teams that will be eligible to compete in the next MIT Fintech Competition in early April 2016.
“The class is part of a major effort to promote fintech on campus and the Competition will be a huge incentive for students to continue with their ideas,” says Carlos Altable, the fintech practice leader at the Martin Trust Center who helped to develop the course together with Schoar and Aulet.
MIT is not the only university to take a shine to fintech. In September, The University of Lodz in Poland welcomed the first 100 graduates to a new degree course in 'Digital Banking and Finance', sponsored by local direct bank mBank and Accenture. The UK's Open University has also teamed up with fintech trade body Innovate Finance to launch a 50-hour online fintech 101 programme for people interested in breaking into the space.CNN anchor Kate Bolduan confronted Representative Steve King (R-IA) with a very basic question this morning on New Day: "Do you just not like Latinos?"
The anchor framed her query around an exchange the Iowa congressman had with Republican strategist Ana Navarro on Meet the Press on Sunday.
King did not address Bolduan's query, responding, "I think it's pretty clear that Ana didn't veil her bias against me. She didn't address a single fact that I delivered. She simply hurled accusations and baseless allegations."
He went on to defend his track record in Congress, citing his record of passing amendments in the House of Representatives while avoiding the issue of his feelings towards Latinos.
Bolduan refused to let King dodge, telling the Congressman, "I don't want to linger on this too much, but you said Ana Navarro didn't answer any of your questions. You didn't really answer mine either... that your comments come across as a thinly veiled bias against Latinos."
King's response -- still not directly answering the question -- was to say that if people interpret his comments that way, "I'd like to have them explain it." He then reiterated his widely criticized statement warning against drug smuggling immigrants.
Bolduan deserves praise, not only for her follow up questions pressing the subject, but for broaching the subject of motivations. Too often reporters, especially on television, are loath to ask questions that cut to the core of the motivations of legislators. This is especially true when it comes to issues that cross difficult boundaries of race and class.
But Bolduan's question deserves to be at the center of the immigration debate as demagogues like Rush Limbaugh and other leading conservatives object to the bill with their usual vitriol.
On issues such as immigration and voting rights, there are clear racial implications to the public policy positions taken by our elected representatives regardless of party or ideology. Part of the media's role should be to unearth these motivations, even when forced to ask uncomfortable questions about bigotry. To not do this simply leaves viewers only partially informed.In an exclusive interview with The National, the top White House Middle East policy advisor, Philip Gordon, says the US and Saudi and other Arabian Gulf countries still share fundamental interests and a strong alliance.
Foreign Correspondent
NEW YORK // In 2009, Barack Obama met Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah near Riyadh to pay his respects in the “place where Islam began”, as US officials put it, before travelling to staunch ally Hosni Mubarak’s Cairo to deliver a historic address to the Muslim world.
After his predecessor George W Bush’s disastrous occupations in the region, Mr Obama’s tour of the Middle East was meant to change perceptions and signal a reset, with arrogance replaced by respect and dialogue. Mr Obama was even accused by some at home of kowtowing to Arab leaders at the expense of US interests.
But now, with the status quo of five years ago upended, the Middle East in turmoil and America seeking a new posture in the region, Mr Obama visits Saudi Arabia on Friday for the first time since 2009 to assuage deep-seated fears in Riyadh about Washington’s intentions.
In an exclusive interview with The National, the top White House Middle East policy adviser, Philip Gordon, said that while the US and Saudi and other Arabian Gulf countries may prefer different tactics when it comes to regional challenges, the allies still share fundamental interests and a strong alliance.
“It is perfectly reasonable…for good friends to sometimes have differences over approaches on issues, but the president will stress this with the king: we have much more in common when it comes to our interests than to differences,” Mr Gordon said.
“Defending allies from external aggression, ensuring the free flow of energy supplies, and confronting extremism and dealing with non proliferation – those are our core interests and we believe they are Saudi Arabia’s and our other friends’ in the Gulf core interests as well.”
But changing priorities for Washington in a time of budget cuts, surging domestic shale gas production and a desire to scale back its role in the region after more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq has stoked Saudi fears that their relationship, based on security and help containing Iran in exchange for energy production, was coming to an end.
A rift opened when Mr Obama supported the Arab Spring uprisings even as they brought Islamists to power, and peaked last fall when the US president decided not to punish Iranian ally Syria with airstrikes after a poison gas attack outside Damascus. Then Mr Obama announced that he would ease sanctions against Saudi archrival Iran as interim negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear programme were given a chance.
Mr Obama also laid out a new scaled-back Middle East doctrine for the US in October while administration officials spoke of a “rebalance” of US priorities to East Asia.
Saudi officials reacted with rare public criticism, accusing the
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last week, but canceled the interview. Mortensen talked about his sources, the reporting process and offered a few thoughts on the whole saga.
There’s a lot of information in the full transcript below, as transcribed by MassLive, but here are the three biggest takeaways:
— Mortensen admitted that while he could have a “better job vetting” the story, he doesn’t think misreporting that 11 footballs were underinflated by two pounds per square inch was a big issue. If he just reported the balls were “severely underinflated,” another term he used repeatedly in his reporting, it would have caused just as big an uproar.
— He thinks the entire Wells Report is a joke and that Tom Brady doesn’t deserve a suspension.
“I was also on the record as saying there never should have been an independent investigation. There should have been a review, get it to the competition committee, slap people on the wrist and move on. But that’s not what the league chose to do.”
— He says he’s spoken with Patriots owner Robert Kraft and that Kraft isn’t upset with Mortensen, but with the NFL.
“And to be honest with you, Robert Kraft and I have had a conversation since then. It’s going to remain confidential. But it’s basic gist is: My fight, our fight, is not with you. It’s with the NFL. We have no beef with you. We have a beef with the NFL.”
Mortensen goes into more detail about why he canceled on WEEI, how he feels he never implicated the Patriots, and what he’s most frustrated about with this entire situation. It’s worth a read.
Dan Le Batard: “Unpleasant, right? The last few months being in the middle of all this?”
Chris Mortensen: “Yeah, because as you know, in terms of strictly reporting, the reporter is never supposed to be part of the story and evolve into semi-centerpiece of the story, although I really don’t believe I am. It’s kind of evolved that way because of the war between the Patriots and the NFL. So, it’s a very awkward position to be in. But they always say ‘big boy football,’ (so) ‘big boy journalism’ and that’s what I do for a living.”
Le Batard: “You’ve got people in Boston speculating who your source is or was. What do you do with that speculation?”
Mortensen: “You cannot touch it. The reason why you create trust with sources is you don’t even go there. And it could be very unfair to the person identified by somebody as a source. And by the way, we have sources. It’s not a single source at the time. What you do is you have to keep your distance. That’s how you keep your credibility with your sources anyway — just to maintain that level of trust. You’re never going to bend in terms of identifying them. Somebody could be taking a wild guess, which I think they are here. And I go back, really what we’re talking about, is a three or four day period of reporting. The game itself was on a Sunday, right? Unbeknownst to me, those footballs were taken at halftime and measured because of a complaint that took place in the first half. Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis media reported that there’s an investigation into under inflated footballs and there’s silence for about two days, and I’m getting ready to go to Arizona for the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl, which we happen to have on ESPN, and all I can tell you is my inquiry was focused just like this with somebody on the night I was looking forward to leaving the next morning to get out of the winter and into the sun. (The inquiry) was, ‘How many footballs are we talking about here? Three or four?’ And what came back to me was 11. And that was a significant number. That was my focus. Because quite frankly, I didn’t even know what the PSI regulations were at that time, but when I heard 11 footballs were under inflated, then I got on the phone and talked to three different people and one of them said … 11 footballs was consistently verified, as it was in the Wells Report, by the way. The PSI level, one of my sources said ‘two pounds under.’ And another said ‘significantly under inflated.’ I used both those terms. Two pounds under and significantly under inflated. Who those sources are will forever remain in my confidence.”
Le Batard: “What needs to be corrected about the report? What was wrong about the report?”
Mortensen: “What needs to be corrected has been corrected. I didn’t correct it on Twitter, which was a mistake by the way. Twitter, I’m still trying to figure it out. The bottom line is, as the Wells Report showed, there were not 11 balls that were all two PSI under the 12.5 minimum requirement. Now let me say this: And I’ve done this before. I can understand after reading the Wells Report, because we had silence for three months, that could somebody generalize two pounds under based on the range of 12.5 to 13.5? Yeah, they could have. Now that’s my job to do a better vetting job as a journalist. But let me ask you this question: If I had simply reported, which I did include in the original report, that 11 footballs were found to be significantly under inflated, what would the reaction have been? The same, I think. Which is the descriptive narrative that I actually did change it to and correct it. What I didn’t do is I didn’t write a formal, something on Twitter to say, ‘OK we’re getting conflicting information. Leave it at significantly under inflated.’ And then Roger Goodell’s appealed decision, if you read it, the 20-page decision in which he upheld the suspension of Brady, you get the idea that they are going with the gauge that said he had five balls in the 10 range and four in the lower 11 range and another couple maybe in the middle 11 range. And oh by the way, in my original reporting, (I) never implicated Tom Brady. Never implicated the Patriots. I did ask the question if Walt Anderson, the referee, followed the protocol and the league assured me he had. But the first person who really mentioned Tom Brady in this whole matter happened to be Bill Belichick in that Thursday press conference: ‘If you want to ask about the footballs, ask Tom.'”
Le Batard: “Do you feel betrayed by your source or sources, Mort?”
Mortensen: “Listen, one of the sources I did not feel betrayed by I think I’ve got a pretty good understanding of what happened. I feel like I probably could have done a better job of vetting, but I didn’t have access to that person for that long a period, but I did on a couple of others. For me, it’s a matter of, ‘When you say two pounds under, what are you talking about? Are you generalizing a range of two pounds under?’ And oh by the way, in the NFL letter of notification to the Patriots, when they notify them ‘Hey we’re looking into this,’ Dave Gardi, who is part of the football operations for the NFL, said one ball was as low as 10.1 PSI. Turns out there was no ball 10.1 PSI. And so therefore, I think there was some inaccurate data at the time that was passed on to me, but I also talked to other sources who verified the number that I was focused on. The number of footballs. Eleven was a significant number, and ‘significantly underinflated’ was a significant description. And so therefore do I feel betrayed? No. And by the way, this whole concept of being deliberately lied to, that means somebody called me up. When anybody calls me up and volunteers significant information, I always get suspicious of motive. That’s a red flag right there. As I said you go through that process and you review your own work. And I’ve done that. And I’ve actually talked about it on more than one occasion, but for some reason people think that I’ve just gone into a cave. If I go quiet after the NFL Draft, I go quiet. That’s usually what I do.”
Le Batard: “Mort, why did you cancel on WEEI?”
Mortensen: “Well first of all I’ve done WEEI before. Did something with Christian Fauria before the Super Bowl talking about this issue. And the other thing is the day before, listen they text me and said ‘Do you have time — 7:45 in the morning?’ I happen to be doing a lot of ESPN work, working on Russell Wilson contracts, a lot of things. And I wasn’t on the internet reading and somebody said, ‘Hey there’s a story out there that you’re going to talk about this for the first time,’ which was not true, by the way. I wasn’t talking about it for the first time. And Adam Schefter, my partner at ESPN, one of my partners in journalism there, had been ambushed a little bit. And I said, ‘you know what? I’ve got enough to work on tomorrow.’ And all I did was text the night before and said ‘Look, you made a mistake. You’ve drummed up business as if this is the first time I’ve talked about this, which it isn’t. And I said I’m not going to let you or Mr. Kraft or anybody do any more misreporting about this thing, so don’t call.’ And to be honest with you, Robert Kraft and I have had a conversation since then. It’s going to remain confidential. But it’s basic gist is: My fight, our fight, is not with you. It’s with the NFL. We have no beef with you. We have a beef with the NFL.”
Le Batard: “There’s a perception out there that perhaps you were used by the NFL to launch a smear campaign on either the Patriots or Brady. Is that a fair perception?”
Mortensen: “No, not at all. Nobody from the NFL ever identified Brady as being the target of an investigation in that first week we’re talking about, within three days of the game. Brady’s never mentioned. The Patriots are never mentioned. And the Wells investigation was not launched because of my reporting. There’s no evidence of that. I’ve checked on that. So therefore it’s hard to feel I was used. And Ted Wells himself in a conference call said, ‘It’s ludicrous to think that the league would want to smear its face of the league in Tom Brady with this type of campaign.’ To me, it’s an insult a little bit to the intelligence. But I do know the Patriots believe that, by the way. That is their belief, and therefore obviously their fanbase believes that, too…
“Sometimes, as time passes on, the narrative — that’s the popular word — that everything changes where people think, like I say, I never even identified Brady. I never had NFL sources say Brady was the target.”
Le Batard: Is there a need to retract the original story?
Mortensen: “I already had changed the descriptive tone. And I did with our news desk, pretty early, to ‘significantly underinflated.’ And I will never retract that. The two pounds PSI, that was obviously an error and clarified and corrected. If you want to call it a retraction…what I didn’t do was retract it on Twitter. And that was probably technically a mistake.”
Le Batard: “I want to know a person you are angriest at right now … within this story.”
Mortensen: “I’m going to stay level-headed on this one. …Well listen, all I know is they had an investigation and I had nothing to do with the investigation. They made their findings. I was also on the record as saying there never should have been an independent investigation. There should have been a review, get it to the competition committee, slap people on the wrist and move on. But that’s not what the league chose to do.”
Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@ESPNNFLIslamabad, Oct 10 (ANI): Pakistanis remain deeply divided over whether the war against Islamist extremism should be fought by Pakistan alone, with US assistance or not at all. But in the midst of a seemingly unending series of suicide bomb attacks across the country, the public debate over terrorism appears to be taking on a new sense of urgency.
On Thursday, Pakistani lawmakers met for a second day with the countrys top security officials in a rare, closed-door parliamentary session devoted to the violence that has gripped the country, the Washington Post reported.
The unusual move follows a sharp rise in the number of US missile strikes on alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in northwestern Pakistan, near the Afghan border, the paper said.
Two missiles, reportedly fired by a US Predator drone, crashed into houses in Pakistans remote tribal areas on Thursday evening and killed at least six, Pakistani officials said.
Officials in Washington, while not officially acknowledging a US role, said the attacks are needed to combat insurgents whom the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to target.
But the strikes have inflamed tensions locally and have drawn rebukes from Pakistans fledgling civilian government.
We really have to define the enemy. Im seeing a divergence in the enemies of the US and the enemies of Pakistan, said opposition lawmaker Dastigir Khan.
The US is not hitting the targets that Pakistan thinks need to be hit. There might be some sort of overlap, but mostly the US enemies are different from Pakistans. Islamabad is focused on these homegrown Taliban, whereas the US has different targets in mind, he said.
The rugged, ungoverned borderland between Afghanistan and Pakistan is a safe haven for Islamist insurgents from around the world. US officials believe the area to be the hiding place of al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, among others.
Nearly three weeks after suicide bombers killed more than 50 people and injured scores in an attack at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, few here believe a solution to the security dilemma will be found quickly or easily.
Both the United Nations and the British Embassy recently ordered staff to send their families home and placed all of their employees on high alert.
That sort of concern appears to be increasing for many Pakistanis, not just foreigners. But amid the fears, government officials have been conspicuously absent from public view.
The silence and lack of a coherent government response to the bombings have frustrated many Pakistanis. The multimillion-dollar ad campaign that calls on the country to Say No to Terrorism is only one sign of the dire turn in public perceptions of security. (ANI)Winter Park and Amtrak officials met in Denver Monday to discuss the return of the venerable Ski Train for three months next winter.
The Denver-owned resort revived the historic rail link for a weekend in March to celebrate its 75th anniversary, selling out two trains and stirring hopes that Amtrak, Winter Park and rail-owner Union Pacific could hammer out a deal for regular weekend service next season.
“There’s a lot to go over logistically,” Winter Park spokesman Steven Hurlbert said. “There’s a huge difference between running this for a weekend and running it for three months.”
The two Ski Train trips in March sold out quickly. About 900 people rode the train those two days. The train ran between Denver and Winter Park every ski season from 1940 to 2009, when then-owner Philip Anschutz closed the operation citing rising costs.
The city of Denver supports the Ski Train. U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner have joined the chorus supporting seasonal rail service between Denver and Winter Park. The hope is for two, maybe three trips a week in January, February and March next year.
Amtrak and the resort are preparing a proposal for Union Pacific, which owns the tracks between Denver and the ski area.
“We want to make sure we have all our ducks in a row before we approach them,” Hurlbert said.
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, [email protected] or twitter.com/jasonblevinsTwo years ago, I printed up Chubb’s 10k and started reading. I’d become interested in the property and casualty insurance industry through a number of conversations with my father-in-law, who is a commercial broker. While I’d thought a bit about health insurance before that, it was mostly in the context of my own access to it, and the never-ending debate around Obamacare.
As I read Chubb’s financials, industry reports, Warren Buffet’s letters, and various blogs I came to realize that the insurance industry was both far more complex and rife with opportunity than I’d assumed. While I’ve always been attracted to fractured and regulated markets, nothing quite mimics insurance in its scope, nuance, and size. I wasn’t the only person thinking about this, as the number of recent insurance tech companies indicates.
Problems
Here are a few core problems built into the structure of insurance today.
Data
Insurance is fundamentally a data problem. Insurance carriers set their rates based on actuarial models designed to predict the likelihood of future events. Without access to oracular powers, these models rely on the best available data when they are built and as they are updated.
This data is necessarily incomplete. It only becomes more incomplete as time goes on and more events pile up in a very large and unordered world. For instance, a home insurer would be able to better predict the likelihood of fire if it knew the details of every overloaded power strip in every home in its portfolio. It does not.
The issues faced by carriers with data extends to the setup of carrier/broker relationships. These relationships necessarily involve lots of paper because there are few simple systems that easily integrate the two sides. This means that information about customers is often relayed poorly, misunderstood, or simply ignored.
Structures
Trying to figure out all of the different players in the industry is difficult at best.
When it comes to the distribution side, I can’t do it any better than Kyle did here: https://medium.com/@kylenakatsuji/so-your-startup-wants-to-sell-insurance-a0167581f7b1.
However, there are even more players involved behind the scenes which are important to understand if you want to uncover opportunities:
Reinsurer – There are companies that purchase insurance risk from carriers. They are critical to the system because insurers will often find that they are overexposed to a given risk (like that presented by hurricanes in the Gulf Coast) and will need to offload some of that risk. Reinsurers traditionally purchase risk from carriers and from other reinsurers. Reinsurers have also begun expanding the types of risk that they will purchase and the stage at which they’ll do it, sometimes acting nearly identically to carriers.
ILS buyers – ILS are Insurance Linked Securities. The most of famous of these are CAT (catastrophe) bonds. These are created by insurers and reinsurers who wish to syndicate risk beyond the insurance world. This is done by creating a bond which pays an interest rate and defaults in the case of particular event. The market for these is currently fairly small, and the bonds are generally purchased by hedge funds. This market will likely expand over time as capital continues to look for yield.
Fronting carriers – These are carriers that form partnerships with other entities, like MGAs (Managing General Agent, defined in Kyle’s post above), wherein the MGA writes risk using the regulatory framework of the fronting carrier, and then immediately sells the risk to a third party. This structure allows entities that could not otherwise sell insurance – whether through business choice, lack of regulatory capital, or lack of expertise necessary to form a carrier – do so as long as the fronting carrier agrees.
Fronting carriers are not capitalized in the same way that large carriers are, as they don’t hold risk on their own books. They generally collect a fee – for the use of the regulatory framework – from the entity finding and pricing risk.
The complexity of the structure of the Insurance market creates 3 other problems, below:
Value chain
Each of the players in the structure needs to get paid. Premiums are the primary source of revenue moving into the system, which means that every dollar paid in by customers has to be split between all of the value providers. After paying for broker commissions, fronting costs, reinsurance, customer service, claims processing, there’s often around 50% of the original premium dollar left to pay claims – which is the primary purpose of an insurance company.
Splitting a dollar in this many directions means that the individual players need to cut costs as much as possible, which usually means worse service for customers.
Fragmentation
Insurance carriers are fragmented at the highest level because of jurisdictional (state or country) differences in regulations. This often requires different approaches in different markets. Insurance carriers usually start in one geography with a few core lines and then expand coverage along both measures as they grow. Over time this means that you have multiple companies offering similar products in similar areas.
The same thing happens to the ecosystem around each carrier such that there’s no natural limit to the number of entities operating in a given market.
Confusion
The idea of insurance is complicated to begin with. The way it’s operated at scale is even more complicated, and only well understood by people who spend their lives doing it. Consumers generally purchase insurance when they’re forced to (home, auto, health) or guilted into doing so (life insurance). The only other time they interact with their insurance is when filing a claim, which is usually at a time of huge stress and time pressure. At that point, they usually deal with a customer service team that’s been cut to a bare minimum because of the value chain problem. This is a terrible dynamic that results in confusion, anger, and massive miscommunication.
Incentives
The insurance industry is built on mitigating downside risk. Any new thing that they want to do comes with a thicket of regulatory requirements and considerations. Combine this with the large size of existing players, and you get a reinforced innovator’s dilemma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma). Notwithstanding the fact that there are clear benefits to being the first to do certain things – Progressive dominated the first wave of online acquisition and built a big company as a result – the downsides of a failed new thing are more immediately felt and painful.
There’s also a regulatory requirement in insurance that forces carriers to publicly file new policies. That allows competitors to copy most of the mechanics and terms for a new product. While carriers don’t have to file their exact pricing mechanisms – which will often determine if a product succeeds or fails – knowing that anything successful will soon have very similar competitors which will learn from your mistakes and then drive up acquisition costs creates a disincentive to being the first to offer something.
Differentiation
To the consumer, nearly every player at a given level of the structure looks the same because they rarely offer unique features or functions. Most carriers are represented by multiple brokers, who generally represent multiple carriers. This means that businesses have to fight one another on acquisition spend and brand building rather than meaningful product differentiation. This leads to higher costs and lower margins.
Speed
Insurance companies are slow. This is true of carriers and of brokers (on balance). Information still moves back and forth across the system via paper and pdfs. There are multiple players involved in almost every transaction, and the risk of getting something wrong typically outweighs the goodness that results from faster service.
Auto is a bit different because of a) the similarity of risk and b) the presence of vertically integrated players like GEICO who have made speed a critical selling point and pulled the market with them.
Opportunities
Given these problems, there are a lot of places to build startups. Here are a few thoughts I’ve had, and areas I’d like to see startups attacking.
Commercial P&C (Property and Casualty) Carrier
This is something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. The way that insurance for businesses is priced and sold is based on a paper world with little technology, or where technology is ancillary to the core business of the company.
Increasingly, companies store information in programmatically accessible ways. This means that if you had clever ways to ingest information about those businesses, you could price their risk more accurately, more frequently, and more transparently.
A good place to start this business is with startups. They’re small customers, but are not particularly well served by the market. They also grow quickly, so capturing a large portion of them will lead to big customers over time.
Commercial P&C Broker/MGA
This is similar to the carrier idea, but without the regulations or regulatory capital requirements which create a barrier to rapid scale. Brokers (or MGAs) can also produce more leverage from their own technology use than carriers because their revenues are more sensitive to better operations than are a carrier’s.
However, by moving away from being a carrier, this model loses control over the policies it would issue. I don’t actually think this is a big problem, at least at the start, since existing ISO policies are good enough as a start.
Personal Cyber Insurance
Something I’ve only recently started thinking about. Most personal cyber insurance is built around identity theft. While this is certainly a problem, it ignores the extent to which things like ransomware can disrupt someone’s life. Policies that cover these things are usually reserved for high net worth individuals, but that seems short-sighted.
As more things in our lives become hackable, we’ll need more help protecting ourselves from those things. Existing companies that focus on homeowner’s insurance are unlikely to understand these issues well enough to create great products.
Auto for autonomous vehicles
Judging from conversations, this is very much on the minds of the existing auto insurance players. It’s unclear who will hold the risk for autonomous driving, or how to structure the related insurance policies. There are solutions to be built here both on the policy/product side, on the monitoring and claims side, and probably within the distribution and sales channels.
Insurance policies as code
It’s strange to me that the core of insurance – the policies sold by carriers and purchased by consumers – are virtually impossible to understand for most consumers. They’re a mess of riders, subclauses, and references to other documents. While policy owners generally know the headlines of any major policy (generally the amount of coverage they’re purchasing and the price), the specifics of coverage are opaque.
This seems like the root of the belief that insurance is an adversarial contest between insurer and insured, which plays out in contentious claims processes and disgruntled customers. The carriers see the structure as necessary to cover their own asses, and the customers feel compelled to purchase because they lack other options.
In reality, the policy is a system of nested if/then statements and is well suited to being expressed in code and exposed to customers as a simulation. This would allow customers to explicitly model various scenarios to learn about what they’d be covered for, and what would fall outside the bounds of coverage. It would also function as a transparent tool for claims agents at carriers to show a customer why/why not a given event is covered.
Initially, this might just seem like a nice to have, but done properly this can either be the basis of a much simpler way to sell (and upsell) insurance, or the core of an industry standard software suite designed to make insurance companies competitive on customer experience. Implemented properly and at scale, it would even give carriers a way to rapidly assess the risk of certain events, sell off risk that met certain criteria, and design products to fill the now apparent holes in their offerings.
Misconceptions
Insurance people = dumb
The largest misconception I’ve seen in insurance startups is the assumption that people working in the insurance industry are either bad at their jobs or dumb. I’ve written about this before as a general case (http://www.aaronkharris.com/presumption-of-stupitidy), but it seems to happen an awful lot in insurance. It’s also flat out wrong. If you spend time talking to actuaries or others within carriers, you’ll find a group of smart people trying to solve hard problems.
Also, there’s Warren Buffett.
Founders I’ve met with this view have usually grafted the systemic issues of the insurance system onto individual actors within it. While the result is the same, understanding the difference means that you can build businesses around convincing players in the system to act differently so long as you can navigate the systemic issues.
Carriers = the hard part
When I first started looking at insurance, I quickly gravitated to the idea of spinning up a new carrier for a number of the problems I noticed. I did this for three reasons:
Carriers have control over the largest number of pieces in the insurance space. Carriers can invest their float. I like investing, and I like the idea of having billions of dollars to put to work. Carriers are hard to set up because of the capital required and the complexity of the regulatory structures involved.
1 is right. 2 is accurate, but it turns out that investing float and earning a company level return off of it is much harder than it initially appears given the size of float pools and the current low interest rate world. 3 was a very important red herring.
It turns out that when you talk to experienced insurance people, they don’t think of setting up a new carrier as particularly difficult, just time/resource consuming. For most of the insurance world, the hardest and most important thing to find is effective distribution and customer acquisition. By focusing on the carrier I was focusing on the problem I thought existed within insurance, not the actual source of (initial) value that needed to be created. As I dug deeper, I realized that much (though not all) of what needs to be done to make insurance better for consumers can be done from a level or three removed from the carrier.
That’s good news for startups, because insurance brokers and MGAs can generally move faster and operate at higher margins than do carriers. They can also focus on one single thing: acquiring customers rather than spending an inordinate amount time and energy on regulatory issues.
Complex = impossible
Starting an insurance business is daunting. The complexity is a significant barrier, but it’s also a significant moat for the startups that manage to get over it. One thing that founders and investors need to realize when investing in the space is that the time scale is likely different than that of companies in other spaces.
Startups that do manage to build the necessary expertise to create new insurance companies, combined with investors patient enough to wait and support the time needed to do so, will create category-defining companies. The insurance industry is too large and built on systems too old for any outcome other than massive change.
Thanks to Jared Friedman, Craig Cannon, and Nick Shalek for reading this over and making it better.
Notes
Here’s the most recent one: http://s1.q4cdn.com/677769242/files/doc_financials/2016/Q4/Chubb-Limited-2016-Form-10-K.pdf↩
I’m limiting myself to the property and casualty market. Health is a whole different kind of mess that I haven’t spent nearly as much time researching.↩
Because carriers have to publicly file any product they offer with the state, other carriers can easily offer the same.↩
GEICO is a carrier that owns its own brokers, so information can move through it much more easily.↩
Carrier revenue is almost entirely determined by whether or not they generate an underwriting profit/loss and by returns generated on float.↩
ISO (http://www.verisk.com/iso.html) is a subsidiary of a larger company called Verisk that provides information about insurance risk and other technical services for carriers. ISO has a repository of standard policies and pricing tools that cover a broad range of risks and can be quickly reused by carriers.↩
Berkshire Hathaway is an insurance company that uses its float to purchase other companies.↩A Hamden teen has been charged in a series of home invasions and burglaries.
Two upstate New York men, one who prosecutors say is a member of the Ku Klux Klan, are accused of conspiring to develop a portable X-ray machine capable of emitting lethal doses of radiation that they intended to use against Muslims and "enemies of Israel."
Eric Feight, 54, and Glendon Crawford, 49, were arrested in the FBI sting operation.
Prosecutors said the two men wanted the device to be used on unwitting victims who were anti-Israel, and that they had scouted potential targets. The men allegedly said they wanted to cause harm to people who would not realize they had been targeted until days after exposure.
Crawford allegedly sought financing from the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina, and approached two Jewish organizations saying he wanted help targeting Muslims. The two Jewish groups both called the FBI and the investigation began.
“This case demonstrates how we must remain vigilant to detect and stop potential terrorists, who so often harbor hatred toward people they deem undesirable," said U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian.
Investigators said the two men developed a device that could activate an X-ray machine from nearly a half-mile away. They were allegedly trying to obtain more equipment at the time of their arrest. Officials stress the device used in the sting was not real and never any danger to the public.
The head of the New York State Police referred to the case as one that revealed “unthinkable plotting and planning.”
Feight and Crawford are charged with material support for terrorism, which carries up to 15 years in prison. Crawford is from Galway, N.Y., and Feight is from Hudson.
Information on their attorneys was not immediately available.(
The vote comes after an earlier measure was passed that authorized city leaders to expand existing water supplies. Water fluoridation was not a part of that measure, so when it came up as a proposal, many citizens vehemently opposed it. Alan Pryor, the leader of Davis Citizens Against Fluoridation, said, "It's truly a moral issue. People were told we would get pure, clean water. They did not give consent to mass medication."
Councilman Dan Wolk was the only person to vote in favor of fluoridation.
According to preliminary estimates, fluoridating the city's planned water treatment plant could cost $301,000 a year before operating costs. The cost to add fluoride to the city's six deep wells would cost as much as $2 million, according to some estimates, while operation and maintenance costs were expected to be around $181,000. All that is in addition to the adverse effects that fluoride can have on health and the environment: it can lead to fluorosis, and water going down the drain or in people's yards can contaminate the environment with fluoride.
Jeff Boone, a managing director at Davis-based small business lender California Statewide CDC and fluoridation opponent, pledged $10,000 toward the purchase of a mobile dental van to help protect children's oral health in the city without subjecting its citizens to harmful forced medication with chemicals in their drinking water. http://www.sacbee.com ) The City Council of Davis, California, voted 4-1 on Tuesday to reject a proposal to fluoridate the city's drinking waterThe vote comes after an earlier measure was passed that authorized city leaders to expand existing water supplies. Water fluoridation was not a part of that measure, so when it came up as a proposal, many citizens vehemently opposed it. Alan Pryor, the leader of Davis Citizens Against Fluoridation, said, "It's truly a moral issue. People were told we would get pure, clean water. They did not give consent to mass medication."Councilman Dan Wolk was the only person to vote in favor of fluoridation.According to preliminary estimates, fluoridating the city's planned water treatment plant could cost $301,000 a year before operating costs. The cost to add fluoride to the city's six deep wells would cost as much as $2 million, according to some estimates, while operation and maintenance costs were expected to be around $181,000. All that is in addition to the adverse effects that fluoride can have on health and the environment: it can lead to fluorosis, and water going down the drain or in people's yards can contaminate the environment with fluoride.Jeff Boone, a managing director at Davis-based small business lender California Statewide CDC and fluoridation opponent, pledged $10,000 toward the purchase of a mobile dental van to help protect children's oral health in the city without subjecting its citizens to harmful forced medication with chemicals in their drinking water.AUGUSTA, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — Six Maine military veterans are waiting for a federal judge in Portland to decide if they will be allowed to sure the Veterans Administration.
Those veterans all say they had foot or ankle surgery at the Togus VA hospital, and that the doctor botched the operations. That doctor left in 2008, but the veterans say they still suffer pain and other problems.
Army veteran Steve Turner of Topsham isn’t involved in the lawsuit but said Wednesday he also suffered at the hands of the same doctor.
Turner told NEWS CENTER his foot was operated on in early 2008 because of injuries sustained during his 13 years in the Army. He said there were problems soon after the first surgery and the doctor did a second operation. He said the foot then became badly infected and swollen and that only an emergency operation by a different doctor saved his foot.
Turner said it still causes him pain. He said the VA contacted him in 2010 and arranged a meeting, at which time it apologized, and blamed the doctor.
“They were very apologetic about what happened to me,” he said, “and went step by step what [the doctor’s] discrepancies were during surgery, what he should have done., and not done.”
Steve Turner (R)
VA officials on Wednesday would not answer questions about the situation, referring all inquiries to the U.S. attorney’s office.
In 2014, NEWS CENTER reported on a similar case involving a Hampden man, who said he had also suffered pain and continuing problems because of a failed ankle surgery s by the same doctor. At that time, VA Togus director Ryan Lilly confirmed it had been dealing with a number of foot and ankle surgeries that had turned out badly.
Lilly said the staff had been alerted to the problems by patients, had contacted the doctor’s patients to apologize and offer to pay for whatever further care was required.
Lilly was asked how many patients suffered problems. “We’re talking less than 100,” he replied at that time.
Neither the VA nor the U.S. Attorney would say Thursday how many total patients were affected.
Steve Turner said he does not blame the VA, but blames the doctor, and would “like to sue him personally,” if he could.
Lawyers knowledgeable about the case told NEWS CENTER the doctor cannot be sued personally because he was working for the VA at the time.
That doctor is believed to be living in the New York City area, where an internet search showed he has been working at a medical practice. A receptionist at that practice said Wednesday the doctor no longer worked there.
The lawsuits by the six veterans are aimed at the VA, seeking permission to sue the government even though Maine’s statute of limitations has expired. Lawyers said oral arguments are scheduled for later this month and a ruling could
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should be able to know who’s driving this."
NBC News requested comments from the departments of Health, Labor, or Treasury and did not receive replies. A Department of Justice spokesperson said they had no updates to provide on the issue.A homeless man sleeps while a subway rider waits for the train at a subway stop in Boston. - Darren McCollester/Newsmakers
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How do you raise the standard of living in the poorest neighborhoods in the country?
That’s what community developers, typically nonprofits that build and finance affordable housing, have tried to do over the last few decades. And yet, despite more than $100 billion going into affordable housing and commercial projects every year, many of these communities remain stuck in poverty. A big part of the problem is a lack of cash, specifically the kind of private investment that attracts new residents and jobs.
Terri Englen and her husband Joseph, both 68, know what it’s like to live in tough neighborhoods. For more than four decades, the couple has lived in Chelsea, Massachusetts, right across the harbor from Boston. The location drew them there, close enough for the working couple to get to and from their jobs.
But for years their neighborhood, about eight square blocks, stood out for all the wrong reasons. Abandoned cinder block, ramshackle factories at the bottom of the hill, over-crowded multifamily homes at the top and in the middle an illegal garbage dump.
“People would go by in their cars and throw whatever, anything,” Terry said.
But in 2006, things began to change. Developers built affordable apartments. In 2010, they converted a historic factory into market-rate lofts that back then went for about $1,400 per month and today run nearly $1,800. The area even got a name: the Box District.
The neighborhood improved, but was still rough around the edges, said Maggie Church, senior adviser at Conservation Law Foundation, a New England community group.
“It really [wasn’t] enough to move the market to the point where investment is available and conventionally used,” she said.
This problem has stumped community developers for decades. But two local nonprofits think they’ve hit on something: They’ve created a private equity fund.
“We’re trying to foster and promote you can make a reasonable return and have a positive impact in these neighborhoods,” said Joe Flatley, president of the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corp.
Since 2013, this group, working with the Conservation Law Foundation, has raised $22 million from investors like philanthropists, socially minded banks and a hospital, the Boston Medical Center, for residential and commercial projects around Boston.
Their secret: minimize risk.
The Healthy Neighborhoods Equity Fund takes money from philanthropists, the investors less concerned with profit, and bundles that with money from the others. If the fund underperforms, philanthropies take the hit first, making the investment less risky.
It’s still a gamble. Flatley said that’s why they pick their locations that on paper have the best chance to succeed.
“Places that you can walk, where you are accessible to transit, where there are places to shop for food,” he said.
Because the fund’s goal is to create stable mixed-income communities, not expensive neighborhoods for tattooed hipsters, HNEF also looks for well-managed affordable housing and buy-in from current residents.
The Box District fits that description.
In 2015, the fund invested in the construction of a new 96-unit apartment building primarily with market-rate units.
“We love it here,” said 26-year-old Flavia Wilson Janzen, a working professional who recently moved with her husband from Minneapolis into a one-bedroom in that building. They enjoy the mixed-income vibe.
“I can walk down the street with my dog and go to the park and there’s kids everywhere. You know, it’s like, it does feel more like a community,” she said.
Another step HNEF has taken to attract private capital to these neighborhoods is by focusing on health.
Not the doctor, health care clinic kind, but a more expansive definition that includes safety and affordable food.
“Those are things that aren’t typically thought of as health, and yet we know they are the keys to being healthy,” said Dr. Megan Sandel, a fund investor from Boston Medical Center.
The fund plans to issue report cards after five and 10 years tracking whether rates of chronic disease and mental health have improved with the investment.
That’s all in the future. Chelsea resident Terri Englen is focused on today.
“As far as the environment right now, it’s not like it used to be,” she said.
One of the most obvious signs of change: The dump is gone. The Englens and other neighbors cleaned it up to “beautify the place” Englen said. In its place they planted sunflowers.
“You would not think driving down the street you would see sunflowers,” she said. “It kind of surprises you when you go around the bend.”
“I think the best compliment I can give is not to say how much your programs have taught me (a ton), but how much Marketplace has motivated me to go out and teach myself.” – Michael in Arlington, VA As a nonprofit news organization, what matters to us is the same thing that matters to you: being a source for trustworthy, independent news that makes people smarter about business and the economy. So if Marketplace has helped you understand the economy better, make more informed financial decisions or just encouraged you to think differently, we’re asking you to give a little something back. Become a Marketplace Investor today – in whatever amount is right for you – and keep public service journalism strong. We’re grateful for your support. BEFORE YOU GOTV Reviews All of our TV reviews in one convenient place.
For almost a decade Craig Ferguson hosted one of the most secretly subversive shows on TV—a late night network talk show that openly flaunted its insubordination. Defined equally by its juvenile sense of humor (like a cussing bunny puppet) and its penchant for intellectualism (the show won a Peabody for an episode featuring Archbishop Desmond Tutu discussing apartheid), The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson reflected its host’s humanistic point of view as well as his cheeky, punk rock demeanor.
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Fans of Ferguson’s Late Late Show will feel right at home with his new History Channel panel show, Join Or Die With Craig Ferguson. Each episode opens with a meandering monologue almost identical to the one Ferguson used to deliver on CBS every night. From there the rest of the half-hour show leans more heavily on the British chat show format than the American talk show one; Ferguson sits down with three guests—generally an expert and two comedians/celebrities—to discuss a historical topic. Presented with six options competing for a particular superlative (tonight “History’s Biggest Political Blunder” and “History’s Worst Medical Advice”), the panel narrows the field down to two contenders and the studio audience votes on the winner. But while Ferguson effortlessly transports his impish sense of humor to this new format, Join Or Die struggles to create a compelling reason for viewers to tune in each week.
Ferguson has described Join Or Die as his attempt to have “a genuine discussion which could be in turns funny, moving, shocking, interesting, flippant, frivolous and deadly serious.” Right now, however, Join Or Die is too focused on being funny, flippant, and frivolous to fulfill the rest of its mission statement. To be sure the show offers more thoughtful historical discussions than say, History Channel perennials like Pawn Stars or Ancient Aliens, but viewers aren’t likely to pick up more than a few tidbits of knowledge from Join Or Die’s casual conversations.
That’s especially true of tonight’s premiere in which PR expert Howard Bragman, comedian Jen D’Angelo, and late show host Jimmy Kimmel discuss the six relatively minor recent political scandals up for the title of “History’s Biggest Political Blunder.” While students of history might point to Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler, Jimmy Carter’s handling of the Iran Hostage Crisis, or Watergate as notable political blunders, Join Or Die can only come up with the likes of Larry Craig’s bathroom solicitation, Christine O’Donnell’s discussion of witchcraft, and Dick Cheney’s hunting accident. The crown eventually goes to Eliot Spitzer’s prostitution scandal—something even the panelist agree doesn’t come close to being the worst political blunder of the century, let alone of all time.
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There’s frustratingly little rhyme or reason to how the options are winnowed down—which Ferguson openly acknowledges throughout the show—with Rod Blagojevich’s bribes getting a pass because “that’s just Illinois politics.” At its best, the show weaves together a larger analysis of disparate historical events, such as in the second episode when “Science” Bob Pflugfelder points out that both lobotomies and pulling teeth to cure mental illness were championed by charismatic figures, which lent legitimacy to the dubious procedures. But at its worse, the panelists sound like ill-informed college students speculating on topics they half glanced over in a textbook. That off-the-cuff style worked well enough when Ferguson happened to stumble upon a meaty topic with one of his Late Late Show guests. But a show billed as an intellectual debate should at least provide as much information as a Wikipedia summary. Right now Join Or Die is only occasionally rising to that level.
On his recent appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Ferguson admitted that he felt Join Or Die was a little too timid about delving into history and hoped the show would broaden its horizons in the future. (Even in trying to sell his show to a mass audience, Ferguson can’t help but be blunt.) Tonight’s second episode course corrects a bit, moving away from American politics to discuss bizarre medical advice from throughout the ages. Again the analysis isn’t particularly in-depth, but Pflugfelder at least offers up some interesting trivia between the jokes—including showing off a bizarre electrical placebo from the 1920s. And Chris Hardwick’s intellectual enthusiasm is a good match for Ferguson’s cynical delivery.
Join Or Die is the kind of show that lives or dies by its panel members and while the show is understandably trying to stack the deck with famous faces (upcoming guests include Judd Apatow, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Jack Black, and Jay Leno), the decision to have three comedy-focused panelists (including Ferguson) and only one expert leaves the conversations feeling feather light. Either adding more experts to the panel or changing the dynamic so that the celebrities ask questions of the expert rather than stating ill-researched opinions would go a long way towards giving the show some historical heft. Thankfully, Ferguson at least keeps the conversation moving smoothly with his genuine sense of intellectual curiosity. And to its credit Join Or Die does offer a solid joke or two every few minutes, such as Ferguson referring to an ineffectual medical cure-all as “the coconut water of its day.”
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Admittedly it took the Late Late Show a while to find its feet and its possible Join Or Die will carve out a stronger voice as it goes along. There’s potential in the format, if the show is willing to cut back on the riffing and commit to actually discussing the topics at hand. Join Or Die has reportedly already filmed 22 episodes, including scintillating topics such as “Most Influential Band,” “Greatest Founding Father,” and “History’s Biggest Frenemies.” But as it stands, the real draw is for those eager to have Ferguson—and his jokes about the physical similarities between Paul McCartney and Angela Lansbury—back on their TV screens.TV Reviews All of our TV reviews in one convenient place.
After a few serious missteps so far in season three, Masters Of Sex rights itself with “Matters Of Gravity.” The episode highlights everything that still makes the show so valuable, drawing on its rich backstories (Allison Janney and Beau Bridges; Masters’ parental history from “Fight”). It’s a great episode, and couldn’t have come soon enough.
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Masters is a bit too wooden for us to believe he had that inspiring speech hanging out in his back pocket, jumping right into Newton’s theory of gravity. But it’s a nice analogy to the grooves of gravity juxtaposed against the twists of love, the thing that guides and makes possible many of these sexual acts: the “curvature of desire.” It flows back to Dan Logan (Josh Charles)’s story about the woman with the gin and the orchid, the unchartable, indescribable force that pulls certain people together, no matter how improbable. Logan’s trying to put it in a bottle, but as Masters states, it can’t be qualified or graphed. But surely these efforts wouldn’t mean as much without it.
It’s a lesson everyone gets closer to learning this episode, as they also traverse the curves of the past. Margaret realizes her current situation is a direct and opposite response to her old one. The theme that Masters Of Sex weaves here with Margaret’s situation is one that Barton recognizes immediately and Bill, Gini, and Libby still fail to realize: A relationship made up of three people isn’t likely to work. One person is always going to be on the outside: Right now it’s Libby, and judging from her terse comments to Bill, she’s well aware of that fact. Margaret realizes she’ll never be happy in that setup (notice how Graham stands right behind Jo in their fight), and leaves. But all that Margaret has already gone through makes her decision all the more impressively defiant.
It’s what’s similarly effective about the way Bill deals with Johnny’s bullying in this episode: Without “Fight,” it would make no sense, and just seem extreme (which, make no mistake, it still is). But we already know the worst thing for Bill is to admit defeat, a lesson he has passed along to his son. Bill’s attack on his son’s attacker is cruel, but that’s one of the horrible things about growing up with a bully: You readily learn how to become a bully yourself.
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His own experience with bullying also helps explain why Masters is so bound and determined to work his way back into Washington University. It’s how he knows immediately that Doug must have an ulterior motive in coming to see him, and why he revels in the man who locked his lab having to crawl back to him. But in the end, as Bill finally opens up to Libby, his victory is hollow, as he’ll never gain acceptance from his father, the bully who still rules his inner life. At least it leads him to finally make long-overdue overtures toward his son, but it might even be too late for that.
Since Bill’s backstory has been so revelatory, it’s helpful to get more of Gini’s, with the surprise arrival of her parents, courtesy of everyone’s favorite Bad Seed daughter, Tessa. Frances Fisher has been playing cloying mothers since Titanic, but it’s hard to believe Caddyshack’s Noonan is now Gini’s dad. At first Gini’s mother appears just to be generically meddling, like so many TV mothers, until the dawning realization of horror at the episode’s end. Gini is momentarily thrilled her mother is finally proud of her (similar to Bill’s wish of finally gaining his father’s acceptance). Unfortunately, this momentary gleam is quickly followed by her devastation as she realizes that her mother thinks her greatest accomplishment is getting a married man to fall in love with her. No wonder she asks another married man out to dinner immediately afterward. But it’s an interesting revelation that it was Gini, not her mother, to put herself in beauty pageants as a child, pointing to her fervent ambition from the very beginning.
This episode also excelled by grounding itself, focusing on the study and its participants (with an extremely graphic sexual instruction on a dildo by Masters and Johnson): our two main players, and their patients and staff. It benefited from the lack of any nefarious and distracting season-three subplots.
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That’s why this episode title is perfect, and the question from the audience so acute: All the sexual acts don’t mean anything without the love behind them. Barton knows it, Margaret realizes she doesn’t have it with Graham, and Gini acknowledges that what she has with Bill is not enough. In fact, one of the most beautiful acts ever seen on this show is Barton giving Margaret what she needs. He calls Vivian to tell her the truth about her parents’ divorce, even though it will permanently change his relationship with his daughter. Graham talks about monogamy limiting love to something that can be qualified and distributed, and it’s clear that despite the guru he’s following, he has no idea of the concept. Barton knows Margaret better than she knows herself, and although she despairs that she’s alone after her relationship ends, she’s not, because he is still her family on a deep level. The love between Barton and Margaret is one of the most profound relationships on this show, and sex has nothing to do with it.
Stray observations
Betty cracking Bill’s back: gold. Also appreciate the Helen nod, so hopefully this means they’re still together?
“That’s not the point.” “It couldn’t be more the point!” All the accolades to Allison Janney for this episode (including an incredibly hot sex scene).
The book that gave Jo nightmares was In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, and that farmhouse scene is indeed horrific.
As far as Masters’ and Johnson’s many offspring go, Jaeden Lieberher, who plays Johnny, is approaching Sally Draper-levels of kid acting (the gold standard).
Lester’s pathetic “Is failure an emotion? That would be my response,” gets him a sympathetic pat on the back from Betty.
Tessa’s actual purchase of a bow tie (?) to get her mother busted by her grandparents seems over the top even for Tessa, and is accompanied by a weird tribal drumbeat.
I am extremely fortunate to have the job I have, and part of that job involves writing about TV and getting paid for it. But when you critically follow a series for awhile, you can get emotionally invested in the show you’re reviewing. (Ask me about my ups and downs with The Mindy Project. Or the betrayal I still feel over Broadchurch’s second season finale.) Masters Of Sex, a show based on emotionality, brings that out in me more than most shows I watch. And as you may have surmised if you’ve been reading these reviews, although I still greatly admire the show, especially its cast (Lizzy Caplan in particular), I have been fairly frustrated with season three so far; I found myself not looking forward to reviewing this as much as I once did. So as of next week, I am handing the MOS reviewing reins over to senior editor John Teti, who brilliantly captured the final season of Mad Men, along with too many other awesome writeups to list here. I’m glad I got to go out on such an upswing for the show. I look forward to reading what John writes about Masters Of Sex—and your comments, as always.When I first strapped the TAG Heuer Connected on to my wrist, what instantly set it apart is that it looks like a familiar, traditional watch. It has three watch faces: a chronograph, a traditional three-hand face and a GMT face option. While the watch is modeled after the Carrera from the '60s, it feels nothing like it. From a distance, it's reminiscent of the bulky but iconic craftsmanship of the original watch, but it's deceptively light. It has a titanium case, bezel and buckle with a vulcanized rubber strap that make the watch incredibly comfortable on the wrist.
A quick swipe over the watch face takes you to the apps, texting features and even Google maps. There's also a "draw emoji" option that would make the comparison to other smartwatches unavoidable. But, despite the apps and Google voice recognition built into this watch, it's hard to compare the conventional looking TAG Heuer Connected to other smartwatches. The company didn't set out to build a smartwatch. They wanted one of the their own watches to be smarter and more capable for watch-wearers who need their watches to do more than just tell time.
In its effort to build a smartwatch, the company gave up the "Swiss made" status on its latest product. The guts of the watch are manufactured by Intel here in the US and even though about 70 percent of the watch is still built in Switzerland, the watch doesn't qualify for the status. Earlier at the event, Jean-Claude Biver, CEO of TAG Heuer, emphasized that the USP of the watch will be that it's "eternity in a box". So, when the current Connected model inevitably becomes outdated you can trade in your smartwatch for a traditional Carrera.
The transformation, which will reportedly cost an additional $1,500, is aimed at turning a trendy, tech-heavy watch into a traditional TAG that's meant to be passed down for generations. The watchmaker believes that gives their device an edge over other smartwatches that are prone to obsolescence. But without the option to upgrade, even the luxurious Connected seems to be a temporary smartwatch like all its counterparts.
Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.Tennessee coach Butch Jones
Three-star rising senior kicker Brent Cimaglia of Page High School in Franklin, Tenn., told GoVols247 that he committed to Tennessee on Sunday, switching his commitment from Southern Miss to the home-state Vols.
The 6-foot, 215-pound Cimaglia made the decision to flip to Tennessee just one day after he received a scholarship offer from the Vols following a strong performance Saturday at their camp.
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Cimaglia, who gave Tennessee its ninth commitment for the 2017 class, is ranked the nation's No. 5 kicker in the 247Sports Composite for the 2017 class.
He's also ranked the nation's No. 3 kicker in the 2017 class by 247Sports.Diversity In Book Publishing Isn't Just About Writers — Marketing Matters, Too
toggle caption malerapaso/Getty Images
Novelist Angela Flournoy recently said, "I think it's an undue burden for the writer of color that's just trying to get people to care about their book as much as other people's books, to then also be the one to have the answers."
Flournoy, writer of the acclaimed novel The Turner House, was speaking on the extent to which writers of color are asked in interviews about publishing's diversity gap, and challenging the notion that they hold the key to solving the industry's historic and systemic whiteness.
In the world of books and literature, "diversity" has recently become hotly debated, along with other cultural and media spheres. Though a few writers of color, like Flournoy, seem to be getting more shine, the demographics of those working behind the scenes in publishing remain almost entirely white.
In 2015, Lee & Low Books, an independent publisher of multicultural children's and young adult literature, launched the first major study of staff diversity in publishing. Over 40 publishers and review journals participated. The findings revealed that across the board, nearly 80 percent of those surveyed who worked in publishing self-identified as white.
The Lee & Low survey also reported on staff demographics by departments. In Marketing and Publicity, 77 percent were white. These are people who make decisions on how to position books to the press and to consumers, and if and where to send authors on tour — critical considerations in the successful launching of any publication. For writers of color, the lack of diversity in book publicity departments can feel like a death knell.
Kima Jones, who owns the publicity company Jack Jones Literary Arts, says, "There needs to be more women of color in publishing, in positions of power, period. As I see other book clubs and speaking series, reading series, organizations pop up that are dedicated to writers of color, queer writers, disabled writers, other marginalized writers, I'm like: yeah, do that! This is what we need."
As a publicist, Jones is an expert in culturally specific marketing. The agency partners exclusively with writers who have been historically underrepresented in publishing; her client roster includes the New York Times bestselling novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez, contemporary young-adult author Lilliam Rivera, and the writer and activist Sarah Schulman, among others. She also represents Kimbilio, an organization that supports and develops fiction writers from the African diaspora.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Rachel Eliza Griffiths Rachel Eliza Griffiths
"I want to affirm the work of writers that have the burden of feeling like a publisher doesn't know how to market them, how to talk about them, how to 'find their audience,'" she says. "That's the writer I'm interested in."
Jones founded her publicity company in 2015. In a little over a year, Jack Jones Literary Arts has grown from two clients to 17. "Ninety-five percent of my clients are writers of color," Jones says, and this is a point of pride for her. A self-described "queer black girl from Harlem," Jones says, "I grew up reading everything from Daddy Was a Number Runner to the work of Gayl Jones, Sandra Cisneros, Toni Morrison, Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan."
A native of New York City, Jones now makes her home in Los Angeles, where she's lived ever since being awarded the PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship a few years ago. (Besides her publicity work, Jones is also a published poet, fiction writer and essayist who is currently pursuing her MFA in fiction at Warren Wilson College.)
Publicists like Jones, with proven experience connecting clients with a multicultural readership and who are adept at new methods for generating online buzz for writers, feel especially important at a time when the literary world seems to be exploding with voices from the margins. The 2016 shortlist for the prestigious PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut fiction, which comes with a covetable $25,000 award, was filled entirely by writers of color, including Flournoy. One nominee on that list, Viet Thanh Nguyen, went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, The Sympathizer. (The PEN/Bingham was claimed by Mia Alvar, for her story collection In the Country.)
Enlarge this image toggle caption PEN America PEN America
"We're at a beautiful place in publishing now," Jones concedes, but she offers a caveat. "What bothers me is when people say we're in a new cultural moment. We're not really... Black people and people of color have been cultural producers across art, literature, music, for decades. It's just now that we're in a time in the history of publishing where we're starting to get more representation and pay for our work, getting the awards for our work, getting recognized."
Of course, identifying as a person of color doesn't automatically render a publicist culturally competent in promoting books by diverse writers. "It's not enough to say, for example, that black people will read this book. Black people are not a monolith," says Jones. "Or, it's not just that this author's Japanese, let's do something at the Japanese cultural center, it's not as simple as that."
Each client is unique, she says. For past projects, she has researched segmented audiences ranging from retired African-American women's books clubs, South Asian soccer organizations, Trinidadian-interest media outlets both stateside and abroad, to extracurricular programs geared toward South Bronx teens. She works both as a lead publicist on projects and has been hired to take on the culturally specific campaign for a book, while the publisher's in-house team focuses on traditional, mainstream press.
According to a 2015 U.S. Census report, more than half of U.S. children under 18 will be part of a minority ethnic or race group by the year 2020. As the nation's population moves steadily toward a "minority-majority," can we hope to see more books by and about people of color?
If the last 20 years are any indication, change is slow to come. The Cooperative Children's Book Center has been tracking the number of books by African-American, Asian-American, Native/First Nations, and Latino book creators since 1994; over the past 20 years, the number of multicultural books has hovered around 10 percent, with a sudden surge in 2015 to 20 percent.
Hannah Ehrlich, director of marketing and publicity at Lee & Low Books, says: "When you're marketing diverse books, it's important to build connections with influencers within communities that the book is about who will become the evangelists." According to Ehrlich, librarians and educators have long been supportive of diverse titles, ahead of the trade market. "I think it's starting to catch up," she says. "All the people on the trade side are realizing we have a diverse country and we should be marketing to our entire population."
As a case study, she cites Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty, a graphic novel by G. Neri based on the true story of a young boy in a Chicago gang. It's one of Lee & Low's most successful books. Ehrlich says: "We got a lot of help from librarians who work in juvenile detention centers. For them it was a really special book because up until then, there hadn't been books that reflected the realities of their students."
As for Jones, she believes that "the independent bookstore is by far our best friend, and underused. It's about getting the book to the bookseller, putting it on the staff recommended shelf." She laments the closing of La Casa Azul in East Harlem, New York late last year. "That store was a beautiful place for Latino and Latina writers, for people interested in Latinx literature. When you lose a store like that, you're also losing community."
In Los Angeles, there's Eso Won Books in Leimert Park, a black-owned bookstore that's been in business for nearly three decades. James Fugate, one of the co-owners, says: "Our store is the kind of space that allows black writers to come in and feel at home. When they come here they can speak their mind, they know the owners, there's a multicultural, diverse audience. Whereas when they go to a Barnes & Nobles, it's got to be a different feeling."
Eso Won has hosted signings with big names like Muhammad Ali, Terry McMillan, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, as well as countless up-and-coming novelists and poets since the store's opening in 1989. When we spoke, Fugate was busy preparing for an event with Walter Mosley, the best-selling crime and mystery writer. Like many authors with whom Fugate and his co-proprietor, Tom Hamilton, have built meaningful relationships, Mosley has been holding readings at Eso Won for years.
Fugate tells a great story about a young writer whose first signing at Eso Won in 1995 drew a measly crowd of 10 people, "and five of them worked at the store!" In 2006, that same writer's second book signing with Eso Won attracted nearly a thousand fans. "And now, he's the president of the United States," says Fugate, revealing the identity of the writer and his two books, Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope.
The anecdote about President Obama's reception from one book to the next is an outlier — no literary writer can reasonably expect to match that level of fame — but Fugate's point is that at Eso Won, the owners are committed to supporting black writers at all stages of their careers.
I love introducing readers to a new voice that's not like any other voice that's out there right now.
"With black writers and other minorities, the history of publishing has been unreceptive," Fugate says. "I think it's important we have stores and spaces like Eso Won. If you go to most other independents, they will have a section of African-American books. But a whole bookstore filled with books on African-Americans? That's something that people should see."
"Books are not going to stop anytime soon," publicist Kima Jones says. "Racism says that black writers and writers of color can't write the 'great American novel.' This conversation is decades old; people need to see that black literature is not anthropology. This is art making. And to say it's anything other than that is lessening the integrity of the art."
For her part, Jones is working hard to make sure that her clients get the same fighting chance at literary glory as anyone else. Whether that's a culturally specific campaign or organizing a national tour aimed to draw as many attendees as possible across the country, Jones says what keeps her going is her love of literature, period. "I love books," she says. "I'm a person who advocates for literature all the way around. I love introducing readers to a new voice that's not like any other voice that's out there right now."
Jean Ho is a writer in Los Angeles. She is currently a doctoral candidate in USC's Creative Writing and Literature Ph.D. program.Chicagoans dump more than 800,000 tons of garbage into their black city garbage bins every year. We wanted to find out what happens to all that garbage once it leaves the alley, so we followed the trail out to landfills the city uses and found them to be far different than the old city dump.
TRANSCRIPT
Elizabeth Brackett: City garbage trucks roll through the city’s alleys and streets every weekday. The sanitation laborers pick up nearly 900,000 thousand tons of garbage every year. And that’s just from the 600,000 residential customers who live in homes and buildings of four units or less. The garbage is picked up on the grid system now rather than the old ward-based system.
Charles Williams, Department of Streets and Sanitation Commissioner: Instead of working in 50 wards, we are working out of eight divisions, and it’s much more efficient.
Brackett: Once the trucks leave the alley, most Chicagoans have no idea where their garbage goes. The first stop is at one of 11 transfer stations around the city. This one near Clybourn and Ashland avenues is busy from early morning until midafternoon. Each truck contains five to eight tons of refuse picked up from the city’s black garbage cans.
Backing up to the ever-growing pile, the trucks disgorge thier contents. No sorting or compaction is done here at the transfer station. Instead, bulldozers pile up the incoming trash until it is scooped up and dumped into waiting transfer trucks.
This transfer station is owned by the city, but the garbage is the responsibility of Republic Services, a waste management company that has a contract with the city. Republic Services manager Brian Holcomb says transferring the garbage into semis is the most efficient way to move it to landfills.
Brian Holcomb: What we do is load the smaller trucks one the larger truck, which reduces fuel consumption, over-the-road wear and exhaust emissions.
Brackett: Once filled, the transfer trucks hold about 25 tons (or 3 garbage trucks’ worth) of waste. After they are weighed, they are off to one of the four landfills used by the city of Chicago. All four are roughly 100 miles outside the city, two in Illinois and two in Indiana.
The 550-acre Livingston landfill, near Pontiac, Illinois, is owned and managed by Republic Services. Transfer trucks lumber up to the top of the active part of the landfill. It doesn’t take long for the trucks to dump their 25 tons into the pit. As soon as it lets loose, the heavy equipment below takes over. Bulldozers move the garbage into place while huge compactors mash the garbage into the pit.
The landfill takes in an average of 5,000 tons of garbage a day. The freshly dumped garbage is covered with dirt every night to prevent waste from blowing out of the landfill.
But this landfill is not just a bottomless pit. Landfills are now highly engineered. In 1990, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began requiring that all landfills contain the waste to prevent contamination of soil and groundwater. The process begins by digging a pit and putting in an initial layer of nonporous clay.
Holcomb: This is our next sequence of development, and we call it a cell. It’s about 10 acres in this case, and what you can see from where we stand is the earthwork recompaction in progress. So what’s closest to us is clay that’s been recompacted, it’s been excavated from an adjacent area to our north here. And then they’re preparing the subgrade for future compaction on beyond it.
Brackett: What’s next?
Holcomb: Once the clay has been certified, recompacted and it has met its permeability standard, then we will begin the synthetic lining process. So what you can see in the distance over there – the large rolls of material – that will be deployed and seam welded across the entire footprint of this cell. Then once that’s in place, we’ll put in what we call the flow zone or the drainage blanket. It’s a high-permeability sand layer that allows the liquid to flow to the low point of the cell, which is in the far corner over here to the west.
Brackett: And that liquid gets taken off and sent to a treatment plant?
Holcomb: That liquid would be extracted on a continual basis when its produced and pretreated, and then sent to the public-owned treatment works.
Brackett: When the 10-acre cell has been filled with garbage – which takes about a year and a half – the plastic liner is pulled over the waste and sealed, soil is added and grasses planted. Critical to protecting the environment is the EPA requirement that all the methane gas released from the decomposing garbage be captured. At the Livingston landfill, 310 methane gas extracting devices cover the filled areas.
And there’s no smell?
Holcomb: There’s no smell because all of the gas is collected through what we call a gas extraction system. We’re able to hook our instrumentation on this and understand how much gas is moving through the device, what its temperature is, what its moisture content is.
Brackett: So it’s being pulled from the garbage below and then sent to where?
Holcomb: It’s sent through this pipe down to our gas-to-energy plant. There’s a compressor that’s running and pulling vacuum on this device. This straight down into the waste is 100 feet or so – it’s like a well. It’s perforated, and there’s gas moving into it up through here, through this pipe and onto the plant where electricity is made.
Brackett: The energy plant turns the captured methane gas into electricity, which is sold on the electrical grid
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adding that “religious beliefs ought to play no role at all in scientific practice.”
Physicist Lawrence Krauss also waved away the idea that science and religion are compatible:
In an email to The Huffington Post, [Krauss] called the survey’s findings “irrelevant,” adding that “science itself is incompatible with the scriptures and doctrines of all the world’s religions… It is all well and good to say that scientists and evangelicals can work together toward common goals, like preserving the planet etc., but ultimately those goals will in the end illuminate a universe that has nothing to do with the revelations of the Bible, and should rationally lead to a world where religious myths disappear.”
Yes, there can be a “conversation” between science and religion, but it won’t be a constructive dialogue. It will be a destructive monologue, with science dispelling the truth claims of religion, and with religion having, as Krauss and Rosenhouse noted, nothing to contribute to science.
Indeed, the results of Ecklund’s survey are totally irrelevant, and for an important reason: you can’t settle the question of science/religion compatibility, which is really a methodological and philosophical question, by taking polls. What Ecklund means by “compatibility” is simply whether someone can hold in their head at the same time two completely disparate ways of thinking One is science, based on reason and evidence; the other is religion, based on revelation, faith (belief in the absence of convincing evidence) and dogma. These disparities were summed up by science writer Natalie Angier in her wonderful essay,”My God Problem”:
I admit I’m surprised whenever I encounter a religious scientist. How can a bench-hazed Ph. D., who might in an afternoon deftly purée a colleague’s PowerPoint presentation on the nematode genome into so much fish chow, then go home, read in a two-thousand-year-old chronicle, riddled with internal contradictions, of a meta-Nobel discovery like “Resurrection from the Dead,” and say, gee, that sounds convincing? Doesn’t the good doctor wonder what the control group looked like?
If you hold Ecklund’s definition of compatibility, then all sorts of bizarre bedmates become compatible. Indeed, if you took a poll of Americans 250 years ago, you’d find many people claiming that Christianity and slavery were compatible. Does that prove that they are? No: it proves that people who call themselves Christians could at the same time hold in their heads messages profoundly inimical to the principles of Christianity.
The real reason that science and religion are incompatible is threefold:
1. They both make truth claims about the universe, but only science has a way to settle those claims. Except for deistic religions, or “religions” without Gods, like Taoism or some forms of Buddhism, most religions make existence claims about gods, the nature of those gods, and how their deities want us to live. Christiantity, for instance, argues that there is a single God (often tripartite with Jesus and the Holy Ghost), that he sent his son, born of a virgin, down to be murdered to atone for an original sin that imbues all humans, that Jesus came back to life three days after he was killed, and that he will return some day, judging all of us and giving us either eternal life or the flames of hell. Those are empirical claims: they are either true or false. But the problem is that they conflict with the “truth claims” of other faiths. If you believe in Christ’s divinity as a Muslim, for instance, you’re doomed to hell. Hinduism has many Gods, and Jews don’t believe in an afterlife. Unitarians don’t accept the Trinity. Almost all religious schisms, which have given rise to more than 10,000 Christian sects, are based on irresolvable claims about what is true.
Religion has no way to settle this panoply of conflicting existence claims, but science does, for science is a toolkit: a way of thinking and doing that actually helps us understand the universe. There are thousands of religions, but there is only one science. Scientists of all faiths and ethnicities use the same methodology, and agree on the same set of truths. Think of how far the unanimity of scientific understanding has progressed since 1500! Now think how far theology has progressed since 1500, at least in terms of understanding the true nature of the divine. It hasn’t budged an inch. We can’t even settle the issue of how many gods there are, much less if there are any. That’s what happens when you rely on faith rather than reason, when you discern truth by listening to clerics or your own thoughts rather than by examining what actually exists in nature.
2. Science and religious “investigation” produce different outcomes. Religion’s search for “truth” could have resulted in the same things that science has discovered, but it never has. The Bible, or God, could have revealed to people that washing your hands might help curbe epidemics, or that life wasn’t created de novo, but evolved from very simple precursors. It didn’t do that, and science has repeatedly been forced to correct the false conclusions of religious revelations.
In response, theolgians say, “The Bible is not a textbook of science,” but what they really mean when they say that is “The Bible isn’t wholly true.” This then gives them license to pick which parts of the Bible are true (conveniently, it is the ones that science hasn’t yet disproven, and which comport with modern morality) and which are false (the approbation of stoning for adultery and death for homosexuality). The disparity in outcomes is a result in the disparity of methods. Religion begins with conclusions that are comforting, and then picks and chooses evidence that supports those conclusions, ignoring the pesky counterevidence or fobbing it off as “metaphor.” In contrast science is designed to prevent you from that kind of confirmation bias—it’s a method, as Richard Feynman noted, that keeps you from fooling yourself, and discovering what you want instead of what’s true.
3. Science and religion have different philosophical bases. From centuries of experience, science has discarded the idea of God because it’s never been useful in explaining anything. Most religions still cling to the idea of deities, even in the absence of evidence, for a bad reason: faith. Although theologians weave their web of obscurantist verbiage around the word “faith,” it all comes down to believing something without good reasons. How can you possibly find out what’s true if you base your search for truth on confirmation bias and on suppositions that lack any evidence? How can you want base your life based on such suppositions? And, if you’re religious, how can you be sure that your religion is the right one, and that, say, the tenets of Islam are simply wrong? You can never know. Each religion is at odds with every other religion, and it will always be so.
In the end, the true conflict between science and religion cannot be effaced by polls answered by people who don’t want there to be a conflict. After all, most religionists pride themselves on modernity, and don’t want to be seen as unfriendly to a science that has improved their lives immeasurably. The real conflict—the one that will remain so long as religion pretends to find truth—is between rationality and superstition. It is a conflict between using faith to discern what is real as opposed to using reason and observation of the universe. Ecklund can take polls until she’s blue in the face, but she’ll never turn religion into a way to find truth or to help science find truth. And so the incompatibility remains.The federal government will not withhold funds from North Carolina while the court battle over the state’s anti-LGBT law goes on, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said today.
“The administration will not take action to withhold funding while this enforcement process is playing out in the courts,” Earnest said at his daily press briefing, The Charlotte Observer reports.
The Department of Justice had sent letters to Gov. Pat McCrory and other North Carolina officials last week saying that House Bill 2 violates federal law, specifically Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Those laws ban discrimination based on sex, in employment and education respectively, which the Justice and Education Departments say includes discrimination based on gender identity.
North Carolina could lose billions of dollars in federal education and public safety funding because of the violation, but now this won’t happen until competing lawsuits play out. The state Monday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, seeking a judgment that the federal statutes do not cover gender identity. The same day, the federal government, via Attorney General Loretta Lynch, sued North Carolina, seeking to bar the state from enforcing HB 2.
The federal government’s suit specifically challenges HB 2’s provision barring transgender people from using the restrooms and locker rooms that comport with their gender identity, when those facilities are located in government buildings, including public schools and state universities. The law “stigmatizes and singles out transgender individuals seeking access to covered facilities, results in their isolation and exclusion, and perpetuates a sense that they are not worthy of equal treatment and respect,” the suit says.
State lawmakers passed and McCrory signed HB 2 all in one day, March 23, in order to prevent an LGBT-inclusive public accommodations ordinance from going into effect in Charlotte. In addition to the restroom provision, HB 2 nullifies all LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances in the state and prevents cities and counties from enacting new ones. It also bars residents from filing discrimination suits in state court and keeps cities from setting a higher minimum wage than the state’s.
In the press briefing today, Earnest reiterated President Obama’s opposition to HB 2. “When it comes to fighting for justice and fairness, and fighting against discrimination, that’s something that the president is committed to,” Earnest said, according to the Observer. “Some people in North Carolina right now have been feeling like the state government, at least, is not sufficiently committed to ensuring equal treatment under the law.”This disease, often fatal, is believed to be caused by the consumption of products made from cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease. Typically, vCJD is passed to humans through ingesting the brain, spinal cord or digestive tract of an infected animal, though the disease can be found throughout the body of an afflicted cow. It is generally suspected to be transmitted through meat consumption more than dairy, according to James Cullor, director of the UC Davis Dairy Food Safety Laboratory. It is believed that animals contract BSE from consuming the animal feed made from the parts of other cows.
Like the previous three cases found in the U.S., the Texas patient is believed to have gotten the disease from travel overseas, specifically in Great Britain and the Middle East. According to the Texas Department of State Health website, “there are no public health concerns or threats associated with this case.” Meanwhile, the CDC continues to investigate.
“The cases [in the U.S.] are so far not endemic cases,” says Florence Kranitz, president of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation. “It’s been people born and raised in other countries. The first case was a woman who was born in raised in the UK. Another case was a man from was Saudi Arabia. There hasn’t been a trace back to the United States. This death that took place very recently, there is a very strong epidemiology study going on right to determine where he could have contracted it.”
Since the disease was first reported in 1996, more than 220 people have been confirmed victims of vCJD.
Since the disease was first reported in 1996, more than 220 patients have been confirmed as victims of variant CJD. This is different from typical CJD, which can impact both vegetarians and meat eaters; around 300 cases appear in the U.S. every year, according to the National Institute of Health, and the average age of onset is 60.
But in either kind of CJD, diagnosis can only be made by examining brain tissue, either with a biopsy or post-mortem. Victims of the much-rarer vCJD can expect the degenerative disease to attack the nerve system, giving symptoms of depression and later dementia, and the onset is slower than typical CJD. Globally, 220 victims of vCJD have been confirmed, with the majority in England (177) and France (27).
But where did this patient get the disease? And when? Those questions have not yet been answered. (We put in calls to the CDC and Texas Health Department and will update with replies.) Globally, the incidence of both vCJD and BSE is rare, thanks in great part to safety protocols in the wake of the disease’s mid-90s outbreak. In 2014, though, Germany found its first infected cow since 2009. In early March of this year, Brazil confirmed its second infected cow since 2012, saying that the 12-year old bovine that died in March had never entered the food chain.
“When you look at the big picture, the risk seems very low,” says Cullor. “The reason I say that is we have physicians at the local level, in the farming communities, in big cities, big places like Stanford and UCLA and John Hopkins and physicians all over the United States watching for this disease to show up in humans and its just not there. I think that supports the premise that the risk is very low to the human population.”
This latest death comes in the wake of a 2013 announcement by the U.S. Agriculture Department that they would ease regulations on mad cow disease importing rules. This move, to identify places that posed a “negligible health risk,” opened the door to European beef once again coming into America.
The United Kingdom experienced a mad cow epidemic that peaked in 1993 with nearly 1,000 cases of infected cows reported weekly. The outbreak prompted mass cullings of cattle and a stiff decline in beef consumption, as consumers feared contracting the disease.
For Krantiz at the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation, the time to start worrying would be if someone contracted vCJD who had never traveled to a country where bovine spongiform encephalopathy outbreaks have been reported. “If you had a person born and raised in the US and never traveled to a country where BSE is an issue, that would be a problem.”
‘This death in Texas, there is a very strong epidemiology study going on right to determine where he could have contracted it.’
Even if cows are infected with BSE, it’s still rare for humans to contract CJD. “It’s not easy to catch,” says Kranitz. “If it was, there would have been a lot more cases in the UK.” And not everyone who contracts CJD gets it from eating cows infected with mad cow disease. In fact, Kranitz says 98 percent of people afflicted with CJD get it through “spontaneous” infection or genetic mutation. Only two percent of CJD victims get it from eating tainted meat.
While the death in Texas is worrying, Kranitz urges caution while the CDC and National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance center continues their work. “Until we have more information, you can’t really start throwing things around that scare the heck out of everyone.”Katinka Slingsby has been reunited with her five-year-old Chihuahua dog Cherry
A Chihuahua missing for five days has been discovered in an abandoned mine after villagers raised more than £1,200 to fund a drone to help find her.
A 'Give a Dog a Drone' hunt was launched to track down five-year-old Cherry after she disappeared on Mynydd James near Abertillery in South Wales.
The drone - which was later supplied for free by a local firm that came forward - used a thermal imaging camera to spot the dog's body heat and found her trapped in the old mining tunnel.
Cherry's owner Katinka Slingsby, 27, said: 'It is absolutely amazing. It was overwhelming. I just want to say thank you as we couldn't have found Cherry without the community and I'm so touched by everybody's help.
The RSPCA animal care assistant added: 'My dad was out with her walking up the mountain in the early evening throwing sticks for her, and then she just disappeared and he didn't know where she went.'
A 'Give a Dog a Drone' hunt was launched to find five-year-old Cherry after she disappeared on Mynydd James near Abertillery in South Wales.
Rescued: The drone - which was later supplied for free by a local firm that came forward - used a thermal imaging camera to spot the dog's body heat and found her trapped in the tunnel
Ms Slingsby launched a crowdfunding project to pay for an eye-in-the-sky to join the hunt after Cherry disappeared and more than £1,200 was donated.
But the cash was not needed in the end after a local drone company heard Cherry was missing and provided their services for free.
Ms Slingsby said: 'The amount of money donated is amazing. We have offered to refund it to people if they want, but if not we are going to donate it to a local charity.'
And the animal worker was delighted to be reunited with her pet after the rescue.
Ms Slingsby added: 'She went to the vets last night and she's all healthy. She's a bit bruised and tired obviously, but the vet was amazed how well she was.'
Ms Slingsby launched a crowdfunding project to pay for an eye-in-the-sky to join the hunt after Cherry disappeared. Pictured is the final rescue effort to remove Cherry from the old tunnel
The cash was not needed after a local drone company heard Cherry was missing and provided their services for free. Pictured above is a Gwent Caving Club member helping with the rescue
Resource Group Unmanned Aviation Services used thermal imaging cameras mounted to one of its unmanned aircraft - and it was able to locate Cherry within 20 minutes (file picture)
She said: 'Animals are my life, I work with them and spend my spare time with them.
'We are so grateful that we have Cherry back. At the moment she's on a strict lead, and she's grounded for the time being.'
John Larkin, from Resource Group Unmanned Aviation Services, said: 'We are delighted to have been able to reunite Cherry with her owner.
'Using thermal imaging cameras mounted to one of our unmanned aircraft we were able to locate Cherry within 20 minutes.
'This just goes to show the wide spread applications of drone technology from aerial inspection and surveying to search and rescue situations, highlighting the breadth of our unmanned aviation services.'Google Is Committed To The Suppression Of Free Speech
Google Is Committed To The Suppression Of Free Speech
Paul Craig Roberts
This is an update to my earlier posting this morning: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/08/08/facts-supplanted-propaganda-wherever-look/
The Google engineer, a Harvard Ph.D., who raised questions about the non-fact-based ideological culture within the Google organization has been identified and fired.
Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, said that the employee in expressing his views had violated Google’s code of conduct and had crossed “the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.” The employee, James Damore, confirms that he was fired for “perpetuating gender stereotypes” by expressing his views.
Having fired Damore or permitted Google’s Thought Control Czar, Danielle Brown, to fire Damore, Sundar Pichai delivered a caricature of hypocrisy. Sundar addressed Damore’s “co-workers who are questioning whether they can safely express their views in the workplace, especially those with a minority viewpoint. They too feel under threat, and that is also not OK. People must feel free to express dissent.”
In the face of firing Damore for expressing his opinion, Sundar affirmed: “we strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves.” Sundar says that “many points raised in the memo — such as the portions criticizing Google’s trainings, questioning the role of ideology in the workplace, and debating whether programs for women and underserved groups are sufficiently open to all — are important topics. The author had a right to express their (sic) views on those topics — we encourage an environment in which people can do this and it remains our policy to not take action against anyone for prompting these discussions.” https://www.recode.net/2017/8/7/16110696/firing-google-ceo-employee-penned-controversial-memo-on-women-has-violated-its-code-of-conduct
However, Googlers must not question feminist ideology.
We should not be surprised that google is opposed to free expression. According to reports, Google works hand in hand with the NSA and CIA to expand unconstitutional spying on everyone everywhere and to suppress independent and dissenting thought and expression.
For example, on July 31, the World Socialist Web Site reported that “Between April and June, Google completed a major revision of its search engine that sharply curtails public access to Internet web sites that operate independently of the corporate and state-controlled media. Since the implementation of the changes, many left wing, anti-war and progressive web sites have experienced a sharp fall in traffic generated by Google searches. The World Socialist Web Site has seen, within just one month, a 70 percent drop in traffic from Google.” https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/07/31/goog-j31.html
Writing in Global Research, Graham Vanbergen lists 13 websites arbitrarily branded by Google as fake news or conspiracy sites whose readership Google has managed to reduce between 19 and 67 percent:
* wsws.org fell by 67 percent
* alternet.org fell by 63 percent
* globalresearch.ca fell by 62 percent
* consortiumnews.com fell by 47 percent
* socialistworker.org fell by 47 percent
* mediamatters.org fell by 42 percent
* commondreams.org fell by 37 percent
* internationalviewpoint.org fell by 36 percent
* democracynow.org fell by 36 percent
* wikileaks.org fell by 30 percent
* truth-out.org fell by 25 percent
* counterpunch.org fell by 21 percent
theintercept.com fell by 19 percent
It is completely obvious that none of these sites are fake news or conspiracy sites. These sites are under Google censorship because they question the official lies that are used to control the explanations given to the people. With the print and TV media and NPR under its control, the ruling oligarchy is now moving to shut down all Internet explanation that differs from the official lies that are used to keep people firmly locked in The Matrix.
Google is a monopoly. Before monopolists turned US anti-trust legislation such as the Sherman Act into dead-letter laws, Google would have been broken up. Today Google is protected not only by the demise of anti-trust laws, but also by its usefulness to the US Police State. Without Google’s active cooperation, it would not be possible for the NSA to complete its total spy network, a network that serves not national defense but suppression of dissent from the agendas of the ruling oligarchy.
Google abuses its power in many ways. For example, Wikileaks reports that among the Podesta email leaks, there is one from Google’s Eric Schmidt to Cheryl Mills offering Google’s ability to spy on Americans to help the Democrats win the presidential election. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-01/wikileaks-reveals-googles-strategic-plan-help-democrats-win-election
Apparently, Google has chosen to be a monster committed to upholding lies and ideologies in the place of truth. Unless another country with the courage to stand up to Washington creates a rival search engine, truth will disappear from the face of the earth.ORLANDO, Fla. - A manhunt has been launched after a police officer was shot and killed Monday morning near an Orlando Walmart, officials said.
Police said Orlando Master Sgt. Debra Clayton was approached Monday morning at around 7 a.m. by a person who recognized Markeith Loyd, a man suspected of killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend in December. The witness pointed Clayton toward Loyd, and the sergeant called dispatch to announce she was approaching the suspect. Moments later, a man believed to be Loyd shot Clayton multiple times. She died soon after.
The Orlando Police Department family is heartbroken today. One of our own was taken in the line of duty. There are no words. pic.twitter.com/M48o1nnr4h — Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) January 9, 2017
Loyd fled the scene, hijacking a car, and firing at least two shots at a pursuing police vehicle. He then abandoned the first car he hijacked and stole another, according to police.
During the manhunt, an Orange County Sheriff’s deputy was killed in a motorcycle accident. The Florida Highway Patrol confirmed to CBS News that the deputy, identified as Deputy First Class Norman Lewis, was involved in the manhunt at the time of the crash. Clermont, Florida resident Billie Jarrard allegedly “turned into the direct path” of the deputy, am 11-year veteran. The Florida Highway Patrol said in a statement that charges are pending against Jarrard.
That million dollar smile. The consummate professional. That's how we will remember our gentle giant DFC Norm Lewis. RIP. #BigNorm pic.twitter.com/I6BbSSCLeW — OCSO FL News (@OrangeCoSheriff) January 9, 2017
Orlando Police Chief John Mina said during a Monday morning press conference that Clayton, a 17-year veteran, was well-known on the force.
“She organized several marches against violence by herself. That’s how dedicated she was,” Mina said.
Police announced on Monday a reward of up to $60,000 for information leading to Loyd’s arrest. Mina said during a Monday afternoon press conference that if Loyd is arrested, he will be charged with first degree murder of a law enforcement officer and attempted murder of a law enforcment officer. Authorities have so far searched dozens of apartments and houses in their search for Loyd, who police believe has received assistance during his flight.
Markeith Loyd is the suspect who shot OPD officer this morning. Anyone w/info please call 1-800-423-TIPS @CrimelineFL pic.twitter.com/TeABsCsTh4 — Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) January 9, 2017
Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said police had circulated Loyd’s image in the community because of the previous murder case, in which 24-year-old Sade Dixon was shot and killed, and officers had been on the lookout for him.
“That indicates to me he is receiving help,” Demings said.
Loyd previously spent four years in prison for battery of a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest with violence. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison in 2011 for possessing homemade weapons while in federal custody.
He was also charged in a 1995 murder case, but those charges were dropped.Share this Article
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The summer is over, the kids are heading back school and your pets are taking a well-deserved break from all the fun. The problem is you can see the mess they left behind! No need to stay behind for detention – Spot Shot wants your home to earn straight A’s, which is why we’re bringing you the Spot Shot Back-To-School Giveaway!
Carpets always suffer the most, and in my house, these stains are often left to sit. It’s probably because they’re not at eye level, so stains can hide from me for a couple of days before I get to them. Most often, Oscar is my main stain-maker. He scoots (leaving a skid mark); he pukes (right before I’m headed out the door); he pees (only when the fire alarm goes off); and he leaves his treats sitting around (to melt or meld into the carpet). And the smell that accompanies these messes… well, let’s just say that the odor left behind won’t be made into a plug-in scent any time soon!
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Official Rules & RegulationsA BRIDGE TOO FAR
SORRY Chelsea fans, but you really haven’t thought this one through. Singing “Fuck off, Benitez?” Booing your own manager on day one? Way to go.
When the stadium announcer read out the attendance at Stamford Bridge and followed it by thanking fans “for their support” he must have been stroking his chin while crossing his fingers.
If that’s support, what can Rafa Benitez expect when the Chelsea crowd turns nasty? You’d be forgiven for thinking the reincarnation of Jimmy Savile had walked into Stamford Bridge and promised to play the kids.
As it was, this was a manager who twice wrestled the La Liga title from the heavyweight grasp of Barcelona and Real Madrid as boss of Valencia. He also won the UEFA Cup there.
At Liverpool he won the Champions League with players like Djimi Traore and Igor Biscan. He reached another European Cup final, won the FA Cup, and was four points away from winning the title during his time on Merseyside.
Despite the shit-flinging from many hacks, he’s no dope. Given half a chance, perhaps he could inspire Chelsea to close the five-point gap between them and league leaders Man City.
Yet the Chelsea faithful greeted their new manager with an avalanche of shit. Even George Graham didn’t get that kind of reception when the former Arsenal manager took over at Spurs.
This was the most hate-filled hello from fans to their own manager in living memory. And for what? You can hardly blame Benitez for taking a top job after almost two years out of the game. He was fast becoming irrelevant since the sack at Inter in December 2010.
If Chelsea fans have an issue with the decision to sack Roberto Di Matteo and replace him with Benitez, why don’t they aim their ire at the man who made the call? It was Roman Abramovich who ultimately kicked the stool to hang Di Matteo and it was the Russian who lured the Spaniard to west London.
The Chelsea owner might be worth £8.4billion but he can make mistakes just like everyone else. Benitez is already being touted by The Shed End as one of his biggest. But is it any worse than replacing Jose Mourinho with Avram Grant?
It’s ridiculous that Abramovich is bomb-proof. Yes, his bullion has given Chelsea fans things they thought they’d never see. But it’s worth remembering that in the five years before he arrived at the club, Chelsea never finished outside the top six and won the FA Cup, the League Cup, the Cup Winners’ Cup and the Super Cup. They were hardly in the football wilderness.
What is a mistake is naming Benitez as “interim manager” – the dreamt-up title was even printed on the official team sheet on Sunday. It just adds to the pressure. The fans think he’s a stop-gap and the players will too. It’s a ready-made excuse should everything go wrong.
Abramovich and Chelsea fans have conspired to give Benitez no margin for error. The first blip will be a crisis; the first perceived mistake will be met with further fury.
Roberto Mancini said the only way Benitez will be loved at Stamford Bridge is to “win, win, win, win, win.” You get the feeling even that won’t be enough.
The ‘masterplan’ is to eventually tempt Pep Guardiola to Chelsea – probably the most coveted manager in world football right now. But even for a rumoured £15m a year, the former Barca man must be asking himself why he would want to walk into such a poisonous atmosphere.
And with Manchester City, Manchester United, Brazil and others vying for his signature, it’s not like he will be short on offers.
Chelsea fans might think they’re hanging a hate figure out to dry by booing Benitez. Abramovich probably sees his appointment as a symbol of his authority.
Yet all both fans and owner have done is serve up yet more evidence that this is a club to be avoided.It seems like AMD is getting ready for multiple launches in 2016, not only on new platforms but also for existing platforms. You may have heard of Carrizo which serves AMD as their flagship mobility processor lineup, but you might be surprised to know that Carrizo might soon be coming to the FM2+ desktop platform in the form of the latest Athlon chips.
AMD Carrizo Based Athlon Chips Leaked, Coming Soon To FM2+ Desktop Platform
Carrizo has been serving the mobility sector for a while and AMD launched their Kaveri refresh platform for the desktop platform called Godavari. Godavari might have brought nothing new to the desktop market but AMD’s upcoming Athlon chips will act a small refresh on the budget FM2+ platform. While AMD is expected to launch their Carrizo APUs for desktops under the Bristol Ridge family that will be supported by the new AM4 boards, the Athlon chips are getting a quick update on the existing FM2+ motherboards and Gigabyte has leaked two Athlon processors in their CPU support list for such motherboards which are using the latest Excavator 28nm core architecture, an updated version of the steamroller architecture featured on Kaveri processors.
The two processors known as Athlon X4 845 and Athlon X4 835 are 28nm Excavator brand and fall under the Carrizo family of processors. Carrizo has several CPU and APU models on the mobility platforms but these chips will be the first models that will be geared towards the desktop platform. Being branded as Athlon chips, their iGPU has been excluded but in return, we get cheaper built processors that perform just as good as most of the modern chips available.
The AMD Athlon X4 845 and Athlon X4 835 processors are both quad core chips which feature 4 MB of L2 cache and 65W TDPs. We don’t know the exact clock speeds of these chips but based on Carrizo will give them a good boost over their Kaveri based counterparts and the updated 28nm process assures better efficiency. We aren’t sure if these will be the only Carrizo chips available on FM2+ platforms or there will be more but Gigabyte has already started seeding their latest BIOS for FM2+ motherboards which adds support for Carrizo processors as seen on their official website. The BIOS update was released last week so it’s a fresh release and from the looks of it, the processors themselves couldn’t be much far away.
There’s no actual launch date or pricing given but given that these are entry level Athlon chips, we are looking at a sub-$90 US pricing for both these chips or even lower. There is a slight possibility that both chips will be sold exclusively in the Chinese markets as AMD has several APAC targeted products in the line. Even their X4 870K Godavari processor was sold exclusively in the Chinese and Japanese markets so people living in US and EU might be out of luck.
AMD Carrizo Athlon Processors Specifications:
Processor Name AMD Athlon X4 835 AMD Athlon X4 840 AMD Athlon X4 845 AMD Athlon X4 850 AMD Athlon X4 860K AMD Athlon X4 870K CPU Process Node 28nm 28nm 28nm 28nm 28nm 28nm CPU Codename Carrizo Kaveri Carrizo Godavari Kaveri Godavari CPU Architecture 28nm Excavator 28nm Steamroller 28nm Excavator 28nm Steamroller 28nm Steamroller 28nm Steamroller Cores / Threads 4/4 4/4 4/4 4/4 4/4 4/4 Core Clock (GHz) TBD 3.1 GHz TBD 3.2 GHz 3.7 GHz 3.9 GHz Boost Clock (GHz) TBD 3.8 GHz TBD 3.9 GHz 4.0 GHz 4.1 GHz L2 Cache 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB Socket Support FM2+ FM2+ FM2+ FM2+ FM2+ FM2+ TDP 65W 65W 65W 65W 95W 95WSome observers have smugly claimed that it is impossible to have a reactionary movement. They say it would be like piecing a ruined cobweb back together or trying to set Humpty Dumpty back on his wall. For them, it
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the New York Grand Lodge Headquarters, said in 2006, “We use the eye, but opticians use the eye. It makes us look ridiculous if we say it links into some Masonic connection that was not there.”
A similar kind of ambiguity surrounds the use of “In God We Trust.” It became ubiquitous only during the Cold War and could almost be considered nationalistic propaganda. It was on the basis that “In God We Trust” is more secular than religious that a federal judge threw out Newdow’s case 10 years ago.
Those concerned about the religious messaging (either mainstream or occult) of U.S. currency have options. Perhaps they should stick to credit cards or Apple Pay. The cult of Apple may be idolatrous, but it’s not religious. Not yet, anyway.Good news for airship fanciers this week, as it appears that the world's first rigid airship since the 1930s will soon take to the skies for flight trials: and better still, this ship has a new piece of technology which could actually change the existing landscape and permit the leviathans of the skies to return.
Rigid ships set to return to the skies - first time since August 1939*
We refer to the Aeroscraft, brainchild of Ukrainian airship visionary Igor Pasternak, and its proprietary Control of Static Heaviness (COSH) tech which apparently lets it do what no other airship has ever been able to. The "Dragon Dream" half-scale demonstrator, which carried out hangar trials earlier this year, has now been certified by the FAA for R&D outdoor trial flights and the first crew to take the ship up has been named.
The lucky three who'll be aboard for the first proper flight
The Aeroscraft, like all the bigger airships of the glorious pre-WWII era, is a rigid ship rather than a blimp. A blimp maintains its shape by the fact that pressure inside its envelope is maintained at a slightly higher level than ambient, keeping it inflated. Blimps can in fact be made pretty large, as the US Navy showed with the ZPG-3W radar ships of 1958-62, but not large enough for really serious air cargo or haulage operations.
A rigid ship, however, keeps its outer envelope in shape by use of a vast, lightweight structure of girders and wires inside which its lifting gas is kept in flexible bags or cells. It can be made truly enormous: perhaps even big enough to lift not only an entire 600-strong battalion of soldiers but also a full complement of heavy weapons, vehicles and supplies for them - all in one load. This was the "Walrus" vision of the US military's DARPA boffinry bureau some years back, anyway, and it would have offered the option of delivering fully concentrated, tooled-up, mobile troops (as opposed to scattered, lightly armed, foot-marching paratroopers or heliborne infantry) across distances much greater than helicopters or even tiltrotors could span.
Non-military airship lovers also found these plans very exciting as a Walrus-type ship could also do various commercial jobs that ordinary planes and helicopters can't: for instance, dropping off or picking up big cargoes in places that normal aircraft can't go. A realistic and prosaic example would be the setting up of drilling rigs and machinery in remote wilderness like the Canadian oil sands. Wilder dreamers would also have seen big ships invading the conventional air cargo market (unlikely, as we've discussed on these pages before) or even carrying people and things in and out of urban centres, where their potential silence and freedom from suddenly-falling-out-of-the-sky issues would perhaps be welcome.In the latest in radical climate doomsaying, a new report warns that fossil fuel consumption will need to be reduced “below a quarter of primary energy supply by 2100” to avoid possibly disastrous effects on global temperatures.
In their report, titled “Pathways for balancing CO2 emissions and sinks,” a team of eight scientists warns that “anthropogenic emissions need to peak within the next 10 years, to maintain realistic pathways to meeting the COP21 emissions and warming targets.”
The statement was immediately repackaged by environmentalists to read: “Scientists say we have ten years to save the earth.”
As is always the case in studies of this sort, the scientists juggle dozens of variables, none of which is entirely predictable and which taken together tell us virtually nothing about the future of the environment.
Although the scientists admit that “there are significant uncertainties associated with projecting energy consumption several decades into the future,” they fail to acknowledge a number of even greater uncertainties implicit in their calculations.
Despite their valiant efforts to produce trustworthy projections, the scientists rely on basic presumptions that are contested by extremely capable minds within their own field.
Dr. Duane Thresher, a climate scientist with a Ph.D. from Columbia University and NASA GISS, has stated bluntly that it is “mathematically impossible for climate models to predict climate.”
Appealing to corollaries of the well-known “Butterfly Effect,” Thresher said that long-term climate forecasting is “a quintessential example of this phenomenon” because of the elevated number of variables playing into climate phenomena.
“Climate models are just more complex/chaotic weather models,” Thresher has noted, “which have a theoretical maximum predictive ability of just 10 days into the future.”
“Predicting climate decades or even just years into the future is a lie, albeit a useful one for publication and funding,” he said.
Undaunted, the team of scientists has declared that achieving global, net decarbonization of human activities “would halt and even reverse anthropogenic climate change through the net removal of carbon from the atmosphere.”
Among the many unproven assumptions behind this assertion is the implied claim that human-induced climate change (itself a contested concept) is a function solely of carbon emissions, such that “net decarbonization” would halt or reverse it.
Here the scientists state as fact what is by all accounts very much an unproven hypothesis.
In recent studies, plants have been found to adapt to a greater carbon concentration in the atmosphere, unexpectedly accelerating their ability to assimilate carbon, something unaccounted for in the new report.
Moreover, there is still significant debate within the scientific community regarding the precise relationship between carbon presence in the atmosphere, global temperatures and the health of the planet.
While this study takes for granted that carbon dioxide is an evil that must be severely restricted, other eminent scholars have suggested that the contrary is true.
One such scientist, Dr. William Happer, professor emeritus of physics at Princeton University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, has insisted that the earth can handle substantially more carbon dioxide than is currently found in the atmosphere and would actually benefit from a higher concentration.
“We’ve heard that CO2 is a demon molecule that causes global warming,” Happer has stated, whereas in reality more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere produces increased crop yields and a greener planet.
According to Happer, an increase in carbon dioxide would only benefit both plant life and human life.
Similarly, Dr. Indur Goklany, who has previously represented the United States on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has asserted that the rising level of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere “is currently net beneficial for both humanity and the biosphere generally”.
The benefits are real, whereas the costs of warming are uncertain,” he said in a 2015 paper titled “Carbon Dioxide: The Good News.”
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsromeMOMBASA Kenya (Reuters) - Nine foreign nationals were charged in a Kenyan court on Thursday with trafficking the biggest ever single seizure of drugs at the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa.
There has been a surge in the volume of heroin trafficked through east Africa in recent years, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime says, with east Africa’s biggest port of Mombasa cited as a transit point for narcotics and other contraband.
The suspects, who included six Pakistanis, two Indians and an Iranian, denied trafficking the heroin and were detained until November when their trial will begin.
Prosecutors told the court on Thursday that the 377.2 kg drug haul had a market value of 1.1 billion shillings ($12.54 million). Police also found 33,200 litres of liquid heroin whose value is yet to be established.
If convicted, the suspects face life imprisonment or a fine worth three times the value of the heroin, or both, a Mombasa-based lawyer told Reuters.
The drug is typically transported from Pakistan and Iran to east Africa, known for its porous borders and weak maritime surveillance, and onwards to Europe.
They accused were arrested in Kenyan territorial waters in early July on board MV Bushehr Amin Darya, a stateless vessel, which was towed into the port of Mombasa, and police found the heroin hidden in the ship’s diesel tank.
Kenyan police said they were communicating with India, Pakistan and Iran to find the owners of the vessel, which they said was headed for Mombasa at the time it was intercepted.
An Australian warship seized a dhow in Kenyan waters with more than a tonne of heroin worth $268 million in April.
($1 = 87.7000 Kenyan Shillings)Disclaimer: The writer of this article backed Chroma Squad, contributing $25 to its Kickstarter campaign.
Super Sentai management game Chroma Squad is finally releasing this April. The game by Knights of Pen & Paper creators Behold Studios was successfully funded on Kickstarter in August of 2013. The release of the game was projected for the end of that same year, but aside from a delayed beta in April 2014, there was no sign of the full release. The future of Chroma Squad was also in doubt for backers as SABAN, the Western owners of the Power Rangers franchise, contacted the developers:
This week [SABAN] contacted us to offer a deal. They see two options in this negotiation: the first one being using the court to make sure that our game wouldn’t get released. The second option would be that they would join our project with a royalty share. We both prefer the second option, considering that going into court would be painful for both sides. So, we started a win-win negotiation. You all know that our game is inspired by something much broader than Power Rangers. We’re talking about an amazing Sentai culture that is mostly Japanese, but got even bigger with fans from around the world. We’re talking about tokusatsu in general, japanese super heroes, animes, kamen riders, everything that inspired us very much in our childhood and continue to inspire us now.
SABAN made similar headlines last month when they pulled a fan-made Power Rangers short film from YouTube (before allowing it back after much outcry). Thankfully it appears they’ve backed down from taking action against Chroma Squad:
Saban, the producers of Power Rangers™, approached Behold Studios and realized that Chroma Squad is a homage to their super hero franchise. Quoting one of the Saban’s producers: “Chroma Squad is a flattering compliment to MMPR”. Yay! \o/ We grew up watching Sentai series like Power Rangers, Flashman and Changeman and those TV shows hold big influence to the game. So, we got ourselves a subtitle paying that homage: Chroma Squad: Tactical RPG inspired by Saban’s Power Rangers. But the great news is that the content in the game will stay as we intended it to be since the beginning of the project.
Chroma Squad is now set for release on Steam on the 30th of April.The yakuza, Japan’s organized crime groups, have close to 79,000 members. It’s very hard to understand why they are tolerated in Japanese society and not simply banned. Part of the reason for this is that for many years the yakuza observed, to some extent, a set of internal codes which made them appear to be a effective deterrent against street crime: robbery, muggings, theft, sexual assault.
Each group has its own code of ethics, usually posted on the wall of the organization offices. The rules are intended to prevent yakuza from being involved in ordinary street crime, such as purse snatching or mugging. Some groups actually adhere to the rules.
Depending upon the Oyabun (father figure), the leader of a group, violators are quickly expelled. The code here forbids: 1) the usage or selling of drugs, 2) theft 3) robbery, 4) indecent acts (猥褻) and anything else that would be shameful under ninkyodo (仁侠道) aka the chivalrous/humanitarian way. The other rules are about relationships amongst yakuza. What is a fairly recent addition to the code is “do not have any unnecessary contact with the authorities.” In the old days, it was not uncommon for detectives to drop by yakuza offices and have chats over tea. One thing that should be noted, extortion and black mail are not expressly forbidden. One yakuza boss explains this as follows: “If you’re being blackmailed by the yakuza, obviously you’ve done something bad and deserve it. We’re enforcing social justice and fining people for their misbehavior. What’s wrong with that?”
I spoke with one yakuza who argued that the Sokaiya (racketeers) 総会屋 actually functioned as a the fourth estate in Japan. By digging up embarrassing information on large corporations and threatening to expose them, they would sometime force the companies to correct the error of their ways and behave in a socially responsible fashion. Of course, the primary motivation of the sokaiya wasn’t social welfare but their own profits. However, I’m willing to consider all opinions.
The reasons the police are cracking down on the yakuza like they never have before is that there is barely a semblance of even lip service to the old codes. As one yakuza boss put it rather eloquently, “When the yakuza rob people, deal drugs, when they attack civilians, their family members, or their children–they’re no longer yakuza, they’re just mafia. We have existed this long because the police have allowed us to exist and we have cooperated with them to some extent. Those days are gone. We are being replaced internally and externally by thugs and gangs who make no pretense of having any codes at all. I’m not sure that will make Japan a better place.”Fact check: Will Abbott's fuel excise hike cost families 40c a week?
Updated
One of the revenue measures announced in the 2014-15 federal Budget was an increase in the fuel excise.
The morning after the budget, Prime Minister Tony Abbott told ABC Radio's AM program the change won't make a major dent in family finances. "The fuel excise indexation will cost the average family 40 cents a week in year one," he said.
Mr Abbott made a similar claim on ABC TV's Insiders. "I accept that the fuel excise indexation will cost in the first year the average family 40 cents a week," he said.
ABC Fact Check assesses the Prime Minister's claim about the impact of the fuel excise.
The claim: Tony Abbott says the reintroduction of fuel excise indexation will cost the average family 40 cents a week in the first year.
Tony Abbott says the reintroduction of fuel excise indexation will cost the average family 40 cents a week in the first year. The verdict: Mr Abbott's 40-cent claim applies to "the average household" rather than "the average family". For some families, such as a couple with dependent children, that figure can be 55 cents extra per week. Mr Abbott is close to the mark.
History of fuel taxes
The first duty on imported petrol was imposed by the Australian government in 1901, and the first excise on domestic petrol to raise revenue for road building was levied in 1929.
A similar excise on diesel for road users was introduced in 1957 with exemptions for off-road users, and in 1982 the Diesel Fuel Rebate Scheme for off-road users replaced the exemptions.
An excise has been imposed on other fuels and motor oils, but Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and ethanol were made duty free in 1979 and 1980 respectively, to encourage their use.
In 1983, six-monthly indexation of the fuel excise was introduced in line with changes in the cost of living as measured by the consumer price index (CPI) to maintain the real value of the excise.
That indexation was abolished in 2001 to alleviate the impact of high petrol prices.
Changes to the fuel excise
The recent Federal Budget announced that biannual indexation of the fuel excise to the Consumer Price Index would recommence on August 1, 2014. The CPI is currently increasing at a rate of 2.9 per cent annually.
It's estimated that in 2014-15, indexation will add about one cent per litre to the current rate of the fuel excise of 38.143 cents per litre.
The move is expected to gather net revenue (after accounting for fuel tax credits for business use) of $179.3 million in 2014-15. Net revenue is then forecast to increase to $400 million in 2015-16, $720 million in 2016-17, and $1.05 billion in 2017-18.
The Government has pledged to amend the Excise Act of 1901 to ensure more money is spent on road infrastructure than the net revenue from the reintroduction of indexation.
Calculating the cost
A Household Energy Consumption Survey, conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2012 and released in September 2013, found that on average Australian households spent $59 a week on fuel, comprised of $51 on petrol and $8 on diesel.
At the time the average petrol price was 144.3 cents per litre and diesel 150.6 cents per litre.
Combining these two figures produces an average weekly usage for all households of 35.3 litres of petrol and 5.3 litres of diesel, a total of 40.7 litres of taxed fuel.
With indexation expected to add one cent per litre to the excise, that means the change would cost 40.7 cents per week.
The Prime Minister's office confirmed to Fact Check that their calculations were based on the average all-household measure.
However, that does not reflect the spending of "the average family" referred to by Mr Abbott in his interviews. The average household includes people living alone, in group households and in multiple-family households.
The ABS survey does not include weekly spending for the "average family". It does contain results for seven types of households. As the table shows, lone-person households spent less than half the all-household figure.
Household type Weekly spending on petrol ($) Weekly spending on diesel ($) Total weekly spending ($) Additional weekly cost after fuel excise indexation (cents) Couple with dependent children 69 11 80 55.1 Single-parent family with dependent children 44 3 47 32.5 Couple with no children 47 11 58 39.9 Other one family 76 10 86 59.3 Multiple family 103 10 113 78.0 Lone person 20 3 23 15.9 Group 59 7 66 45.5 Average of all households 51 8 59 40.7
A couple with dependent children spent $80 a week on petrol and diesel, while a single parent family with dependent children spent $47. Couples without children spent almost the same as the all-household figure, and "other one family households" - such as those with non-dependent children, or comprising adult siblings - spent more.
For the couple with dependent children, using an average of 47.8 litres of petrol and 7.3 litres of diesel a week, the reintroduction of the excise will cost an extra 55.1 cents a week.
Indirect costs
According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, the excise on fuel represented 1 per cent of Gross Domestic Product in 2012-13, down from 1.7 per cent of GDP in 2001 when indexation was scrapped.
However economists say it's unlikely a small increase in fuel prices would lead to an increase in other costs. Automotive fuel makes up 3.66 per cent of the total CPI.
Commonwealth Bank economist Gareth Aird, who has studied the impact of oil prices on the economy, says a one cent lift in the excise is unlikely to "materially impact on the prices of food and transport costs".
Mr Aird says there would need to be "a larger increase in the petrol excise for flow-on effects to be felt through price rises in other goods and services".
That's a view shared by Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital. "It would have to have a virtually negligible impact on the price of end products that have to be transported like food," Dr Oliver said.
The verdict
Mr Abbott says the average family will pay an extra 40 cents per week in the first year as a result of fuel excise indexation.
His 40-cent claim applies to "the average household" including single occupiers rather than "the average family". For some families, such as a couple with dependent children, that figure can be 55 cents extra per week.
Mr Abbott is close to the mark.
Sources
Topics: federal-government, business-economics-and-finance, abbott-tony, liberals, government-and-politics, australia
First postedA constituent displays a sign at a Rep. Jackie Speier town hall in San Francisco, California, on February 26, 2017. (Photo: Master Steve Rapport)
The United States has now entered month two of Donald Trump’s presidency, and the opposition to his administration is strong and growing. The past week has produced too many town hall protests to catalog, many of which have resulted in blistering criticisms of Republican elected officials, as well as of some Democrats. For now, the common enemy of Trump has served as a rallying cry and unifying force for a popular front, but the divisions in the big-tent, left-of-center coalition highlighted by the Democratic primary still exist and are in fact deepening, as the race for the head of the Democratic National Committee showed.
At the center of many of these town hall protests, often incorrectly dubbed a progressive answer to the Tea Party, is a group called Indivisible. It is less an organization than a network of local organizations, many of which sprang up in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s victory. Created by former congressional staffers, Indivisible works regularly with well-known liberal clearinghouses like MoveOn, as well as the progressive Working Families Party and a number of community-based organizations. The network released a guide in December suggesting simple strategies to maximize pressure on Congress: Forget the online petition, call your representative and both senators, show up at their offices, show up at public events, and show up at town halls. The response has been even larger and more enthusiastic than the founders expected.
Following Trump’s victory, many individuals began forming ad hoc groups through social media and local meet-ups to deal with the helplessness they felt in the final weeks of 2016. Myrna Ivonne Wallace Fuentes, an associate professor of history at Roanoke College, paid attention to the election, but it wasn’t until after Trump won that she really became an organizer, she says. She attended a meeting of Our Revolution, the group that formed out of Bernie Sanders’ run, and when the large group broke into smaller break-out sessions, she wanted to focus on a rapid-response network for undocumented people and other marginalized and vulnerable groups.
That became Roanoke Indivisible. “From that day, we probably got 30 or 40 emails,” Fuentes tells me. “But it wasn’t until we decided to go to Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s office that we started to see exponential growth.” Goodlatte, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, made national news on the first day of Congress when he announced plans to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics. They started flooding his phone lines, and, combined with a national outcry, that was enough to get the Goodlatte amendment rescinded. Twelve members of Roanoke Indivisible still paid his office a visit, dropping off New Years Cards detailing exactly what they expected of him. The Indivisible Guide tells new activists what to expect at their first district office meeting, which was helpful for Fuentes’ group, since they didn’t have their own firsthand experience.
“What really appealed to me about the guide was it was incredibly concrete. It looked like a recipe,” says Fuentes. “Most of the people coming to Indivisible are new to political activism. People told me, ‘I’ve never called my representative, and my arm was trembling when I picked up that phone.'”
They sent out a press release, local media came, and that night Rachel Maddow ended up featuring a video they had shot themselves. After that, they got a lot more local interest, and they’re building from there. “We’re focusing on local defensive action. Not: ‘I want a Universal Basic Income’ — which I do! But I know there’s no chance in hell anything like that is going to be talked about in Congress for the next two years.”
In many ways, Indivisible is doing the kinds of things the Democratic Party would be doing if it wanted to operate as a recognizable local and state organization, not just at the national level. It makes sense, given the unlikely origin story of the core group. Angel Padilla is one of the cofounders of Indivisible, and a former staffer for Luis Gutierrez, who represents Illinois’ fourth district.
“We modeled Indivisible on what we saw that worked,” Padilla tells me, referring to the anti-Obama protests in 2009. “The Tea Party was well funded, and we’re entirely organic.”
Indivisible organizers like Padilla often portray Indivisible as a “progressives taking a page from the Tea Party” in this way, but in truth that framing is incomplete: it erases liberal-left organizing both recent and older. As Josh Marshall notes at Talking Points Memo: “The real reference is to 2005 when Democrats turned out at Republican town halls to protest President Bush’s plan to partially phase out Social Security.” He adds, “It was 2005 that Tea Partiers (and the GOP pressure groups organizing them) explicitly referenced in 2009.”
Beyond the 2005 protests, the Tea Party tactic guide was taken from the Right’s favorite villain, Saul Alinsky. His seminal book Rules For Radicals “was being touted as a way to beat the left at its own game,” reports Politico, including by “69-year-old former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, whose nonprofit group FreedomWorks has emerged as a leading Washington bulwark for the Tea Party movement.” In other words, the Tea Party attempted to take a page from the Left — not the other way around.
Where the Tea Party succeeded, largely due to gerrymandering, was in creating unprecedented levels of ideological discipline. As highlighted by the battle for the chair of the Democratic National Committee shows, Democrats are still torn between listening to grassroots activists, who favored Keith Ellison, and supporting Tom Perez, who has received more institutional backing — though it’s worth noting, establishment-friendly Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, endorsed Ellison. Perez won, of course, leaving many on the left to wonder whether the Democratic Party could ever be reformed from within, or if activists should put any energy whatsoever into the party’s institutions. “If they engage with the Democratic party at all,” writes labor policy researcher Matt Bruenig, they should “only do so in order to attempt hostile takeovers of various power positions”
However that kind of organizing manifests, there’s no question there’s been a surge of energy on the broad left. “If you’re a progressive, you’re terrified,” says Padilla. “But we can do something about it, and we know we can do something about it because we’ve seen it happen before. If we act locally, organize locally, we can stop a lot of this terrible stuff from happening.”
Although Indivisible is known primarily for its practical guide for influencing Congress, Padilla emphasizes the network is also about principles and values, not just tactics. “We’re very progressive, and we really do care about things like equal protection under the law, civil rights, voting rights, immigrant rights, reproductive rights,” he says. “If we have an ideology, it’s progressive values. We want constituents to go to Democrats and tell them to make sure they’re voting the right way, and we also want Republicans to be voting the right way. We tell our groups it doesn’t matter if they’re in a Blue state or a Red state, they need to be pressuring their members to do the right thing.”
Indivisible isn’t the only group that has seen its numbers swell. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest socialist organization in the United States, saw record interest over the course of the Sanders campaign and after Clinton’s loss. “There is a parallel rising interest in DSA and also there is some overlap at the local level,” Maria Svart, DSA’s national director, tells me. “This is not surprising because people are frustrated with the political elites. We have almost tripled in dues-paid membership since a year ago and the number of organized local DSA groups has quadrupled.”
Although there’s no formal collaboration between DSA and Indivisible, DSA shares the Indivisible website with groups as a good practical guide. Svart says she’s hoping the organic overlap at the local level will help pull some newly engaged activists to the left. “We do that openly as democratic socialists because the ideological contrast is important,” Svart says.
Svart stresses that DSA’s goal reaches far beyond opposition to Trump and the GOP Congress.
“We don’t just want to hold Republicans accountable. We also want to hold centrist Democrats accountable,” she said. “Furthermore, our strategy is to question the very economic system that has created this undemocratic political system, where one dollar equals one vote, instead of one person equaling one vote, where Trump and his corporate cronies can rig the economy, yet the moderate Democrats can’t challenge Trump’s right-wing populist rhetoric because they’re afraid to go too far left.”
Svart’s comments about holding centrist Democrats responsible echo Padilla’s, and could signal a recognition of everyone to the left of Chuck Schumer that simply getting Democrats elected isn’t enough if they aren’t going to fight for progressive values — ambiguous as the term “progressive” may be right now.
Indivisible doesn’t have any plans to run candidates as of now, but there’s still time before 2018. There will almost certainly be some elected Democrats who help facilitate the Trump agenda, and there’s a near-universal recognition among activists that those who do should face a primary from the left.
For its part, DSA is already gearing up for 2018.
“We know from history that we need to build an independent political force that can be flexible and strategic based on circumstances,” says Svart. “And we know from the Bernie Sanders primary campaign that democratic socialist values resonate with millions of Americans.”Mitt Romney’s announcement that he won’t run for president will be a good thing for the Republican Party, Bill O'Reilly said tonight.
Most of the Republican contenders have a chance, O’Reilly said, adding that it would be worthwhile for them to look back and see why Romney lost the last time around.
“I don’t believe Mitt Romney really wanted to win the presidency,” O’Reilly said. “It could have been subconscious, but no aggressive candidate would do what he did.”
“The Factor” host remarked that Romney did not exploit Barack Obama’s trouble with the economy and his unraveling foreign policy.
O’Reilly said that the 2016 Republican candidate will have to be charismatic, daring and coherent to go up against Hillary Clinton.
“It’s actually a good thing for the Republicans that Mitt Romney is not running,” O’Reilly said. “Now, somebody new will be on the big stage, but they'd better be ready for a bruising battle.”
Watch the full memo above.Quarterback Vince Young has agreed to a one-year, $2 million contract with the Buffalo Bills, league sources told ESPN senior NFL analyst Chris Mortensen.
Young can earn another $1 million in incentives, sources said. He is expected to join the team Monday. Young worked out for the Bills at the beginning of the month.
Young, in a statement released Friday afternoon, thanked general manager Buddy Nix and coach Chan Gailey.
"I am looking forward to playing with the guys and helping where I am needed," Young said. "I have always respected the Bills organization and I am looking forward to being a part of the team."
Young spent last season with the Philadelphia Eagles. He struggled in six games, throwing for 866 yards, four touchdowns and nine interceptions. Young also had a career-low 60.8 passer rating in 2011.
"We think adding Vince to our roster will create more competition for the backup quarterback position," Nix said in a statement. "He brings with him some unique physical abilities that most are aware of and that will make the competition interesting. It's all about improving our team."
Young has had an up-and-down career since being selected third overall by the Tennessee Titans in the 2006 draft. He was the NFL's offensive rookie of the year, but lost his starting job on several occasions in Tennessee before the Titans ran out of patience with him.
"The guy's been to two Pro Bowls, he's 31-19 as a starter in this league," Nix said. "We think he can do that again. If he has to play, he can give us a chance to win the game or at least this: He will make Tyler (Thigpen) better."
Gailey said it's premature to determine what Young's role might be until the player takes the field for practice. The first opportunity for that will come May 29, when the Bills open a monthlong series of minicamps.
Gailey, however, dismissed questions regarding Young's struggles in Philadelphia and his inconsistencies in Tennessee.
"I don't know any of the circumstances surrounding what happened. All I know is he's a talented guy that said all the right things when he was here," Gailey said, referring to Young's workout last week. "So, I'm looking forward to working with him."
The traditionally cost-conscious Bills have been free spenders this offseason after signing free-agent defensive end Mario Williams to a six-year, $100 million deal, the most expensive contract awarded to an NFL defensive player. They were also able to re-sign starting receiver Stevie Johnson before he became a free agent. Last week, they also awarded starting running back Fred Jackson a two-year contract extension.
"I'm sure he can still play," Jackson said of Young. "He's another playmaker for us. I'm sure they'll find ways to get him in there to compete. It's another good signing for us, so we'll see what happens."
Information from ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter, ESPN.com's James Walker and The Associated Press was used in this report.Remember that time when we told you about Shredz64 and we were all excited and stuff? Well, friend, sometimes dreams do come true, and Toni ended up completing his Shredz64 project in style. In case you need a refresher, Shredz64 is all about bringing a Guitar Hero-style experience to the Commodore 64 -- which, in addition to holding much sentimental value, is quite the musical device in its own right. He has a custom-built "PSX64" interface for plugging his PS2 Guitar Hero guitar into the C64, which he's having produced for sale alongside a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk of Shredz64, but the real magic is the software itself. The C64-synthesized songs sound great, and interface is like Guitar Hero or Rock Band without all the annoying fluff. Check out the videos after the break for everything in action.Image copyright SPL Image caption Being locked in a cell is especially frightening for those in mental health crisis, says Mind
Too many people in the middle of a mental health crisis end up locked in police cells after being turned away from hospitals, says a report.
People are being turned away because of full wards, staff shortages or because they are too young or too drunk, said the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Police cells are inappropriate and make people feel "punished for being unwell", said the charity Mind.
Home Secretary Theresa May said the situation was unacceptable.
Violent and intoxicated
The CQC said in some areas, patients were well provided for, but that the standard was not universal.
Between 2012 and 2013, in total 21,814 people were detained by the police under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act.
We must never accept a situation when a person in crisis is denied care just because the person is intoxicated Theresa May, Home Secretary
The law says those people should be interviewed by a registered doctor, or mental health professional, to make arrangements for care.
But the CQC said 7,761 cases ended up in a police cell, rather than safe rooms in A&E, mental health trusts or children's hospitals.
Patients were being turned away from hospitals because they were violent, intoxicated, disturbed or under 18. Or because the hospitals either did not have an appropriate place to put them or staff with the right skills to deal with them.
Mrs May said the situation "wastes police time" and leaves people with mental health problems without the care and support they need.
Being detained in a cell is frightening, especially for someone in crisis Sophie Corlett, Mind
'Not good enough'
"We must never accept a situation when a person in crisis is denied care because a health-based place of safety is full or unstaffed, or just because the person is intoxicated," she added.
She said the "exclusion" was not in line with a plan launched by the government on looking after people in crisis and called upon local health leaders, commissioners and providers to improve care.
The CQC's survey also found many hospitals did not have the data to quantify if there was a problem and record how many patients were sent away.
Dr Paul Lelliott, of the CQC, said the survey findings were "not good enough".
"Imagine if people who had had a heart attack or stroke, were regularly turned away from an A&E department due to a lack of staff or beds," he said.
Sophie Corlett at Mind said: "Being detained in a cell is frightening, especially for someone in crisis, who is often confused, and might even be harming themselves, experiencing suicidal feelings or psychosis."
"An emergency is an emergency, and those who are intoxicated and in need of help should still receive the same level of mental health care and treatment as anyone else," she added.
She said local agencies should work together to give support.About This Content
Welcome to Tokyo, a gleaming beacon of
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Further legal action from the NFL eventually produced a settlement whereby Modell agreed to leave the Browns' name and colors in Cleveland in exchange for an expansion franchise in Baltimore that acquired the Browns' roster. Bombers was one of the names rejected by the team in the naming process, with city mayor Kurt L. Schmoke even writing a letter advising against the name in light of the Oklahoma City bombing and the Jaffa Road bus bombings in 1995 and 1996, respectively. The name of Marauders finished third in the final voting. [1] The new NFL franchise would become the Baltimore Ravens while the Stallions ceased operations (although their ownership group was granted a new CFL franchise in Montreal and successfully re-signed much of the Stallions' roster).
Proposed logo [ edit ]
The proposed main logo showed the silhouette of a "generic" World War II-era bomber (not the silhouette of the B-26 Marauder).[2]Welcome
This site was created to document the history of the various stages used by Star Trek over the years at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood, California.
The history of the sets is interesting for numerous reasons. First, it is interesting to see how sets evolve (and are reused) between different shows, and even series. Second, it gives a true appreciation for the scale and work that went into creating the sets;sets are well known for their 360-degree detail. Finally, it is both fun and educational to keep stage layouts in mind when watching the shows. In particular, much can be learned of how and why a shot is set up in a particular manner with the plans at hand.
Motivation for this collection and analysis of the stages came upon news of the striking of the stages of what is seemingly the last Star Trek, Enterprise. Stages such as Stage 8 and 9, which have been in constant use by Star Trek since 1978 have been completely cleared for the first time.
Each of the shows has had permanent sets. The Original Series used what are now Stages 31 and 32. The Next Generation used Stages 8, 9, and 16. Deep Space Nine used Stages 4, 17, and 18. Voyager used Stages 8, 9, and 16. Enterprise used Stages 8, 9, and 18.
There is significant value in documenting sources of information. It gives credit where credit is due, and it also directs the reader to interesting reading material. As such, each page is heavily referenced to acknowledge the books and online material from which information is gathered. Most images on this site are original scans from the materials in the author's collection. These sources are very highly recommended reading material.
If you have corrections or encounter missing information, please let me know. Reference information (in any form) would be very helpful to back up the facts. In particular, sources of Star Trek soundstage blueprints are useful. The collection is never complete.
--Pat Suwalski
Stages
Below are buttons to information about specific stages. The brighter buttons indicate that those to sections have more information than the dimmer ones.
4 5 6 8 9 10 14 15 16 17 18 20 29 31 32
Updates
Updates will be listed here as new information becomes available.MULTAN: The roof of a private school in Multan's Basti Ali Wala area collapsed on Saturday, leaving at least nine children injured.
According to rescue officials, over 25 students were trapped under the debris.
An operation initiated to rescue the children and teachers trapped under the rubble.
Two teachers, who were present in the school when the roof collapsed, were also rescued.
The injured were shifted to Nishtar Hospital while some were provided first-aid on the spot.
Rescue officials said 16 students were sent home after they were provided first-aid.
As Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif took notice of the incident, police arrested the school's principal.
Angry parents and family members of the students surrounded the police vehicle and protested against the school administration for their negligence regarding the dilapidated state of the school building.
Pakistan Army personnel also visited the school after the incident and observed the damage caused by the roof collapse.Fuel tax concessions to the mining sector amount to more than $2.5 billion per year.
Left-leaning think tank, the Australia Institute, says Federal Government subsidies to the mining industry have increased by half a billion dollars over the past year.
Figures released earlier this month by the Productivity Commission show the mining industry received $492 million in direct subsidies last year.
But senior economist with the Australia Institute, Matt Grudnoff, says if you include tax concessions provided to mining companies, the amount of subsidy is almost ten times that figure.
"The mining industry has the lowest rate of corporate tax because it has so many tax concessions," he said.
"The average is about 21 per cent, the mining industry only pays 14 per cent.
"While we have a big debate about the car industry and how much subsidies we give those, they're only getting about half a billion dollars a year whereas the mining industry gets four and a half billion dollars a year."
Exploration and prospecting deductions increased by $220 million on last year while deductions for capital works expenditure rose by $127.5 million.
Concessions for tax paid on crude oil condensate have decreased by $550 million following the Federal Government's decision to shift this tax to the petroleum resources rent tax.
But Mr Grudnoff says the decrease has been compensated by a rise in fuel tax credits to the industry of $458 million.
The mining industry has dismissed the figures saying they misrepresent the scale of government support.
Minerals Council spokesman Ben Mitchell says fuel tax concessions shouldn't be considered a form of subsidy.
"It's not a subsidy because it's a business input, in the same way that a carpenter's drills might be a business input," he said.
"The fuel tax was imposed to build public roads. Mining builds its own roads and that's why we get a credit on that."
The figure produced by the Australia Institute doesn't include any state-based subsidies or concessions.
Mr Grudnoff believes the $4.5 billion estimate is conservative.
"The Federal Government is helping to pay for a lot of rail and port infrastructure that the mining industry uses," he said.
"So it's certainly an underestimate of how much they actually receive."Don’t Like 9mm Justice in Your Living Room?
Gaddafi is dead and all we can do is talk about it. For every honest question, there are several “subsidized” hypocritical remarks from the shills and phonies who will be filling your email with commentary.
Gaddafi and his Israeli/neocon buddies spread around a lot of cash. Some who got paid off moved on quietly when it was time, others are making total asses of themselves.
I didn’t want to see Gaddafi arrested, killed or tried. However, I am an American and didn’t live under his rule for 42 years. Those who did, people I know of heroism and character, hated him.
He had to die, just like Saddam and bin Laden. Why?
He died, whether the person who killed him knew it or not, because he knew too much. Gaddafi had something on everyone and had paid off politicians around the world for 42 years.
He had also ordered the imprisonment and killing of tens of thousands of innocent people. Press coverage of these last few hours was like something out of a 3 Stooges film. This is from one well known publication often damned by the ADL:
NATO and Major Media Scoundrels Claim Victory Close at Hand NSNBC‘s daily updates tell a much different story On October 15, it said early on October 14, TNC fighters controlled parts of Sirte, as well as small areas of Sabah, Bani Walid, Benghazi and Tripoli. “This picture would change dramatically over the next 24 hours.” Overnight, Zuwara residents attacked TNC rebels, burned their local office, “and forced the occupiers to flee….taking heavy casualties.” Elsewhere across Libya, early morning hours were marked by demonstrations. Loyalists won’t tolerate NATO terror, “oppression, massacres and atrocities for one moment longer. Libya was at the brink of exploding from anger and frustration.” In Tripoli, demonstration began at 8:00AM. They grew in size when Wirsh Fana Tribal members joined it. Chants said, “This is it. Today we take our city and our country back.” TNC fighters fled in haste from Bani Walid, Sirte, and Sabah, taking heavy casualties. “The retreat in Tripoli was a drive through a shooting gallery as people all over Libya rose to the occasion.”
Read that last line again: “The retreat in Tripoli was a drive through a shooting gallery as people all over Libya rose to the occasion.”
Recite this again to yourself and imagine that it was posted on hundreds of websites, send out in millions of emails, that the reputation of journalists heard on radio, seen on TV depends on the truth of these statements, all wildly delusional, childishly propagandist and utterly phantasmagorical
This is the kind of reporting we have gotten, the exact same sources that reported NATO atrocities, the same sources that reported Gaddafi’s accomplishments, the love of his people, how his militias, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, stood to overrun the handful of rebels threatening Tripoli.
Every word from so many, every accusation, oft repeated on RT, carried on website after website, all simply press releases sent out by propaganda agents of a brutal dictator.
Joining the “America haters” were the armies of neocons who find fault in every breath a “non-white” American president takes, his every action part of a Jewish or Wall Street conspiracy.
One might ask why 9/11 will never be investigated? The answer is here to see among the Gaddafi “fan club.”
Others have done worse and continue to rule or run the planet free as a bird. As long as we all agree on this, we can remain civil. I have a list sent me by rebel leaders of others who died with him. They are pleased and proud. They feel that a great tyrant was brought to justice.
Conveniently, whether they believe it or not, there are other celebrations also. We would believe, were we all morons, that the leftists and activists who ate lobster and drank Dom at those Tripoli hotels, who were on the payroll of the Libyan people, would be crying the loudest now.
Yet we hear silence from so many. The money stopped after all.
Then there were the others, those that were so easy to find when the money trail was followed, back to Tel Aviv, through Lebanon and into the bank accounts of so many “do gooders” and “charity” types.
Then there was Bush, Blair and Netanyahu, Gaddafi’s real partners, that and Fox and Cheney and David Welch.
So many wanted Gaddafi dead, dead and silenced.
[Editors Note: Reporting from the Tripoli shills became hysterical when the band of several hundred rebels arrived. The neighborhood defense groups were actually infiltrated by the rebels and went over them in mass, so the Gaddafi troops lost their cannon fodder shield.
The 60,000 civilians and 200,000 regular troops were hiding out or staying hidden from air strikes. And the 1.5 million who came out for Gaddafi in Green Square were not to be found. Reporters like Phelan even discounted news of their approach as false propaganda. Here are couple of gems from my files:
Independent journalist Lizzie Phelan confirmed by Dr Franklin Lamb argues that Libyan government forces remain in de facto control of the city…Lizzie Phelan who is in Tripoli says allowing the rebels inside the capital could well be a strategic move on the part of Libya troops who have corralled the rebels into a single location. “What we have heard is that the strategy of the Libyan government and army was to permit the rebels into the city because previously they have been operating in a sneaky manner and it was very difficult to know who they were and where they were hiding, so that they could be dealt with in a direct manner,” the journalist says.
She was, of course, simply a Gaddafi propaganda shill, and Veterans Today predicted that the after action analysis on the base reporting by these phony journalists would be exposed in detail. Most were avid anti-imperialist socialists with more than a little bias baggage which even a blind man could see. We plan to review every detail of their bogus reporting when the Libyans have the time to begin writing the history of their revolution… Jim W. Dean]
Let me tell you a little story.
I got a story last night, 2AM from one of my writers, someone of prominence, who received it from a source at GlobalResearch.ca, a “progressive” Canadian organization that has failed my “sniff test.” Ah, the world we live in….
According to the story, Gaddafi’s forces had taken Tripoli last night and controlled most of Libya. They named city after city that had been taken by Gaddafi and that the NTC was ready to go into hiding.
Then I reached Libya. They told me they had Gaddafi trapped and were within 300 meters of him. One of our regular contributors was leading the forces in Sirte.
He is on some of the videos. We do not believe he shot Gaddafi.
[youtube NVIkck02qao]
Things we do know? We know what an execution is like, the brutality, we also are more clear about the lies around the staged death of Osama bin Laden. Is Gaddafi going to be flown out to an American aircraft carrier for what some believe to be a mandatory Islamic burial at sea?
Was Gaddafi a Muslim anyway?
Here is part of the unclassified note from Libya:
All of Libya now liberated. The tyrant, his “defence minister”, Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabir, and his son Mu’tasim (the one who spends $2m a month on European girlfriends and $2m to Beyonce to sing on his birthday) are all dead. Saif al-Islam reported wounded and under arrest. Chief torturers Abdallah al-Sanusi and Mansur Daw (recently returned from Niger) dead. No more resistance from mercenaries. It’s over.
We should know more about how he died. The BBC showed a live capture, Gaddafi pulled out of a sewage tunnel begging for his life. No, there is nothing wrong with wanting to live, no dishonor at all.
Killing him was probably the right thing, a decision I might have made were I a Libyan and there. I would not have enjoyed it. I have killed before, many of us have. Welcome to that world.
As an intelligence source, bin Laden was a thousand times more valuable and a hundred times less threatening and Americans, supposedly, murdered him, unarmed and alone.
Gaddafi had much to tell and I wanted to know all of it. I am old and weak, I would have let him and the monsters around him live.
None of “mine” were murdered or raped by Gaddafi and his friends.
Reality check.
I get to talk to national leaders now and then. I will be kind and call it a privilege. It is not.
Those unable to be ruthless will fail, I tell them that. Gaddafi was ruthless and that ruthlessness was important at one time.
He was just another of the Cold War centrists, those who played right against left.
When the Cold War ended all Gaddafi could do is sit and stew in Tripoli, stew on his plots, manipulating tribe against tribe, playing with his gangster unions and his fawning adherents who spent Libya’s billions in the whore houses of the world.
His dependable old allies, South Africa, gone, Israel, still around, still ready to follow the cash wherever it lead. This left him the corrupt oligarchs of Sub-Saharan Africa and their African Union.
There he elected himself “bwana Gaddafi” and lorded over his dark skinned friends, passing out money and privilege to the most corrupt of Africa’s most corrupt.
Spun on a website by a paid shill to those who don’t know better, Gaddafi could be a hero. In reality, of course, he became increasingly insane, increasingly brutal and increasingly obvious.
His bought and paid for friends in Canada, America, Britain and wherever members of the pretend blogger press get together, when the wolf finally showed up at the door, portrayed him a hero, his billions spent on imaginary water projects that were centuries from completion, his free education his wonderful hospitals.
It took only 200 rebels to take Tripoli from his 50,000 man militia.
His body was dragged through the streets of Tripoli only 8 hours after the most reliable sources of the alternative press announced that he had regained control of the city.
What do we know? We are fairly sure Gaddafi is dead. We have his death to compare with that of bin Laden, a real death with an imaginary one. This lesson is clear enough with those who have ears to hear and eyes to see.
Of the NATO invasion, we know that those who spoke of it at length were liars and cheats.
Of those who spoke of last weeks conquest of Libya by Gaddafi, we can only recommend quality psychiatric help at a facility not run by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Moreover, for those who choose to play Gaddafi as a hero after it became know he had always worked for Israel and the CIA and his envoys had been with neocon David Welch on August 19th, 2011 in Cairo, a meeting verified by so many, we can only call those who choose to not know the truth, what can we call them?
Insane is too kind.
Dishonest is an understatement.
What can we say categorically?
For sure, those who supported Gaddafi against the Libyan people sided with a murdering tyrant against a people struggling to be free.
As for those who talk of NATO? France left NATO 50 years ago.
No NATO troops landed, no oil deals were needed, the neocons and Brits had sucked them down years ago.
All lies, all liars, cheats and liars, cheats and liars among us.
These same cheats and liars claim to support “us” on 9/11, on globalism, on ending wars and torture.
Perhaps everything they have always said has been a lie. Seems reasonable to me.
I don’t even trust “us” anymore…..as you can see below:Jewish Political Studies Review
Jewish Political Studies Review 16:3-4 (Fall 2004)
3D Test of Anti-Semitism:
Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization Foreword of JPSR Issue
Natan Sharansky
When I was a dissident in the former Soviet Union, one of my regular activities was monitoring anti-Semitism, and smuggling out evidence and records of such activity to the West. I believed then that the free world, particularly after the Holocaust, would always be a staunch ally in the struggle against anti-Semitism.
Unfortunately, I was wrong. Today, as a minister in the Israeli government in charge of monitoring anti-Semitism, I find myself regularly summoning the ambassadors of West European states to protest anti-Semitic attacks on Jews in their countries and the often meek response of their governments.
Over the past four years, we have witnessed a resurgence of anti- Semitic activity in the democratic world. In Europe, synagogues have been burned, rabbis have been abused in the streets, Jewish children have been physically attacked on the way to school and inside schools, and Jewish cemeteries have been desecrated.
Recognizing the "New Anti-Semitism"
Moreover, the so-called "new anti-Semitism" poses a unique challenge. Whereas classical anti-Semitism is aimed at the Jewish people or the Jewish religion, "new anti-Semitism" is aimed at the Jewish state. Since this anti-Semitism can hide behind the veneer of legitimate criticism of Israel, it is more difficult to expose. Making the task even harder is that this hatred is advanced in the name of values most of us would consider unimpeachable, such as human rights.
Nevertheless, we must be clear and outspoken in exposing the new anti-Semitism. I believe that we can apply a simple test - I call it the "3D" test - to help us distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism.
The first "D" is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel's actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz - this is anti- Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel.
The second "D" is the test of double standards. When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel's Magen David Adom, alone among the world's ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross - this is anti-Semitism.
The third "D" is the test of delegitimization: when Israel's fundamental right to exist is denied - alone among all peoples in the world - this too is anti-Semitism.
The Rise of Arab and Islamic Anti-Semitism
I am particularly concerned about the constant and growing stream of anti-Semitic propaganda from the Arab and Muslim world - including propaganda that is genocidal in nature against both Jews and the State of Israel. This should be of grave concern, not only to Israel and Jews but to men and women of good conscience everywhere. Such venom defiles the Middle East and the international climate of discourse, and makes it possible for unabashed Jew-hatred to be expressed with impunity.
Earlier this year, my office published a 150-page report on "Anti- Semitism in the Contemporary Middle East." The study surveys anti- Semitic reporting, editorials, and editorial caricatures in the government- controlled press of Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states. In the more than one hundred editorial cartoons included in this report, Jews and Israelis are invariably represented as poisonous snakes, murderous Nazis, and bloodthirsty Crusaders.
We found that vicious anti-Semitism which expressly calls for massive terrorism and genocide against Jews, Zionists, and the State of Israel is becoming more and more commonplace across the Arab Middle East. Moreover, the borders between anti-Semitism, anti- Americanism, and anti-Westernism have become almost completely blurred. The overwhelming majority of this propaganda is issued from the government-controlled media and from supposedly respectable publishing houses closely tied to the Arab regimes.
There is a direct link between the laxity with which countries have responded - or not responded - to growing Arab/Islamic anti- Semitism and the sharp increase in physical and verbal attacks on Jews and Israelis globally.
I recognize that there have been positive developments in the fight against anti-Semitism over the past year or so. The Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has held several meetings on fighting anti-Semitism, and for the first time ever the UN Commission on Human Rights condemned anti-Semitism in three separate resolutions, which were adopted by consensus.
But these important initiatives are not sufficient to combat state-sponsored anti-Semitism, especially of the Arab/Islamic variety described above. For real progress to be made, the free world must be willing to not only publicly and forcefully condemn this anti-Semitism, but also to pursue a policy of linkage against states that support anti- Semitism.
The Need for a Linkage Policy
The effectiveness of a policy based on linkage was powerfully demonstrated a generation ago after a group of dissidents inside the Soviet Union, including myself, decided to form the Helsinki Group in the wake of the Helsinki accords - the very agreement that led to the establishment of the OSCE.
With the help of courageous leaders in the West who were willing to link their relations with the Soviets to their treatment of their own people, the Helsinki Group helped ensure that the Soviets could not take one step in the international arena without their human rights policies becoming an issue. As a result, real progress was made.
I believe that combating anti-Semitism ought to become a much more prominent issue in the bilateral relations between America and the Arab and Muslim worlds. Linkage can be used to marginalize the extremists and to encourage and support those who reject this virulent hatred.
Anti-Semitism is not a threat only to Jews. History has shown us that left unchecked, the forces behind anti-Semitism will imperil all the values and freedoms that civilization holds dear. Never again can the free world afford to sit on the sidelines when anti-Semitism dangerously emerges.
We must not let this happen. We must do everything in our power to fight anti-Semitism. Armed with moral clarity, determination, and a common purpose, this is a fight that we can and will win.
* * *
NATAN SHARANSKY, the former Prisoner of Zion who spent nine years in Soviet jails, was Israel's minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs when he wrote this article. In 2003 he founded the Global Forum against Anti-Semitism, which brings together Jewish leaders and organizations from five continents for coordination and consultation in the struggle against anti-Semitism. He has also served as minister of industry and trade, interior minister, minister of construction and housing, and deputy prime minister. His memoir, Fear No Evil, was published in the United States in 1988 and has been translated into nine languages. His book, The Case for Democracy, was published by Public Affairs (New York) in 2004.
The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
The above essay appears in the Fall 2004 issue of the Jewish Political Studies Review, the first and only journal dedicated to the study of Jewish political institutions and behavior, Jewish political thought, and Jewish public affairs.
Published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (http://www.jcpa.org/), the JPSR appears twice a year in the form of two double issues, either of a general nature or thematic, with contributors including outstanding scholars from the United States, Israel, and abroad. The hard copy of the Fall 2004 issue will be available in the coming weeks. This issue focuses on "Emerging Anti-Semitic Themes."
From the Editor - Manfred Gerstenfeld Foreword by Natan Sharansky Foundations of an Israeli Grand Strategy Toward the European Union by Yehezkel Dror Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism by Robert Wistrich Watching the Pro-Israeli Media Watchers by Manfred Gerstenfeld and Ben Green Abusing the Legacy of the Holocaust: The Role of NGOs in Exploiting Human Rights to Demonize Israel by Gerald M. Steinberg International Organizations: Combating Anti-Semitism in Europe by Michael Whine Confronting Reality: Anti-Semitism in Australia Today by Jeremy Jones Anti-Semitism in Canada by Manuel Prutschi Anti-Semitism in Germany Today: Its Roots and Tendencies by Susanne Urban Iceland, the Jews and Anti-Semitism, 1625-2004 by Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson The Persistence of Anti-Semitism on the British Left by Ben Cohen Suing Hitler's Willing Business Partners: American Justice and Holocaust Morality by Michael J. Bazyler A Case Study: Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A.: A Battleground for Israel's Legitimacy - by Joel Fishman An Analytic Approach to Campus Pro-Israeli Activism Case Study: John Hopkins University by Yonit Golub
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Annual Subscription Rates:Having your belongings stolen on your last day in a foreign country isn’t something that will make you sing praises of the country. But that’s exactly what 26-year-old Bora Kim, a Thai national, is doing.
Kim, whose jacket was stolen on the train from Udaipur to Mumbai, on her last day in India, is impressed with the government railway police for their kind treatment of her.
The Bandra GRP not only took her complaint promptly, but also gave her with food, water and saw her off for her flight on Wednesday night. "She came to the office around 4pm with a complaint of her jacket being stolen. The jacket had her last few Indian currency notes. She seemed quite worked up and hungry, so we asked a female constable to calm her down and make her feel at home," said Vijay Dhopavkar, senior inspector of Bandra GRP.
A harrowed Kim was overwhelmed with the treatment she got at the Bandra GRP office. She said she was touched when the female constable offered to take her to a nearby restaurant at her own expense before dropping her off at Santa Cruz.
"She said she would go all the way to Churchgate to eat something and then take a cab to the airport. We explained to her that it would be very expensive. As it is she had little money left on her. So we offered to drop her at Santa Cruz station by train from where she could get an autorickshaw to go to the airport," said constable Anupama Modekar who is said to have become friends with Kim during this short encounter.
Modekar added that she was floored with Kim’s innocence. "She looked so innocent that I was afraid of leaving her alone. She was reluctant in letting me buy food for her but her hunger was apparent. Even two cups of tea, a masala dosa and two glasses of lassi didn’t seem to satiate it," Modekar laughed.
Having travelled across Rajasthan, Odisha and Maharashtra, Kim said her last day was her most memorable. "The GRP transformed my nightmarish day into the most pleasant memory of my trip. I just can’t thank them enough. But I would like to say to them dhanyawad," she said.There’s a time-honored LPL tradition of ignoring what makes sense to the rest of the world’s League of Legends teams. The LPL took a break from this tradition last year. For a while, it made them stronger, but then, when their understanding of the strategies they were applying was tested, they buckled. Top teams haven’t recovered, and the LPL has gone back to doing what they do best: standard lanes, team fighting, and going for the outplay.
The top teams in Group A and B of the LPL have achieved their results by finding work-arounds. Breaking down how QG and Royal find their advantages, as obscure and counter-intuitive as they may seem, provide the best way of understanding their chances at the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship. LPL send two of their best to compete on the world stage. This is the finest chance they have of redemption, but a Chinese victory is far from a done deal.
Royal Never Give Up and “Baron or Bust”
Given LPL’s team fight-oriented nature, they almost always have a Baron team, or a team with a playstyle that primarily revolves around securing Baron buff as early as possible by setting up vision and team fights around the pit. This year, the most obsessed Baron team is Royal Never Give Up, averaging the earliest first Baron time in the league of 25 minutes and 44 seconds. The league average is nearly three minutes longer at 28 minutes and 43 seconds.
In games where Royal Never Give Up secure the first Baron before their opponents, they have a 100% win rate. This is even higher than in games where they secure the first inhibitor, where they only have a 91.67% win rate. Royal’s preoccupation with Baron has been a huge boon and a weakness for them. They’ve used it to turn games from behind against OMG and Hyper Youth Gaming, but they’ve also lost to Team WE as a result of their Baron fixation when Xiang “Condi” Renjie successfully stole the buff from them multiple times in their series.
One may have expected Royal’s defining characteristic to be their early game control with the recognition jungler Liu “Mlxg” Shiyu has received. Indeed, Mlxg is a central part of Royal’s success, averaging 20.58% of team gold per game, more than 1% above the league average of 19.24% for junglers. Mlxg teeters between high pressure early game and passive farm style almost without explanation. His most successful pick, Graves, has seven wins and zero losses, averaging 4.89 CS per minute, which is high for many LPL junglers. During Graves games, Mlxg rarely ganks.
In fact, in the first three weeks of the LPL, Royal Never Give Up averaged a gold deficit at 10 minutes of -140 gold. This value has steadily improved, reflecting the team’s ability to better play off their 2v2 lane. AD carry Wang “wuxx” Cheng averages a CS lead of 5.5 at ten minutes, putting him at second place in the LPL among AD carries currently starting for teams for CS leads at 10 minutes. Much of this momentum runs off Cho “Mata” Sehyoung’s ability to pressure the opposing 2v2. Royal’s first win against QG Reapers in Week 5 of the LPL resulted from Mata’s ability to push Yu “Peco” Rui and Zhang “Mor” Hongwei out of lane.
Royal Never Give Up have been able to take their first turret on average at 10 minutes and 49 seconds. This puts them at the third earliest time in the LPL, which is impressive for a team with a lane swap rate of only 33% (meaning they have only been in a situation where they have played with a different number of players in the top and bottom lane to the enemy team after the first quadrant clear of the jungle in 33% of their games). Taking this turret allows them to play off the momentum for early skirmishes and rotations to pressure the mid lane.
Royal Never Up's gold distribution relative to role average
This playstyle has resulted in mid laner Li “xiaohu” Yuanhao having the second lowest percentage of team gold of any mid in the LPL at 22.73%, as he often begins ceding farm early to wuxx or Mlxg. Both xiaohu and Jang “looper” Hyeongseok have received less emphasis within the team as they become more bottom lane and jungle centric. looper farms side waves to create split pressure and looks to Teleport in when the team sets up for Baron.
Royal focus on setting up to leads to take advantage of Baron. This simple formula has yielded them the highest gold lead at 20 minutes at 2,000 gold on average, a statistic that has persisted throughout their time in the League of Legends Pro League, even when they averaged a deficit at 10 minutes.
Lane swaps are rare in the LPL, but as their frequency has increased with more exposure to Snake, the lane swap enthusiasts of the LPL who have played a swap in an astounding 80% of their games, Royal have begun using scouting wards more often. If they suspect they will be swapped on, they will send their 2v2 top. This resulted in more games where Royal send their duo lane top than games in which they play a lane swap.
Royal Never Give Up have a simple formula. This formula is relatively easy to predict, which is why QG seemingly succeeded in baiting out Looper’s Teleport in the second game they played. When QG showed signs of reversing the lane swap by pretending to back in the bottom lane bush, Looper Teleported in eagerly. QG immediately turret dove for first blood.
Of LPL teams, Royal also have the most interest in Rift Herald, picking up the earliest Rift Herald in 56% of their games. They will take the buff after their first turret and rotate to the mid lane with it, a strategy that other LPL teams haven’t picked up on.
Undeveloped parts of Royal’s strategy include jungle and support synergy. Mlxg and Mata will invade the enemy jungle, but rarely as a duo, leading to more misplays from Mlxg and Royal’s occasional tendency to fall behind.
Royal’s most successful champion has been Graves, but other power picks include Poppy, Alistar, Leblanc, Kalista, and, surprisingly, Tristana. Royal have a 100% win rate on four Tristana games played. They will go for the pick with Kalista denied for her early lane trades and Baron potential. This only occurred on Patch 5.24, however. Following the break, the team has stopped picking Tristana and moved onto Lucian.
I don’t rate Royal very highly overall. A lot of their power is lost in execution or poor drafting. The team will pick “style” drafts full of assassins and AD carries or give up power picks easily. Despite their recent 2-0 result against QG, I favor QG’s chances of success at IEM better, as Royal’s win conditions are fairly one-dimensional and easily abused.
QG Reapers and the slow, but Swift death
Unlike Royal Never Give Up, QG Reapers average a consistent gold deficit at 10 minutes of -470. The only team with a worse average gold deficit at ten minutes is last place Group A team, LGD Gaming at -550 gold. QG have only had a gold lead at ten minutes in five of the 14 games they have won so far this split.
Yet QG have also only lost three games so far. Their 0-2 defeat against Royal Never Give Up is only accompanied by their single loss to Vici Gaming. QG turned around the VG series in Game 3, ending it in 22 minutes, the shortest and most decisive game of the LPL split so far. It was one of the five games they played where they secured a gold lead at 10 minutes. When I asked Peco why he believed his team lost Game 2, he simply said “We knew we could win Game 3.” I can’t argue.
As with Royal Never Give Up, QG’s jungler receives a high percentage of team gold. Baek “Swift” Dahoon is the only jungler in the league to receive more of his team’s gold than Mlxg at 20.8%. His most effective pick is Rek’Sai, as he’s had a 73.1% kill participation in seven Rek’Sai games played, and a 67.4% kill participation on average for 2016 LPL Summer. His playstyle on Rek’Sai differs drastically from Graves, the other jungle champion QG have picked in more than five games this split, in that he is much more proactive in the early game. With Graves, Swift opts to farm through the initial phase of the game, creating QG’s fairly unique approach to lane swaps.
Rather than opt into a typical swap by trading first tier turrets in the side lines well before the first ten minutes are up, QG will agree to trading one turret — the first half of the swap — but then send their AD carry to the lane in which they lost their turret and leave him to freeze the wave and farm. During their games, QG will sometimes juggle a double freeze in both top and bottom lanes. This strategy takes several forms.
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gets focused by the enemy. That way you will have a window of time and opportunity to go in a do some DiPS, without risking your health pool.
It is also important to have a general idea of what enemy spells and abilities are used, and being on cooldown, because it is best time for you to strike. Other than that, this info will allow you to understand at what time it is best to reposition yourself behind the frontliner, and out of the range of enemy nukes and disables. Believe me, once they will be up, you don’t want to be in the basic attack range, near enemy.
So, your movement will either be reactionary or aggressive, depending on the action pattern you would like to go. Apart from things described above, the positioning of your allies and foes will play a key part in the outcome of the fight, and your action pattern. You don’t want to play defensive when half of your team is taking down isolated enemy hero. And on the contrary you don’t want to engage while you are on the frontline, or your team is on the retreat.
Overall, I’m stressing so much on these basic things, because they have much higher value and impact on your decision making and health pool. This build is very easy to punish for positional and decision mistakes. Only heroes, or builds, that are punished harder are melee Assassins and heroes without escapes, like Kael’thas.
The laning phase
In general, it is best to play fairly passive until you get your first power spike - level 7 talent “Searing Attacks”. SA will allow you to trade you HP efficiently, and dish out decent right click damage. Depending on the enemy laner, or lane composition (solo lane, triple\double lane), you will be able to break even, or secure lane dominance.
For A-A Valla, proper positioning in lane has same importance as it has in team fights. Securing the right spot in the bushes and “stutter stepping”, can be a difference between won and lost lane.
Also, don’t forget that right click Valla is very good at destroying enemy buildings, starting with level 7. On some maps and in some situations, it may be more beneficial to leave the objective and secure XP lead with your push. However this is very rich and in-depth topic for a discussion, and i will provide more detailed info in the “Battleground specific advices for the builds” part of the guide.
How to position yourself
Despite providing some insights on the positioning topic earlier, i feel that it has to be discussed more detailed, as it is very valuable for this build. Above, in general style of play, i talked about how it is important to keep in mind\feel cooldowns of key enemy spells. The value of such action will only increase if you can also keep in mind important cooldowns of your allies. They will, most likely, allow you to do more damage, or be more flexible in your decision making and positioning.
First of all, I’m talking about zoning and disabling abilities from frontliners and saving abilities from supports. These will prolong your auto-attacking sessions and will keep your life pool healthy. Second of all, it is the synergies of the heroes and spells. Being able to prolong chain stun on the target, and knowing the synergies between allies will not only allow you to do more DiPS, but also to win a fight, and potentially a game!
You might think - “what the hell this all has to do with the positioning?” Well, like in case of the enemy spells and threats, that affect your movement and positioning, the stuff described above has also a lot of value for the decision making and positioning. Knowing it, counting on it, and using it to your advantage will greatly increase your game understanding, results, and skill.
What talents can counter weaknesses
Depending on how good you are with the positioning, this build may, or may not, be hard to play for you. While talents can’t compensate the misplays, they are certainly good at providing defensive and utility options that will cover some weak spots of the build. Also, if you struggle with playing this build on a decent level, talents can cover some hard parts for you.
“Arsenal” talent will help if you feel that going into the late game will be a problem. It will bring more AOE damage. Overall, it will allow you to do more damage in earlier stages of the game.
If survivability is the issue, you can try to compensate it with defensive talents of level 13(“Spell Shield”) and 16(“Blood for Blood” and “Stone Skin”). Also, holding your ultimate for defensive capabilities can help.
Positional issues can be solved with “Bolt of the Storm” and “Tumble” talents. “Bolt” will even allow you to dodge some spells and Heroics. More info on that is in the description of the talent.
Lastly, if self-sustain is the issue, during the laning phase, on maps that value laning phase, taking “Vampiric Assault” will help. It will increase the efficiency of HP trading, and will make taking camps easier process.
More detailed description and value of the talents, for A-A Build, can be found in “alternative talent” section of the guide.
Alternative or situational Talent choices for Auto-Attack Build
image source: https://www.heroesfire.com/hots/talent-calculator/valla
Generally speaking, each Build has its core talents. While this is true for A-A Build, there are some situations when you can take different talents. The essential parts of the build are, of course, “Rancor” and “Searing Attacks” talents. “Rancor” is a framework of your Build, as it will buff any auto-attacking talent you might choose. And SA talent is a first major power spike for this build.
So, other talent choices are situational and will depend on the conditions of the game. See the description of each talent tier below, to know more about benefits which other talents bring to the table.
About the ultimates. It is not required that you take “Rain of Vengeance”. Auto-Attacking build can be played with "Strafe". RoV just feels like a natural choice, as bigger part of your damage output will come from basic attacks. And you are not able to auto-attack while casting "Strafe".
In the end, choice is situational. I will describe advantages of Strafe, for A-A Build, below.
Last thing i want to mention is I’m talking about Auto-Attacking Build here. And that means that every talent that will be described below, will be described from the point of view of A-A Build. I will tell how effective and beneficial a talent is to the build.
Now that the general brief is over, let’s dive into each talent tier, and see if there are any viable talents for A-A Build.
Level 1 Talent choices
“Rancor” is the choice! That’s it! I know you want to experiment and stuff, but no! If you skip this talent and go for something else, you will lose a lot of potential and buffs for other a-a talents. All auto-attacking talents are more effective when you have more attack speed. So, not choosing “Rancor” talent would be an option if this talent tier provided another option with the same level of benefits to the build. However, it is not the case!
Cost-Effective Materials
The talent will reduce the cost of “Hungering Arrow” by 30 Mana.
Siphoning Arrow
SA heals Demon Hunter for 50% of the damage dealt by “Hungering Arrow”.
You don’t take HA upgrades for two reasons. Firstly, you have “Rancor” on this talent tier. Secondly, your main damage source is basic attacks, not spells like Hungering Arrow.
Composite Arrows
This talent will increase cone range of “Multishot” by 20%.
The reasons for not taking this talent are similar to the reasons why you don’t go HA upgrades.
Punishment
Each ability usage grants 3 stacks of “Hatred”
Probably, one of the least used Valla talents. It is not used in any of the competitive builds. This talent is not used even in mixed builds! Talent is good for ramping up the amount of Trait stacks. However, “Hatred” is not some imbalanced passive ability, so you don’t want to have 10 stacks as fast as you can!
Level 4 Talent choices
Despite being considered as one of the core talent tiers, this tier has variety in it! Apart from standard choice, you can go “Arsenal” or “Vampiric Assault”. Both choices are specific. “Manticore” is effective talent when you know that you will be able to proc it at least 3 times. Otherwise, and in conditions described below, it is better to go other talent.
Vampiric Assault
Basic attacks will heal Valla for the 15% of the damage dealt.
This talent can be a valid option when winning a solo lane means a lot for your team. Usually, it’s the case for very small and aggressive maps, like “Tomb of the Spider Queen” or “Dragon Shire”. VA will allow you to trade HP more effectively than enemy hero, resulting in lane domination, and allowing you to create objective pressure. Later in the game, this talent will also benefit from other a-a talents.
Arsenal
“Multishot” will fire 3 grenades, which deal additional damage. The damage is (42.5 + 7.5 per level). Damage can only hit same target once, even if you hit the target with all 3 grenades.
Just like “Vampiric Assault”, this talent is situational pick. It has its value when you know that you won’t have much time to land the basic attacks, or get enough number of right clicks. And by enough number i mean at least 9 attacks, on the same target. As for the time - it’s 5 seconds. And actually, it is the same time that you need to land 9 basic attacks.
Reasoning for all that mess written above is damage numbers. “Manticore” talent is more beneficial in terms of damage output if you are able to stay on the target for 5 seconds of time. If not, “Arsenal” talent will provide more damage output. Keep in mind that this is true if we are talking about single target damage.
Lastly, this talent choice over “Manticore” is a specific one. In later stages of the game, the damage output of M will surpass the damage from “Arsenal”. Each talent that will boost your basic attack damage will also boost “Manticore” talent. So, picking “Arsenal” is more of a safe play. Pick it if you feel that you will be pressured a lot in the beginning\mid game, and want the game to go into the later stages, where A-A Build does tremendous amounts of damage.
Puncturing Arrow
The upgrade for “Hungering Arrow” increases number of bounces by 1, and range of the spell by 25%.
Very strong upgrade for HA, however it’s has no value in this build, as most of the damage will be from basic attacks and there are more valuable options, for the build, that are situated on the same talent tier.
Level 7 Talent choices
This is the second core talent tier, so “Searing Attacks” is your choice. You don’t choose other talents for similar reasons as it was for level 1 tier. SA is very strong boost for your damage output and is very beneficial for the build. All other talents, on this tier, are weak. “Repeating Arrow” is ok, but it won’t be effective for A-A Build.
Caltrops
Every time “Vault” is used, 3 “Caltrops” are dropped. They slow enemy by 20% for 2 seconds, and do (27 + 2 per level damage).
The talent offers some kiting potential. Problem is the area of the “Caltrops” is small and they are easy to dodge. Also, other downside of the talent is it’s rather weak, and there are other stronger talents on the same tier.
Hot Pursuit
When Valla is at 10 stacks of Trait, the movement speed bonus will be increased to 20%.
The idea of the talent seems very cool. It strives to boost the chase down potential, with increased movement speed. However, there are talents like “Frost Shot” that are more useful. And 10% of movement speed is very low amount. So, in the end this talent is very weak, and then again, you have stronger talents on the same tier.
Repeating Arrow
The talent refreshes cooldown of Hungering Arrow when “Vault” is used.
Very strong talent for “Hungering Arrow” Build, as it basically doubles the damage output of the HA. In case of A-A Build, it won’t be the choice, as it has no synergy with auto-attacks.
“Heroic” choice
(Level 10 Talent choices)
Value of “Rain of Vengeance” for A-A Build was described above, so let’s talk about other ultimate. About “Strafe”. It will be great choice if you feel that your team lacks AOE damage, for team fights.
In the A-A Build, Valla will be doing single target damage, mostly. In certain conditions you might feel the need of additional AOE damage. As Heroic ability is not the core element in this build, you can walk away with situational choice.
The downside of the “Strafe” choice is that you won’t be able to auto-attack. This seems to be not a big deal, at start. However, at some point of the game your basic attack damage output will surpass the damage output from the ultimate. Depending on the talent choices, it happens at levels 13-16. From that point onwards, it will be beneficial to use “Strafe” on more than 1 target, as your basic attack damage will be higher than that of “Strafe”.
In the late game, situation is even more drastic, as you won’t go for the upgrade of Heroic. Usually, on level 20 you chose either “Nexus Frenzy” or “Bolt of the Storm”. And that situation leaves “Strafe” usage in even trickier spot! On level 20 and further, damage of your basic attacks will be 3 times higher than damage of the ultimate. So, only beneficial usage of heroic will be when you can hit more than 3 targets with it, provided “Strafe” will be cast for its full duration! And in latter stages of the game it is usually more critical to do quick -1, instead of trying to damage everyone...
As you can see, the “Strafe” choice is very specific one. It provides benefits of AOE damage, but using it properly, on every stage of the game, can be a very tricky task.
Level 13 Talent choices
This talent tier doesn’t have core talents, but there are some that seem more valuable than others. In general, talent tier offers amount of talents for both, defensive and offensive options.
If you feel that “Frost Shot” is not the talent you want to go, read about other situational talent choices. Usually, it is the case when you either need additional survivability, or enemy has very sustainable lineup.
Giant Killer
“Giant Killer” is a passive ability that will deal bonus basic attack damage against heroes. The amount of damage equals to 1.5% of the hero’s max HP.
GK is passive ability that will benefit from “Rancor” talent, and will boost the a-a damage even more. The talent is also very useful against teams and setups that have good sustain, be it double\triple tanks or double support lineups. Keep in mind that this talent is not obligatory, as the talent tier is situational. Choose “Giant Killer” if you feel that you need to add up the right click damage, and you don’t have problems surviving the fights.
Spell Shield
SS is another passive ability. However, it is designed to boost your survivability, as it grants ability damage reduction, when you are hit by the spell. Effect lasts for 3 seconds, and can be triggered once every 30 seconds.
This talent is very good at protecting your hero from enemy setups based around the ability burst damage, or lockdowns. Hero examples are Nova, Zeratul, Kael, Falstad, and so on. As for lockdown heroes let’s mention Tyrael, Johanna, Tyrande, and Butcher. SS will lessen the load on your support, and most likely will allow you to survive enemy focus. But you are still squishy hero, with low self-sustain. Don’t think of yourself as a frontliner after picking “Spell Shield”!
Tempered by Discipline
This is complicated. So, when Valla is on 10 stacks of “Hatred”, this talent allows her to gain new stacks. They are called “Discipline”. Each stack of “Discipline” will heal Demon Hunter for 3% of the basic damage dealt. The talent can have 10 stacks at max, resulting in 30% life steal. This talent feels like improved version of “Vampiric Assault”, but designed for Valla.
“Discipline” is one of the talents you don’t use. There are two main reasons for that. First of all, it has very bad mechanic. Initial idea is cool - increased survivability based around hero specific mechanic. However, in its current state it is far worse than either “Spell Shield “or “Vampiric Assault”. And that, points out the second problem - there are better alternatives. Lastly, its takes too damn long to gain those 10 stacks, and most of the times fight is already over. And if not there is another problem - those stacks start to decay if you have to reposition yourself.
To summarize everything up, this talent won’t cut through for A-A Build, as it has better alternatives and clunky mechanic. But idea is very cool!
Level 16 Talent choices
Situation on this talent tier is similar to level 13 - there is good a-a talent and some alternative talent choices. So, if you feel that you won’t get much use of “Executioner” or are looking for other options, you should take a look at “Blood for Blood” and “Stone Skin” talents.
Usually, you don’t go “Executioner” when you don’t have CC’s in your team and there is a need in boosting your survivability. Don’t forget to count “Frost Shot” talent as viable disable for “Executioner”.
Tumble
This talent adds 2nd charge to “Vault” ability. The charge can be used after 2.5 seconds delay of initial cast.
Another great talent for Hungering Arrow Build! Oh, wait! We’re in the different build. So, as great as it is for HA build, it won’t have much value for A-A Build. And that will result in this talent not being picked.
Blood for Blood
Activatable ability. BfB will steal 10% of the targets Max HP, and will heal Valla for double the amount. The ability is usable only on heroes. It has 60 seconds cooldown and costs no Mana.
Has a range of an auto-attack.
This talent is very strong against enemy setups with 2-3 melee heroes. Not only you will increase your survivability, but also you will be able to add burst damage to your kit. Keep in mind that talent steals 10% of Max HP. It is best to use it on Warriors with big health pools. Also, you don’t have to use it on enemy with full HP, as talent counts target’s Max HP.
Overall, BfB is good at turning the tides in duels, due to unexpected heal, or helping your team to finish off targets. Lastly, it is decent survivability option, especially against melee heroes.
Stone Skin
Another active ability. SS grants shield that equals 30% of Valla’s Max HP. “Stone Skin” has 60 seconds cooldown.
Unlike “Blood for Blood”, “Stone Skin” is very good versus ranged heroes. Also, it is good at negating some of the poke damage. Usually, it’s more beneficial to choose SS over BfB if most part of enemy damage comes from ranged heroes. The talent is self-cast ability. So, you won’t have a need to be in rage of the target to use it. Lastly, ability is very good against burst damage.
To summarize everything up, SS is good talent versus ranged heroes, most of the time. It is also good tool to negate poking damage, and it is very efficient against burst.
Level 20 Talent choices
Choice is simple: “Bolt of the Storm” or “Bolt of the Storm”. That is, of course, if you are having troubles surviving the fights. Otherwise, it is best to go “Nexus Frenzy”, as it is huge power spike for A-A Build. However, dead Valla does 0 points of damage. So, if you are playing this build for the first time, or see that survivability will be your main concern when enemy hits 20, it is best to take safer route. “Bolt” is not only the defensive tool, but also an offensive one. It will allow you to chase someone down or initiate fights with “Rain of Vengeance”.
Vengeance
The talent increases the damage of “Strafe”, as it adds piercing bolts, to usual projectiles, that fire every 0.25 seconds. The damage output of the bolts is 75 ( 10.875+3.38 per level ), at level 20. Overall, the upgrade increases damage of the ultimate by 67%.
Storm of Vengeance
This upgrade will increase number of waves from 2 to 4. This doubles the amount of overall stun and damage the ultimate provides.
While “Rain of Vengeance” upgrade is one of the least used Valla talents, “Strafe” upgrade is very strong one, and adds tons of AOE burst damage to Demon Hunter’s kit. However, both of them contain low value for A-A Build, as there is “Nexus Frenzy” talent, on the same talent tier. And main damage output of this build is basic damage. Also, right click build does insane DPS in the late game, so it’s better to either boost it even more, or add up some survivability.
Bolt of the Storm
“Bolt” is activatable ability. It teleports hero to a nearby location. Ability has 40 seconds cooldown and costs no Mana. The talent allows dodging many spells, and is rumored to have the increased cooldown in next patch.
Basically, this is the only viable option if you don’t choose “Nexus Frenzy”. As I’ve mentioned in general description to this talent tier, “Bolt” is good for both, defensive moves and offensive actions. For more experienced players, it will also be a tool for dodging enemy ultimates, like Tyrael’s “Judgement”, or baiting enemy to chase you down and be out of position. Other than that, you can take this talent if you know that many enemy heroes with good lock down, or burst damage, will take “Bolt” too. That way you will be able to react on their initiation with your blink out.
Tips on How to play against Auto-Attack Build
image source: http://raph04art.deviantart.com/art/Demon-hunter-Diablo-III-439750072
Punishment for positional mistakes
Being able to punish Valla player for misposition is a top priority when playing against this build. The build offers poor survivability combined with the need to be in close range with the target. And that is the main weakness of the a-a build. Demon Hunter is very squishy hero, and if focused by whole team, will melt down in a few seconds.
To secure the kill, or capitalize on the misplay, you will be looking for spells that have stunning and slowing effects, as well as spells that can block the terrain or change the positioning of the hero.
If we are to talk about usual spells than any stunning skillshot will do. General idea here is to keep Valla in place, so your teammates can do enough damage to either kill her, or force a retreat. If you have few stunning abilities, chain stunning Demon Hunter and the support will be the best use.
To put slowing abilities to a greater use, try body blocking Valla after you land the ability. This will buy few seconds of needed time, in which she will receive fatal damage. Tyrael’s “Q” is a good example. If you throw it behind the target, you are able to teleport on the ability and body block the hero.
Lastly, don’t forget that Demon Hunter is not unstoppable during “Vault”, and also “Vault” can’t hop over the terrain. So, spells that reposition the target, or create impassible terrain for few seconds, will have great value.
The value of disables and effects that mess up with auto-attacks
If Valla player is good enough, you will have a hard time catching him out of position. And that is the time when various spells and effects will come into play. Demon Hunter’s main damage source, in this build, is auto-attacking damage. That means that any spell or effect that won’t allow her to land basic attacks is our friend. So, if you can’t kill Valla, minimize her damage output.
First of all, let’s talk about blinding effects. Right know they are in a very good spot against heroes that heavily rely on right click damage. Blinds cause every attack from blinded hero to miss, during some period of time. Spell like Li Li’s “Blinding Wind” or Johanna’s “Shield Glare” will be strong not only against A-A Valla, but also against other heroes with damage output based on the basic attacks.
Second of all, i have to mention zoning abilities. If you can’t disable Valla player, force him to choose between landing right clicks and taking damage, or staying out of the fight. Here I’m talking about different abilities. The abilities like “Starfall” or “Phoenix” will do the effect described above, while abilities like “Devouring Maw” and “Void Prison” will either zone Demon Hunter out, or disable for some time.
Third of all, i wanted to mention “Shrink Ray” ability. It is very good against many abilities and spells that are either channeling, or provide damage boost for some period of time. Just using this ability in the right time will negate tons of damage from Valla. But what you can do is use this ability on DH when she pops up “Searing Attacks”. This will completely destroy her damage numbers. Also, “Shrink Ray” is good if Valla decides to go “Strafe”, as it will cut down half of the damage.
Lastly, any usual disable, like “Polymorph”, that can stop basic attacks will do. Don’t forget to time it with “Searing Attacks” for greater effect.
Common plays versus squishies
This section will be small, as i want to remind you that Valla is squishy Assassin, after all. So, bursting her down, like you do with other squishies, will be legit play. Other usual stuff contains forcing fights in unfavorable spots, with key cooldowns not being up, with inefficient trades and so on. Oh, and don’t forget splitting her team apart, or isolating her down!
Heroes that are good with and against Auto-Attack Build
image source: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/13908601/the-art-of-liang-xing-4-26-2014
The size of part 3 of the guide has gotten out of hand, a bit, so I’ll try to minimize the amount of text, while being very informative. Basically, heroes that are good with and against this build come from pros and cons of the build, as well as mechanics of the build, and overall hero specifics and characteristics. So, we have heroes that good, because of the build, and we have heroes that are good, because it is still Valla, with all her pros and cons.
Overall, this sections contains examples of heroes from parts of the article that are situated above, and tell us about pros and cons of the build, or how to play against this build, or tips and general style of play for this build, and so on.
Heroes that are beneficial to A-A Valla
General idea is to look for heroes that are good versus enemy comp, but at the same time can provide decent early and midgame. This quality is very important, as A-A Build is late game oriented, after all. Usually, few heroes with good AOE’s, for wave clear, is enough. That way you won’t be pushed hard at the beginning of the game, and won’t have to be always catching up in XP.
Current pool of Warriors, which are used in competitive play, will provide disables and are good at space creation. Among others, Muradin and Arthas will be more beneficial to your “Executioner” talent.
(Leoric, Johanna, Muradin, Anub, Tyrael, Arthas)
Abathur will be nice pair hero for this build. He has the same effectiveness for Valla as he has for Illidan. Obviously, he will be using same build.
As for supports, you will be looking for heroes with burst healing, and ability to quickly cover the mistakes of Valla player. So, Uther, Rehgar will be your best choice. Also, it looks like Kharazim will be good at that role too.
The decision to take semi-supports, Tyrande and Tassadar, is very situational. And will highly depend on map, hero setups, and so on.
Lastly, there are no certain requirements for Assassin\Specialist role. However, it is best if you have hero that is good at bursting down and ganking, in case you see that enemy wants to finish the game early, or plans to push you. Other than that, you can take pushing hero for your lineup, and secure early game yourself.
(Jaina, Sylvanas, Zagara, Tychus, Kerrigan, Zeratul, Falstad, Nova, Nazeebo)
Heroes that are effective against A-A Valla
Johanna, Li Li, Brightwing will provide blinds, that will render Valla’s right click damage to zero. Kael’thas (“Phoenix”), Tyrande (“Starfall”), Zeratul (“Void Prison”), Zagara (“Devouring Maw”), Malf (“Entangling Roots”), Nazeebo (“Wall of Zombies”), Jaina (“Water Elemental”), Leoric (“Entomb”), Anub (“Web Blast”), Chen (“Wandering Keg”), are good at zoning hero out of the fight with their abilities.
Heroes with “Imposing Presence” talent are good chose for the Warrior role. Any Warrior hero has IP, except Chen, Arthas, and Tyrael.
Muradin has awesome “Thunder Clap” build, which is very effective against any right click Assassin, and is a reason why you don’t skill “Imposing Presence” on 16.
Heroes that have “Shrink Ray” talent are very good, especially when you time it with Valla’s “Searing Attacks” or “Strafe”. (Li LI, Uther, Malf, Tyrande, Tassadar). Tassadar is also good, as he wrecks backline if left uncontested, with the help of Sustain Build.
Lastly, heroes with good burst down potential are always good versus squishy Assassin.
(Zeratul, Nova, Jaina, Tyrande, Falstad, “Hunt” Illidan, “Hungering Arrow” Valla, Kerrigan, Sylvanas, Butcher, Kael (post level 16), Thrall, Sonya)
Note:
This is the end of the guide. This part of in-depth guide was about Auto-Attack Build. You can find other parts by the links below. The final part, which will have Battleground specific tips and conclusions to the whole guide, will arrive soon.
Part 1, which has general hero overview and Hungering Arrow Build:
http://www.keengamer.com/article/12013_in-depth-valla-guide
Part 2, about Multishot Build:
http://www.keengamer.com/article/12026_in-depth-valla-guide-part-2-multishot-build1
Part 4, with Battleground tips and conclusions:
http://www.keengamer.com/article/12060_in-depth-valla-guide-part-4-battleground-tipsValve and Arkane, the developer of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, are working on a mysterious new project called The Crossing, which will fuse the worlds of single and multiplayer to create "crossplayer." Details are scarce but if you act now you can treat your eyes to the first footage, courtesy of YouTube.
Powered by Valve's Source engine - which provided the smart visuals and physics action of Half-Life 2 - The Crossing has yet to be officially announced, but that hasn't stopped forumites predicting the depths of the game's secrets. For our part, the most promising idea is an anti-cooperative mode, with you and a rival battling as two opposing characters in a fully fledged story.
We'll be slipping into Valve's inner sanctum to hunt out the first gameplay information as soon as possible, so watch this webspace.
January 9, 2007This article is over 2 years old
Titled Borg vs McEnroe, Janus Metz Pedersen’s tennis drama will feature newcomer Sverrir Gudnason as Björn Borg and Stellan Skarsgård as his coach
Shia LaBeouf to play John McEnroe in movie of Wimbledon legend's 1980 battle with Borg
Shia LaBeouf will play John McEnroe in the upcoming sports biopic Borg vs McEnroe, about the famous 1980 Wimbledon final, often described as the greatest tennis match of all time, reports Variety.
American Honey review: Andrea Arnold mislays map on sweet, indelible roadtrip Read more
Swedish newcomer Sverrir Gudnason is to portray the taciturn Swede Björn Borg, whose cool demeanour contrasted dramatically with his American opponent’s fiery temperament, during their late-70s, early-80s rivalry. Stellan Skarsgård has signed on to play the Scandinavian two-hander’s coach, Lennart Bergelin.
Variety reports the two leads have already begun training for their roles.
Danish director Janus Metz Pedersen, best known for 2010 Cannes festival hit war documentary Armadillo and episodes of HBO’s True Detective, will work from a screenplay by Underdog’s Ronnie Sandahl. The film-maker aims to begin shooting this autumn in Sweden, London, Monaco and New York for a 2017 release date, according to The Wrap.
Borg won Wimbledon five times in a row between 1976 and 1980, while McEnroe went on to win the 1981, 1983 and 1984 men’s singles finals.
LaBeouf can currently be seen as magazine subscription salesman Jake in Andrea Arnold’s debut US-set film, road movie American Honey. The film is currently in competition for the top Palme D’Or prize at the Cannes film festival.
At a press conference on Sunday, LaBeouf said he felt connected to both roles.
“Jake is me. So is McEnroe. That’s it, man,” he told reporters. “I understand these people, I empathise with them. I get it. You turn things up and turn things down. It’s me.” LaBeouf also said his backhand was “getting there”.Microsoft Hacked, Just Like Facebook and Apple
On Friday evening, Microsoft announced via its security blog that it, too, had been the victim of a cyber attack, comparing its situation to the likes of Facebook’s and Apple’s recent security breaches.
“During our investigation, we found a small number of computers, including some in our Mac business unit, that were infected by malicious software using techniques similar to those documented by other organizations,” wrote Matt Thomlinson, General Manager of Trustworthy Computing Security, in a company post.
Microsoft claims no evidence of customer data being compromised.
The security breach of the Redmond-based software company is just one in a series of high-profile tech company hacks, starting earlier this month with Twitter’s announcement that the data of some 250,000 user accounts could potentially have been compromised.
As we reported earlier in the week, laptops belonging to employees at Facebook, Apple and possibly Twitter were infected with malware after visiting an iPhone-focused software developer site. Sources have told AllThingsD that many other companies could have been infected by the malware-spreading site, and perhaps many more will disclose similar instances of hacking in the coming weeks.
And just yesterday, customer service management provider ZenDesk announced that it had been hacked as well. The fallout from that hack affected some of the companies ZenDesk provides its services to, including Pinterest, Twitter and Tumblr.
Microsoft did not respond to a request for further comment.SULAYMANIYAH — A Kurdish Islamic cleric from the Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG) — better known as Komal— has declared that the killing of those converting into Zoroastrianism as religiously legitimate.
In an interview with BBC’s Persian Service, Mulla Hassib from Sulaymaniyah says the Kurdish Muslims who are leaving Islam to join Zoroastrianism and another religion, must be given a period of three days to regret their decision or “they must be killed, executed”.
However, the cleric bounds the implementation of such harsh punishments to an Islamic rule running the state. He further explains that what the Islamic State (IS) is doing is partially correct and in accordance with the Islamic studies, but he criticizes them only for trying to spread the religion by means of violence.
With the peaceful coexistence and ethno-religious diversity being exercised for a long time in the region, Mulla Hassib’s remarks have sparked a widespread outrage among people and heated debates on the social media, mainly slamming his views which are being compared to those of the IS jihadists in Raqqa and Mosul.
In reaction to the report, Pir Luqman, the leader of Zoroastrians in Kurdistan Region issued a statement to decry Mulla Hassib’s remarks which are described as “Ideologies of terrorism and approaches against the freedom among Kurds.”
Pir Luqman also called on Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs and the Public prosecution to face the cleric with charges for his threatening ideology. “We as Zoroastrians will certainly file a complaint against him,” reads the statement.
As the Zoroastrian leader says, those who are converting from Islam into Zoroastrianism are “returning to the religion of their ancestors.”
He
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vegetable starring in national debate Read more
State government support would be needed to implement that package, but some have already ruled out supporting an increase.
At a Council of Australian Governments meeting in Sydney in December, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews said the states and territories were nowhere near a consensus on tax reform.
The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, said Labor has already announced proposals for superannuation tax and negative gearing changes that Morrison “railed against”.
He said Labor could not consider offering its support for any tax reform proposal without first seeing the details.
“We’re prepared to put detailed plans out there to have them analysed, scrutinised and to debate them,” he said. “To have that discussion and make that decision we’d need to see the plan.”
The larger package that Morrison is reportedly considering would increase the GST to 15% to bring in an additional $32bn each year, and is favoured by Turnbull, News Corp reported.
But a smaller package would still include personal income tax cuts, limits on negative gearing and workplace deduction cuts without the GST increase.
Those cuts would be funded by increases in superannuation taxation and limits on workplace deductions and negative gearing concessions.
House of Representatives economic committee chairman Craig Laundy has been commissioned to conduct an inquiry into tax deductions that could reportedly lower tax revenue by up to $5bn.In Orange County, Calif., the probation department’s “supervised electronic confinement program,” which monitors the movements of low-risk offenders, has been outsourced to a private company, Sentinel Offender Services. The company, by its own account, oversees case management, including breath alcohol and drug-testing services, “all at no cost to county taxpayers.”
Sentinel makes its money by getting the offenders on probation to pay for the company’s services. Charges can range from $35 to $100 a month.
The company boasts of having contracts with more than 200 government agencies, and it takes pride in the “development of offender funded programs where any of our services can be provided at no cost to the agency.”
Sentinel is a part of the expanding universe of poverty capitalism. In this unique sector of the economy, costs of essential government services are shifted to the poor.
In terms of food, housing and other essentials, the cost of being poor has always been exorbitant. Landlords, grocery stores and other commercial enterprises have all found ways to profit from those at the bottom of the ladder.
The recent drive toward privatization of government functions has turned traditional public services into profit-making enterprises as well.
SPONSORED
In addition to probation, municipal court systems are also turning collections over to a national network of companies like Sentinel that profit from service charges imposed on the men and women who are under court order to pay fees and fines, including traffic tickets (with the fees being sums tacked on by the court to fund administrative services).
When they cannot pay these assessed fees and fines – plus collection charges imposed by the private companies — offenders can be sent to jail. There are many documented cases in which courts have imprisoned those who failed to keep up with their combined fines, fees and service charges.
“These companies are bill collectors, but they are given the authority to say to someone that if he doesn’t pay, he is going to jail,” John B. Long, a lawyer in Augusta, Ga. active in defending the poor, told Ethan Bronner of The Times.
A February 2014 report by Human Rights Watch on private offender services found that “more than 1,000 courts in several US states delegate tremendous coercive power to companies that are often subject to little meaningful oversight or regulation. In many cases, the only reason people are put on probation is because they need time to pay off fines and court costs linked to minor crimes. In some of these cases, probation companies act more like abusive debt collectors than probation officers, charging the debtors for their services.”
Human Rights Watch also found that in Georgia in 2012, in “a state of less than 10 million people, 648 courts assigned more than 250,000 cases to private probation companies.” The report notes that “there is virtually no transparency about the revenues of private probation companies” since “practically all of the industry’s firms are privately held and not subject to the disclosure requirements that bind publicly traded companies. No state requires probation companies to report their revenues, or by logical extension the amount of money they collect for themselves from probationers.”
Human Rights Watch goes on to provide an account given by a private probation officer in Georgia: “I always try and negotiate with the families. Once they know you are serious they come up with some money. That’s how you have to be. They have to see that this person is not getting out unless they pay something. I’m just looking for some good faith money, really. I got one guy I let out of jail today and I got three or four more sitting there right now.”
Collection companies and the services they offer appeal to politicians and public officials for a number of reasons: they cut government costs, reducing the need to raise taxes; they shift the burden onto offenders, who have little political influence, in part because many of them have lost the right to vote; and it pleases taxpayers who believe that the enforcement of punishment — however obtained — is a crucial dimension to the administration of justice.
As N.P.R. reported in May, services that “were once free, including those that are constitutionally required,” are now frequently billed to offenders: the cost of a public defender, room and board when jailed, probation and parole supervision, electronic monitoring devices, arrest warrants, drug and alcohol testing, and D.N.A. sampling. This can go to extraordinary lengths: in Washington state, N.P.R. found, offenders even “get charged a fee for a jury trial — with a 12-person jury costing $250, twice the fee for a six-person jury.”
This new system of offender-funded law enforcement creates a vicious circle: The poorer the defendants are, the longer it will take them to pay off the fines, fees and charges; the more debt they accumulate, the longer they will remain on probation or in jail; and the more likely they are to be unemployable and to become recidivists.
And that’s not all. The more commercialized fee collection and probation services get, the more the costs of these services are inflicted on the poor, and the more resentful of the police specifically and of law enforcement generally the poor become. At the same time, judicial systems are themselves in a vise. Judges, who in many locales must run for re-election, are under intense pressure from taxpayers to cut administrative costs while maintaining the efficacy of the judiciary.
The National Center for State Courts recently issued a guide noting that while the collection of fines and costs is “important for reasons of revenue,” even more important is the maintenance of “the integrity of the courts.”
In dealing with more serious crimes involving substantial sentences, the rising costs of maintaining and building new prison facilities has prompted many state governments, and even the federal government, to turn to the private prison industry.
This industry, which began to grow in the early 1980s, now faces significant problems. As incarceration rates drop, and as some states adopt more lenient sentencing practices, the industry is struggling to find new ways to fill vacant cells.
Take the Corrections Corporation of America, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and reported revenues of $1.69 billion in 2013. The firm describes itself as “the nation’s largest owner of privatized correctional and detention facilities and one of the largest prison operators in the United States behind only the federal government and three states.”
In its 2013 annual report, C.C.A. was clear about the problems facing the company: “under a per diem rate structure, a decrease in our occupancy rates could cause a decrease in revenue and profitability. For the past three years, occupancy rates have been steadily declining in C.C.A. facilities, from 90 percent in 2011, to 88 percent in 2012 and 85 percent in 2013.”
These numbers reflect the brutal math underlying profit margins in private prisons. The “revenue per compensated man-day” for each inmate rose by 35 cents from $60.22 in 2012 to $60.57 in 2013. But expenses “per compensated man-day” rose by 70 cents from $42.04 to $42.74, for a net decline in operating income for each inmate from $18.18 a day to $17.83.
In combination with declining occupancy rates, the result was a dip in total revenue from $1.72 billion in 2012 to $1.69 billion in 2013.
The founders of C.C.A. include Tom Beasley, a former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party. One of its early investors was Honey Alexander, who is married to Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee. Alexander, according to the Sunlight Foundation, has received in excess of $63,000 from C.C.A. employees and the company PAC since his election to the Senate in 2002.
Poverty capitalism and government policy are now working on their own and in tandem to shift costs to those least equipped to pay and in particular to the least politically influential segment of the poor: criminal defendants and those delinquent in paying fines.
Last year, Ferguson, Mo., the site of recent protests over the shooting of Michael Brown, used escalating municipal court fines to pay 20.2 percent of the city’s $12.75 million budget. Just two years earlier, municipal court fines had accounted for only 12.3 percent of the city’s revenues.
What should be done to interrupt the dangerous feedback loop between low-level crime and extortionate punishment? First, local governments should bring private sector collection charges, court-imposed administrative fees and the dollar amount of traffic fines (which often double and triple when they go unpaid) into line with the economic resources of poor offenders. But larger reforms are needed and those will not come about unless the poor begin to exercise their latent political power. In many ways, everything is working against them. But the public outpouring spurred by the shooting of Michael Brown provides an indication of a possible path to the future. It was, after all, just 50 years ago — not too distant in historical terms — that collective action and social solidarity produced tangible results.During recent excavations at a cemetery in southeast England, archaeologists pulled something strange out of an otherwise unremarkable grave. The object looked like a hybrid of a soccer ball and a rugby ball—bulbous at one end, tapered at the other. It was smooth as bone, resting near the hips of the skeleton of an older woman, who had been buried in a shroud at least 200 years ago.
“The first thing you would think is somehow the head has rolled down into the pelvis,” said Carolyn Rando, a forensic anthropologist at University College London. But the object wasn’t a skull. It was completely solid, and, at more than seven pounds, it was strikingly heavy. After making a careful analysis, Rando and her colleagues think it’s a calcified uterus, the largest of its kind in the archaeological record.
"I’ve never seen anything quite like that before, nor have my colleagues, and we were very excited,” Rando told mental_floss. “It’s one of the largest masses found archaeologically."
This giant calcified growth was found at St. Michael’s Litten, a graveyard in Chichester that was used from the Middle Ages until the mid-19th century, but had been hidden under a parking lot until excavations in 2011 turned up nearly 2000 bodies.
The uterus belonged to a woman who was over 50, had lost all of her teeth and had developed osteoporosis by the time she died, likely sometime between the 1600s and 1800s. (Archaeologists don’t have good dates for most of the graves at this cemetery.) The mass probably started out as a number of leiomyomas, sometimes called uterine fibroids, which are benign growths that occur in up to 40 percent of women of reproductive age. Most of the time, these masses remain soft tissue and don’t calcify. But some leiomyomas can get so large that they outstrip their blood supply and start to harden.
Photo courtesy of G. Cole, C. Rando, L. Sibun, and T. Waldron; UCL Institute of Archaeology
Rando and her colleagues came up with this diagnosis after conducting CT scans of the mass and then slicing it in half to look at its interior structure. In their case report, published in the September issue of the International Journal of Paleopathology, the scientists ruled out a long list of other potential conditions, including the possibility that the growth was a lithopedion, a fetus that dies during pregnancy and hardens outside the uterus. (This phenomenon occasionally shows up in the news, most recently in June, when a 50-year-old stone baby was found inside of an elderly woman in Chile.)
It’s not exactly clear how the growth affected the life of the woman who was buried at St. Michael’s, or if it contributed to her death.
“I’m sure she knew she had something,” Rando said. “I imagine that she might have had some problems going to the bathroom properly. I don’t think she would have been very comfortable. It would be like carrying a full-term infant all the time. But she lived a long life and this object would have taken a long time to grow, so maybe it didn’t bother her that much.”
In archaeological medical cases like this one, it’s tough to look for modern analogs, as most women today would get leiomyomas removed quite early, Rando said. But while scouring the historical medical literature, Rando and her colleagues did find one case that might shed light on how a woman could have lived with a baby-sized, calcified uterus for so long—and at what health risk. In 1840, a British doctor described a 72-year-old woman who came to him with intense abdominal pain after a fall. He noticed that she had a hard mass in her abdomen, which she said had been there for at least 30 years without causing her any trouble. Soon after the exam, the woman died. An autopsy revealed a tumor as hard as marble that resembled the uterus at five months pregnant, in both size and shape. The fall had caused this growth to perforate a section of the woman’s bowel, which killed her.Australia plans to kill two million feral cats over the next five years following concerns that the predators have been preying on wildlife and have left more than 120 native species at risk of extinction.
Declaring a “war on cats”, the federal government said it planned to use poison baits and has created a phone app called FeralCatScan for the public to alert authorities about areas where large numbers of the predators have been spotted.
Scientists believe feral cats have been involved in 28 of Australia’s 29 known native mammal extinctions in the past 200 years.
“It is very important to emphasise that we don't hate cats,” Gregory Andrews, Australia's first threatened species commissioner, told ABC Radio.
“We just can't tolerate the damage that they're doing anymore to our wildlife … Over 120 Australian animals are at risk of extinction from feral cats. So the scientific evidence is crystal clear that they're the biggest threat.”
It is believed there are about 20 million cats across the nation – and they kill about 75 million native animals a day. The cats arrived with the European settlers in the late 1700s and are the same species as domestic or alley cats, but have since gone wild and spread across the continent.
• Australian scientists use cane toads' own poison against itself
Greg Hunt, the environment minister, said a “war on cats” was necessary to prevent further extinctions.
The government is pushing for tighter regulation of cat ownership and measures to control the population such as desexing and microchipping.
“By 2020, I want to see two million feral cats culled, five new islands and 10 new mainland'safe havens' free of feral cats, and control measures applied across 10 million hectares,” Mr Hunt said.
Some experts said the government should consider requiring domestic cats to be kept indoors.
"There's no doubt that cats and domestic cats have an impact on small mammals and birds in urban areas," Damien Licari, an ecologist with Lismore city council, told ABC Radio.
"I choose not to own a cat and in times when I have owned cats, they've been entirely indoor cats. I would applaud any change in laws that would lock cats inside.”An Open Letter to Bitcoin Miners
Jonald Fyookball Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 14, 2017
Dear Bitcoin Miner,
My name is Jonald, and I am a Bitcoin investor.
I bought my first Bitcoins in 2013 and have been active on the Bitcointalk forum since March, 2014. I’m also a small business owner that actually uses Bitcoin for remittance payments, and I hold a degree in Computer Science.
Since Bitcoin investors and miners need each other to succeed, I wanted to take a minute to reach out to you, and send a sincere message from a “real Bitcoiner”.
I’ll cut right to the chase:
I’m concerned. I believe we urgently need to find a scaling solution, and I believe the best solution is to increase the blocksize.
At least, hear me out.
Why Should You Listen to Me?
There’s a huge amount of misinformation, dishonesty, and political agendas attached to the Great Scaling Debate. The situation is serious and there’s a lot at stake here.
I am not beholden to any special interests. No one is paying me to write this. I am not a contributor to any Bitcoin projects, but I am quite familiar with the scaling topic because I’ve been following it for some time now, and I am knowledgeable enough to clearly understand the technical details.
I’ve heard all the arguments from every side of the debate, and I want to give you my honest, unbiased, unfiltered understanding of the situation.
Let’s Start At the Beginning
In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. Everybody knows this, but the exact title needs to be repeated because today, even the most basic facets of Bitcoin are being challenged. Should Bitcoin really be “cash” or instead “digital gold”? And if we follow Satoshi’s plan, is it really peer to peer?
These questions come not so much from open-minded inquiry, but rather from a biased agenda. This would have been inconceivable a few years ago, but now things have become so political, that certain people even want to re-write the Bitcoin whitepaper.
(Attempting to re-write history has always been a favorite tactic of tyrannical elites.)
Satoshi’s Vision to Scale Bitcoin
Regardless of “which side” of the scaling debate you are on, it should not be contested that Satoshi always planned for and advocated for simple, on-chain scaling.
When asked how Bitcoin would scale to Visa-like levels, he said:
Long before the network gets anywhere near as large as that, it would be safe
for users to use Simplified Payment Verification (section 8) to check for
double spending, which only requires having the chain of block headers, or
about 12KB per day. Only people trying to create new coins would need to run network nodes. At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the
network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to
specialists with server farms of specialized hardware. A server farm would
only need to have one node on the network and the rest of the LAN connects with that one node.
The bandwidth might not be as prohibitive as you think. A typical transaction
would be about 400 bytes (ECC is nicely compact). Each transaction has to be
broadcast twice, so lets say 1KB per transaction. Visa processed 37 billion
transactions in FY2008, or an average of 100 million transactions per day.
That many transactions would take 100GB of bandwidth, or the size of 12 DVD or 2 HD quality movies, or about $18 worth of bandwidth at current prices.
If the network were to get that big, it would take several years, and by then,
sending 2 HD movies over the Internet would probably not seem like a big deal.
Satoshi Nakamoto
Source
Disturbingly, this simple quote from Satoshi was moderated (deleted) from the r/bitcoin reddit page. I’ll revisit the censorship issue in a moment.
Another important fact is that the current blocksize limit of 1mb was intended to be a temporary measure. This was something ‘everyone’ knew before the debate became politicized.
One of the earliest code reviewers, Ray Dillinger, explained that he, Hal Finey, and Satoshi all agreed the limit was to be temporary.
Satoshi also provided the means to raise the limit with his famous quote:
It can be phased in, like:
if (blocknumber > 115000)
maxblocksize = largerlimit
Here is one more explanation from Satoshi, in an email to Mike Hearn, about why Bitcoin never hits a scaling ceiling.
Sure, Satoshi isn’t God. The point isn’t to appeal to his authority, but simply to remember that Bitcoin always had a scaling plan in place from the beginning.
…But the “Core Devs” Had Other Ideas.
The history of the current crop of Bitcoin Core developers has been already summarized and described elsewhere.
Explanations have been given for the unproductive scaling conferences, the broken Hong Kong agreements, and so on, but it should be extremely clear to everyone, based on years of their behavior (and even their own words), that the Core group does not want to scale Bitcoin with a simple blocksize increase.
In fact, they (and their supporters) have done everything in their power to prevent this, including engaging in massive censorship.
Their primary arguments are as follows:
It is problematic to raise the limit because it requires a hard fork, which is difficult to coordinate. Bitcoin nodes should be as inexpensive to run as possible, otherwise the decentralization of Bitcoin will be threatened. Without a constraint on the blocksize, Bitcoin won’t be secure once subsidies (block rewards) decline.
None of These Arguments Have Sufficient Merit to Forestall a Blocksize Increase
I am not saying the arguments are entirely without merit. Few things in life are ever 100% black-and-white. But we have to weigh the merits of these positions against the alternatives, and against other factors in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Let’s take one at a time:
The “Hard Forks Are Dangerous” Myth
This was a prominent talking point in 2014–2015. However, the truth is that hard forks (HF) are not necessarily dangerous, especially if they occur with a clear majority of hashing power supporting the upgraded consensus rules.
The previous group of developers, including Gavin Andresen, Jeff Garzik, and Mike Hearn, all supported upgrading Bitcoin with hard forks.
Initially, the discussion was whether the new maximum blocksize would be 2MB, 4MB, or 8MB. What begin as a minor difference of opinions between the miners somehow snowballed into a potent meme that consensus over scaling was going to be difficult.
The developers starting adding their own opinions about hard forks, creating additional friction. Yes, it is easy to claim there is contention when you are among those being contentious!
Core has no official leadership positions or governance structure. Because of this, it has been easy to justify inaction by simply concluding that “there’s no consensus”. And since they control the reference code repository, their refusal to raise the limit effects everyone else.
In practice, Core does have leaders. How else can it be explained that segwit was merged into the code (even if not activated) with practically no public debate whatsoever?
On a side note, prominent Core developers have denied that Core decides what code is published, and have denied there is any leadership. This is an example of the kind of constant misinformation that is being generated on a daily basis.
Back to the HF issue:
Many altcoins like Monero have regular hard forks. Coordination between major players in an ecosystem is not a big challenge if everyone is on the same page.
So far, I have not heard of a single problem that an altcoin had in performing a network upgrade via hard fork. So, there is evidence that they can be done safely.
In addition, if Core admits in their roadmap that eventually the blocksize will need to be increased, then why not do it now when it is badly needed? There is no logical reason why it would be more risky now rather than later.
Decentralization Myths
There are actually several myths surrounding the issue of decentralization. Let’s address the obvious ones:
The most ludicrous is the “all users should be running full nodes” idea.
As others have explained, there is no security provided to the network by non-mining ‘full nodes’. Only mining nodes secure and extend Bitcon’s distributed ledger.
The white paper explains why most users do not need to run full nodes:
It is possible to verify payments without running a full network node. A user only needs to keep a copy of the block headers of the longest proof-of-work chain, which he can get by querying network nodes until he’s convinced he has the longest chain, and obtain the Merkle branch linking the transaction to the block it’s timestamped in. He can’t check the transaction for himself, but by linking it to a place in the chain, he can see that a network node has accepted it, and blocks added after it further confirm the network has accepted it… …Businesses that receive frequent payments will probably still want to run their own nodes for more independent security and quicker verification.
The idea that a lot of non-mining full nodes will make the network more decentralized (because they can make sure the miners are behaving) is erroneous, because an SPV client can already query the network’s nodes. Generally, there would only be a problem if a majority mining of nodes were colluding dishonestly, in which case Bitcoin would be already broken.
A more valid concern is that as nodes become more expensive, eventually only large corporations will run nodes. It is true that node costs will increase over time as the network grows. However, storage, bandwidth, and processing capabilities are also constantly increasing.
Just as important: By the time that capacity increases — lets say from 3 TPS (transactions per second) to 30 TPS — the network will be so large that it likely won’t be any less decentralized, even if it costs more to run a node.
At 3000 TPS, Bitcoin would be highly dominant globally, and making use of the millions of datacenters and servers available worldwide. This was always the plan.
The Alternative Vision of Bitcoin Holds Decentralization Risks That Are Worse
Many users are not aware of the decentralization risks that come with the small-node/small-block vision of Bitcoin. Core’s vision for Bitcoin is to transform the peer-to-peer cash system into some kind of settlement network.
While this would be a way to keep node costs minimal, most users would be economically forced off the main chain because they cannot compete with institutions for fees. They would then need to get permission from trusted third parties to transact.
In my opinion, this represents a much more dangerous form of centralization than bigger blocks and expensive nodes.
The Fee-Market Failure Myth
The third primary argument of the small-block philosophy is that eventually, block rewards will run out, and mining fees will be the sole source of funding security. They then claim that without limiting the supply of transaction space, miners will be hopelessly caught in a tragedy-of-the-commons price war, with the users paying rock bottom fees, leading to a collapse of commercial mining.
There’s a few problems with this argument.
First of all, there is a natural market for every good and service in the world. There have been many price wars, but nothing with high demand ever stops being produced.
The concern that the network hashrate will become too low is based on several assumptions and variables, including the number of daily transactions, the willingness of the users to wait for confirmations, the willingness of the users to pay small amounts, the behavior of the miners, the fee policies set by various wallets, the emergent consensus on acceptable fees by the mining community, and other factors, including what actually is “too low” of a network hashrate in the first place.
The hypothetical failure of the natural fee market depends on all these assumptions combining into an unfavorable outcome, as well as the inability of the system to adjust itself favorably using any of these factors.
But, by far the biggest reason that this argument is bunk, is that it will be decades before the majority of the subsidies actually disappear.
Pure Foolishness: Overplanning the Future While Ignoring Urgent Issues Today
Why implement a plan that might help Bitcoin in 20–30 years, if it requires you to damage the user experience and erode the adoption and network effect of Bitcoin, today?
In the case of Bitcoin, it’s completely unnecessary to plan ahead that far, and the destructive consequences are already being seen.
This is the biggest reason why Core’s position should be considered indefensible. Even if their arguments have merit, it is more important to keep Bitcoin healthy right now, stay competitive, and keep the user base growing than to prevent the problems that may or may not happen later.
Even worse, those prevention plans work in direct opposition to the short term goals!
It is no less insane than demanding a bedridden hospital patient, badly in need of rest, to immediately go outside and start running laps because “exercise will help you live longer”.
What About Segwit?
It is my understanding that at “the Hong Kong meeting”, the miners agreed to Segwit PLUS a hardfork blocksize increase because they didn’t trust the Core team enough to offer satisfactory scaling in a timely manner.
I think their decision was smart. Core cannot be trusted. However, if Core changed their mind today, and agreed to the 2MB+Segwit, I would support that as a compromise to break the impasse.
They seem to be unwilling to do this.
Since miners are unwilling to accept segwit on its own, and since Core will not compromise, the only logical alternative is bigger blocks, which is the best option regardless.
What Core Wants
You may be wondering: How is it possible for people as intelligent as the Bitcoin Core developers to fail to see the obvious mistakes in their thinking?
American author Upton Sinclair’s famous quote comes to mind:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
The Core team and their supporters want to change Bitcoin into a settlement network. They will deny this, but in my opinion, all of their actions point to this logical conclusion.
This is why they are against on chain scaling, and why segwit offers as little of it as possible while supporting their “HF are bad” narrative.
Additionally, I believe they also want to control public opinion by employing key individuals, by their associates and moderation policies on various platforms, and with an army of trolls.
They also intimidate and punish businesses that don’t fall in line. For example, coinbase.com was delisted from bitcoin.org for supporting Bitcoin XT instead of the Core client.
Despite these shenanigans, companies do support bigger blocks and on-chain scaling.
Most importantly, they want to scare you, the miner, into believing that the community doesn’t really want big blocks and if that if you mine big blocks, you’ll be forked off to a worthless coin and left with worthless ASICs.
Do not let them intimidate you.
What the Users Want
Most users just want a Bitcoin that works. They do not want slow confirmation and high fees. Most Bitcoiners that use bitcoin frequently understand the issues and support bigger blocks.
Despite all the trolling and propaganda, users controlling actual coins vote overwhelmingly in favor of Satoshi’s scaling plan.
The “Healthy Fee Market” is Already Unhealthy
Even IF a centrally planned fee market was a good idea right now, it is being managed poorly. A “healthy” fee market should strive to provide adequate fee revenue while at the same time provide a good user experience and promote growth of the network and user base.
While miner revenue is certainly adequate, the user experience is severely degraded because of slow confirmations and high fees, and this is definitely not attractive or conducive to growing the user base.
If keeping the blocksize at 1mb was an experiment to see how the fee market would develop, it has already played out its usefulness. To keep fees at a level competitive with other coins, supply must catch up with demand (we must raise the blocksize). But these developers seem to have no interest in doing so. They would rather carry on with their agenda than serve the users.
What About Bitcoin As a Store-of-Value or as “Digital Gold”?
The great thing about Bitcoin is that it can be both a cash-like payment system and a gold-like store of value. These two aspects enhance each other.
Exposed to the propaganda that Bitcoin can’t scale as electronic cash, some users have said “that’s ok. I’m fine with Bitcoin being digital gold only”. The problem with this thinking is that Bitcoin has competition.
If another coin is useful to store value AND to transact cheaply with, it severely undermines Bitcon’s appeal to investors. At the same time, it greatly dampens demand for actual usage.
Sure, its possible that Bitcoin could survive in some form as digital gold, but it would be at a huge disadvantage.
Small Blocks Destroy Miner Revenue
At first glance, the idea that smaller blocks are bad for mining revenue may appear incorrect, since fee rates have recently exploded based on the demand of Bitcoin transactions outpacing the supply of space in the blocks.
However, this trend cannot continue for long, since users will only pay so much. At the same time, new users and new demand are being shut out from the ecosystem.
To use an analogy: Who makes more money — the farmer in town “A” selling milk from one cow? Or the farmer in town “B” selling milk from 8 cows? Townspeople in “A” might pay more per bottle, but they’ll only pay so much for it. They will start drinking something else, drink milk less often, or import their milk from another town.
Bitcoin miners simply cannot meet the demands of users at fees they are willing to reasonably pay if blocks are restricted to 1mb… and users will find satisfactory alternatives which are quickly becoming abundant.
The situation will become even worse in the long run if Core is allowed to create “second layer solutions”, because those solutions will probably not be free, and they will further absorb the money that users are willing to spend in order to transact.
This will be bad for miners, and bad for network security. It will make bitcoin even less competitive, and money will leave the ecosystem.
Price Always Lags Behind Fundamentals
It is easy to look at a high Bitcoin price and think that everything is fine. If things were going so badly, why isn’t the price dropping?
But, price doesn’t always reflect the underlying fundamentals of a market in the short term.
In the long run, fundamentals always dictate the direction of the market. Daytraders are flat at the end of the day. Speculators come and go. In the end, it’s only the long term investors and the non-speculative demand that determines the price.
The fundamental value of Bitcoin primarily comes from its usefulness as a payment system. If that system ceases to be useful, Bitcoin will cease to be valuable.
Time To Act. Let’s Help Bitcoin Grow Again.
It’s always better to fix a problem BEFORE it gets too big. As they say, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
If we wait until the Bitcoin price crashes because Bitcoin is unusable as a currency, it will be too late. We would have already lost serious momentum, marketshare, users, reputation, and merchants.
This is already happening, but there is still time to act.
I urge you: don’t be complacent.
You are the miner. You have the power. Start signaling for bigger blocks today, and let’s make sure Bitcoin stays #1.
Help Spread the Word
If you’re not a miner, but a concerned investor like myself, then please spread this message far and wide, and ask the miners and pools that you know for bigger blocks.
Addendum
Based on independent research from Dr. Craig S. Wright, and Bitcrust, and Dr. Peter Rizun, I no longer believe SegWit is an acceptable compromise.
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Russian1 of 8 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × The fall and rise of shorts in the NBA View Photos After years of long, baggy shorts forming the template for basketball uniforms, a new generation of players is willing to show more leg. Caption After years of long, baggy shorts forming the template for basketball uniforms, a new generation of players is willing to show more leg. Washington Wizards rookie Kelly Oubre Jr., shown shooting, is part of a younger generation of NBA players leading a return to shorter, tighter shorts. Not all players, including teammate Jarell Eddie, right, have adopted the look. Katherine Frey/The Washington Post Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
Jerry West, the model for the logo of the National Basketball Association, wore basketball shorts the length of loincloths. Michael Jordan inspired a major alteration when he appealed for a longer and baggier cut. Then a group of freshmen at the University of Michigan known as the “Fab Five” became a national sensation in the early 1990s in part because of their sartorial swagger, with shorts that dropped below their knees. For years after, the subject of inseams inspired older observers of the game to fret: How low could they go?
But now the hemline is creeping back up.
In early November, Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James declared he would wear skinnier and shorter shorts this season, his 13th in the league, because he wanted to present a more professional appearance. But while he is the highest-profile convert to the shorter short, he isn’t the first. The emerging generation of pro basketball players, one that came of age wearing tighter clothes off the floor, beat him to it.
Kelly Oubre Jr., a 20-year-old rookie for the Washington Wizards, rolls up his shorts — at the waistband and from the bottom — for almost every practice and pregame warmup routine, leaving them distinctly shorter and tighter than his peers. He takes a more conservative approach for games, folding only his waistband, but the alteration nonetheless hikes the bottom of the shorts a few inches above his knees, exposing more leg than most NBA players have over the last two decades.
“I just like wearing shorter shorts because I feel more comfortable on the court,” Oubre said. “I don’t have anything swinging, moving around.”
Oubre is part of a subtle countermovement. From high school ranks through college, basketball players have increasingly chosen short and skinny over long and baggy in recent years in keeping with off-court trends. The vogue is seeping into the professional level.
“The baggy shorts had its run,” Jalen Rose, an NBA analyst for ESPN and, as a member of the Fab Five, a forefather of baggy shorts. “It’s been 20 years.”
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How much does this issue matter?A lot A little Racial issues will never be resolved. It is human nature to prefer one's own race. Disagree strongly
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Agree strongly
How much does this issue matter?A lot A little People with a criminal history should not be able to vote. Disagree strongly
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Agree strongly
How much does this issue matter?A lot A little Marijuana should be legal. Disagree strongly
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Agree strongly
How much does this issue matter?A lot A little The state should fine television stations for broadcasting offensive language. Disagree strongly
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Agree strongly
How much does this issue matter?A lot A little It does not make sense to understand the motivations of terrorists because they are self-evidently evil. Disagree strongly
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Agree strongly
How much does this issue matter?A lot A little
The Political Spectrum quiz is a special presentation of. Are you a neo-con? A social libertarian? A fiscal moderate? Complete the quiz, express your opinions, and find out. Then explore the thousands of user-created quizzes on this site! Fun to take and easy to share with your friends!Get the biggest Liverpool FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
The news surrounding Daniel Sturridge is bad.
But there was a boost for Jurgen Klopp on Wednesday morning, as Philippe Coutinho returned to training at Melwood.
The Brazilian has missed Liverpool's last three games with a troublesome hamstring, but trained as normal ahead of the Reds' Europa League game with Sion tomorrow.
Coutinho joined the likes of Christian Benteke, James Milner and Jordan Henderson in the session, which was overseen by Klopp and his staff.
Youngsters Jordan Rossiter, Connor Randall, Brad Smith and Cameron Brannagan all trained, and could be involved in Switzerland on Thursday evening, with Liverpool already through to the knockout stage.
Jose Enrique and Joao Carlos Teixeira were also present, though neither can play in Sion as they have not been registered in the Europa League squad.
The Reds need just a point to ensure that they top Group B ahead of Sion. Klopp's side depart Liverpool this afternoon, with a press conference to come at 18:45 GMT.
Watch: Liverpool FC in trainingTom Brady is grotesquely rich, and this has nothing to do with his bank account.
The Patriots have so much talent at their offensive skill positions that they’re borderline injury-proof. Ultimately, the level of their success — potentially ranging from extraordinary to record-breaking — will derive from the marquee trio of tight end Rob Gronkowski and receivers Brandin Cooks and Julian Edelman.
All three have proven their worth against double teams over the course of their careers. Now, almost by default, at least two should be one-on-one with defenders on any given play. The other intriguing element is they can prove dangerous in different areas of the field, so offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels can turn into Will Hunting on the chalkboard with his play designs.
Assuming it all materializes in the Patriots’ favor — and with Brady running the point, why wouldn’t it? — they’ll be a bigger nightmare than usual for their opponents in the 2017 season.
“I haven’t thought that far down the line,” Cooks said last week. “Just practicing on what I have to practice on, and everyone doing their job and coming together, I think we’ll be all right.”
They looked the part Thursday during the first opportunity to watch the Patriots in action on the practice field. Cooks and Gronkowski caught touchdown passes from Brady on back-to-back plays, with Cooks on the receiving end of a gorgeous, arcing throw in the right corner of the end zone against Malcolm Butler. Gronkowski then skied over Jordan Richards for a score on an easy jump ball. Yeah, it was against a backup safety, but Gronk has overmatched far more talented starters through the years.
All the while, Edelman caught four passes in team drills, including two touchdowns. One came against Butler. The other was on a patented route on the baseline of the end zone.
To be fair, this was a passing camp without pads or the fear of contact, so offenses are supposed to look brilliant. But the Patriots defense remains largely intact from last season’s group that allowed the fewest points in the NFL in three years. And the Patriots offense has ranked in the top four in scoring for seven consecutive seasons, and the current group is the deepest it’s ever been.
Just consider the second-tier options for a moment. Danny Amendola and Dion Lewis each caught 30-yard touchdown passes Thursday. Chris Hogan’s 17.9 yards per catch in 2016 was the best for a receiver with at least 25 receptions in the Brady era. James White’s 60 catches were the most by a Pats running back since 1994, and he set a Super Bowl record with 14 grabs. And then there’s Malcolm Mitchell, Mike Gillislee, Rex Burkhead and Dwayne Allen.
“You know we’ve got a competitive group in there,” Edelman said. “(It’s a) very smart room, and as long as we continue to improve daily, usually that’s what makes the unit better.”
The Patriots can use a general concept to test defenses and branch off from there with Cooks up the sideline, Gronk testing the seam and Edelman crossing through the middle. If a safety follows Cooks, Gronk will likely be one-on-one with a linebacker or safety. If both are doubled, Edelman will have an easy release off the line, and the running back will be open underneath. And so on and so forth as they methodically maneuver down the field.
If the safeties don’t sell out against Gronk and Cooks, defenses will be vulnerable to big plays. Plus, the Patriots’ never-ending assortment of combo routes will force defenses to constantly be in sync with their communication. A couple breakdowns can doom an entire game, as the Steelers and Ravens learned during the 2016 regular season.
The other benefit? With Cooks and Hogan able to hit the home run, linebackers and safeties won’t be as inclined to sit on the short routes against Gronkowski and Edelman, which will reduce the impactful hits they face over a season. That’s a simple byproduct of one-on-one coverages.
Edelman will reap the greatest reward with the addition of Cooks and Gronk’s return to health. Gronkowski was injured in Week 12 last season, and Edelman averaged nine catches for 101.6 yards per game from that point through the Super Bowl. He carried the offense.
Cooks can’t help but feel excited to help the group. He enjoys the fact that Bill Belichick demands players to “bring your A-game every day” and believes continues reps against Butler and Stephon Gilmore will yield lasting success. And Cooks admitted he had one thought when he tuned into the final few minutes of Super Bowl LI.
“I want to be there one day,” he said with a smile.
With the group the Patriots have stockpiled, it’d be surprising if Cooks doesn’t get there on his first go-round in Foxboro.
One spot at a time
This might be an extreme overreaction to one day of organized team activities, or maybe it’s a continuation from last season.
But maybe the Patriots should at least temporarily allow Cyrus Jones to exclusively focus on playing cornerback. Jones struggled again as a punt returner Thursday during practice. He misplayed several balls, either losing them in the wind or outright dropping them. Jones also got beat for a 30-yard touchdown by Amendola.
Jones was an outstanding punt returner at Alabama with four touchdowns. He validated that potential last season with the ball in his hands, but his five special teams fumbles became an epidemic. He admitted this offseason to losing confidence in his ability.
Jones was a solid corner during his rookie training camp, and that’s the primary reason why he was drafted in the second round. So if he can’t get out of his own head as a punt returner, it’s worth wondering if it has impacted his ability on defense. The Patriots have to figure out if Jones can become a starting-caliber corner as soon as possible for a number of reasons, including Butler’s contract situation.
Let Jones handle his defensive responsibilities first while Amendola and Edelman hold down the punt return duties. If Jones thrives defensively, then add more to his plate.
What a catch
Friday will mark the 22nd anniversary of Brady getting drafted by the Montreal Expos. Patriots rookies LeShun Daniels, D.J. Killings, Kenny Moore and Corey Vereen weren’t born yet when the Expos selected the former left-hand hitting catcher in the 18th round.SHARE
By of the
Madison — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will likely try to get involved in litigation over Wisconsin's voter ID law now being considered by appeals judges in Chicago.
"We have already filed suit in Texas and North Carolina," President Barack Obama's attorney general recently told ABC News. "I expect that we are going to be filing in cases that are already in existence in Wisconsin, as well as in Ohio."
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen is defending the voter ID law. In a statement, he said Holder should focus on immigration, not Wisconsin's voting requirements.
"If Mr. Holder honestly believes that laws ensuring even the most basic form of election integrity violate (the Voting Rights) Act, it wouldn't surprise me if the entire act was thrown out," his statement said.
Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans in the Legislature approved a law in 2011 that required voters to show photo ID at the polls. Four lawsuits — two in federal court and two in state court — quickly followed.
The voter ID requirement was in effect for just one election, a low-turnout primary in February 2012, before courts began to issue orders blocking the law. The Wisconsin Supreme Court is expected to decide the two state cases by next month.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman considered the two federal cases together, and in April he ruled the voter ID law violated the U.S. Constitution and federal Voting Rights Act. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is now weighing those cases.
That court is not expected to decide the federal cases before the Nov. 4 election between Walker and Democrat Mary Burke, meaning the voter ID requirement likely will not be in effect for that race. Van Hollen will have to win all federal and state court challenges to reinstate the voter ID law.
The U.S. Department of Justice did not provide comment beyond what Holder told ABC News, but released a transcript of his comments at the request of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and others.
Last month, Holder appeared in a U.S. DOJ video that highlighted his concerns about Wisconsin's voter ID law.
"Laws such as those in Wisconsin would shrink, rather than expand, access to the franchise," Holder said in the video. "This is inconsistent, not only with our history but with our ideals as a nation — a nation founded on the principle that all citizens are entitled to equal opportunity, equal representation and equal rights."
Holder could try to intervene in the federal cases in Wisconsin, or he could attempt to file a friend-of-the-court brief spelling out the government's interest in the matter. Attempts to intervene in cases typically happen before trial judges, rather than at the appeals level.
Lester Pines, a Madison attorney involved in one of the state voter ID cases but not the federal cases, said the move by Holder would be significant.
"The judges will pay attention to what the (U.S.) Department of Justice will say," Pines said.The Samsung Galaxy S III has sold more than 20 million units, and, if Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam is right, the company could be just as successful without the Google Android mobile OS.
During a conference on Friday, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam called Samsung “a potential elephant in the room.” He further said the company could use its high installation rate for devices across a range of consumer and household goods to create a massively successful mobile OS. McAdam believes that Samsung OS could ultimately compete with Apple, Google, Blackberry, Microsoft, and other mobile OS makers.
McAdam’s then went one step further calling Samsung the “black horse” of the wireless market.
Samsung is certainly no stranger to mobile OS development, although its “Bada” OS has never proven to be a threat to smartphone products created by Google. In fact, the company’s biggest recent successes have all been thanks to the Google Android OS, which powers the company’s entire line of Galaxy smartphones and tablets.
Samsung has certainly showed its desire to work with various platforms, providing Windows Phone devices in certain markets, albeit with little success.
McAdam did not specifically call out Samsung’s Tizen OS, which was created with the help of Intel workers. Tinzen has been called a “scaleable” OS that can work as well on a smart appliance as it does on a television or computer. Tizen has the ability to scare Google based on its ability to run apps built for Google Android, a fact that should be troubling for Google, which has leveraged Samsung devices for much of its success.
Would you stick with Samsung devices if the company created a worthwhile mobile OS or does Google Android have you hooked?Shortly after Isaiah Berlin died, Christopher Hitchens launched an attack on him in the London Review of Books. The celebrated liberal philosopher, argued the celebrated polemicist, had been cowardly, weak, inconsistent, an apologist for the Vietnam War, a toady of the powerful. Berlin, wrote Hitchens, was "simultaneously pompous and dishonest in the face of a long moral crisis where his views and his connections could have made a difference." And Hitchens deplored the fact that Berlin’s reputation stood "like a lion in your path" if you "chafe at the present complacently ‘liberal’ consensus."
Berlin’s most famous essay is "Two Concepts of Liberty," but it seems to me that Hitchens and Berlin personified two spirits of liberty. The distinction between these two spirits is not a philosophical one, like that between two concepts. Rather, it is a matter of temperament, character, habits of the heart. Put most simply, Hitchens exemplified courage; Berlin, tolerance. Hitchens was outspoken, outrageous, never afraid to offend, impressively undeterred by Islamist death threats. He was also almost never prepared to admit that he had been wrong, nimbly shifting his ground to defend, with equal vehemence, whatever contrarian position he chose to adopt at a particular moment. But he was brave, and utterly consistent in his defense of free speech.
Berlin was not notable for his courage. This was a weakness he struggled with. In a letter to a close friend, written when he was already a highly respected, middle-aged man, he wrote, "I wish I had not inherited my father’s timorous, rabbity nature! I can be brave, but oh what appallingly superhuman struggles with cowardice!" And in an essay on his beloved Turgenev, he evokes "the small, hesitant, self-critical, not always very brave, band of men who occupy a position somewhere to the left of center, and are morally repelled both by the hard faces to their right and the hysteria and mindless violence and demagoguery on their left.... "
Yet Berlin was one of the most eloquent, consistent defenders of a liberalism which creates and defends the spaces in which people subscribing to different values, holding incompatible views, pursuing irreconcilable political projects — in short, the Hitchenses and the anti-Hitchenses — can battle it out in freedom, without violence. Berlin personified not merely tolerance but also an extraordinary gift for empathy, that ability to get inside very different heads and hearts which is a distinguishing mark of the liberal imagination.
It takes a certain quiet fortitude to maintain your intellectual independence when all about you are becoming partisan.
In a speech delivered in 1944, explaining what the United States was fighting for in the Second World War, to an audience that included many newly created American citizens, Judge Learned Hand declared: "What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias." Who can doubt that Berlin was filled with that spirit of liberty? But Hitchens was filled with a spirit of liberty too.
Though they tend to distrust, even to despise each other, both these spirits are indispensable. Each has its characteristic fault. A world composed entirely of Hitchenses would tend to intolerance. It would be a permanent, if often amusing, shouting match, one in which there would be neither time nor space to understand — in the deepest sense of understanding, involving profound study, calm reflection, and imaginative sympathy — where the other person was coming from. A world composed entirely of Berlins would tend to relativism and excessive tolerance for the sworn enemies of tolerance.
Plainly this tension does not begin with those two late-20th-century writers. Toward the end of his life, the German-British liberal thinker Ralf Dahrendorf wrote a book about a line of political intellectuals he called Erasmians, among whom he included Isaiah Berlin. And the argument between these two spirits of liberty is already there in the 16th-century relationship between Erasmus of Rotterdam and Martin Luther. Erasmus, the most celebrated scholar of his day, prepared the way for the Reformation. So close was his intellectual affinity with Luther in earlier years that the joke went aut Erasmus Lutherat, aut Erasmissat Lutherus — now Erasmus Luthers, now Luther Erasmusses. But when Luther made his break with the Roman Church, Erasmus would not follow. Men of goodwill, he insisted, must be able to conduct these arguments with civility and reason, within the body of the church. In his commentary on the Latin adage "So many men, so many opinions" (Quot homines, tot sententiae), he attributes to St. Paul the view that "for the putting aside of strife, we should allow every man to have his own convictions." (This was, one might add, adventurous ijtihad of St. Paul.) In 1517, the very year that Luther nailed his Protestant theses to a church door, Erasmus wrote an essay titled "The Complaint of Peace," lamenting the "word warriors" who "attack each other with poison pens, ripping each other up with the keen phases of satire and hurling lethal darts of insinuation."
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Dahrendorf recalls a scene when the mortally ill 35-year-old Ulrich von Hutten, a reformer who was in some ways even bolder than Luther, actually knocked on the door of Erasmus’s house in Basel to seek help, "but Erasmus, himself sick, and fearful both of physical and of spiritual infection, did not admit him. All Basel saw it. … " Hutten had just enough strength left to pen an Expostulation With Erasmus, including this stinging rebuke: "Your own books will have to fight out the battle between them." For several years, Erasmus resisted pressure from church leaders to confront the reformers, and when he finally did so, it was in the form of a learned dialogue disputing Luther’s views on free will. Hutten’s barb was an early version of the 20th-century jibe that a liberal is someone who can’t take his own side in an argument. It connects to a recurrent critique of liberalism as pale, bloodless, sickly, unable to stand up for itself in a fight.
People can possess these two qualities in different measures at different times. Dahrendorf himself was an Erasmian in his old age, but as a 15-year-old schoolboy in Nazi Berlin he had formed a resistance group and been incarcerated in a Gestapo camp. There is the courage of youth and the tolerance born of experience. The mix in any one person is never entirely simple. Hitchens could be witheringly, contemptuously intolerant in print and on the public stage, yet in private he had a gift for good fellowship with a remarkably wide range of people. One of his characteristic and, for the recipient, mildly irritating rhetorical tropes was to say, "X is a friend of mine, but …" followed by a fulminating attack on something said or written by X.
Erasmians also have their own brand of courage or, perhaps more precisely, of fortitude. It takes a certain quiet fortitude to maintain your intellectual independence when all about you are becoming partisan. "On no other account do I congratulate myself more," Erasmus wrote toward the end of his life, "than on the fact that I have never attached myself to any party." It takes perseverance to keep calmly advocating an independent, liberal position — balanced, fair, respectful of complexity, more concerned to get at the truth than to be entertaining — when what Jacob Burckhardt called the terribles simplificateurs are harvesting youthful enthusiasm and collective emotion.
"So we must weigh and measure, bargain, compromise, and prevent the crushing of one form of life by its rivals," wrote Berlin, three years before he died, in a text subsequently published by The New York Review of Books as a "message to the 21st century." "I know only too well that this is not a flag under which idealistic and enthusiastic young men and women may wish to march — it seems too tame, too reasonable, too bourgeois, it does not engage the generous emotions. But you must believe me, one cannot have everything one wants — not only in practice, but even in theory."
Raymond Aron was another such Erasmian, and his last hours are a perfect example of this cooler virtue. Convinced that his friend Bertrand de Jouvenel had been travestied in a book by an Israeli historian, Aron agreed to testify in a libel case de Jouvenel had launched against the author and publisher. Emphasizing to the court that de Jouvenel had been wrong in his early assessment of Hitler, while Aron himself "at once saw the devil in Hitler" — and, as his audience knew, had gone on to serve Charles de Gaulle’s exile government in London — he nonetheless deplored the book as ahistorical: "The author never put things into context. The definition he gives of fascism is so vague and imprecise that it could include anything." It therefore represented "the worst kind of libel — the result of a procedure which I deplore and condemn: guilt by association."
Having thus spoken up for intellectual clarity, historical understanding and elementary fairness, the frail old philosopher stepped out of the courtroom and into a car, where he suffered a massive heart attack and died. Just before he disappeared, Aron remarked to the journalist Marc Ullman: "Je crois avoir dit l’essentiel." (Roughly translated as: "I believe I said what needed saying.") What finer death could there be for an Erasmian?
It is quite rare that these two spirits of liberty, with their distinctive qualities of courage and of tolerance, come combined in equal parts in one individual. The nearest I have seen to this was Václav Havel, a brave dissident, in the footsteps of his 14th-century compatriot Jan Hus. He proved that courage through four years in prison and multiple subsequent arrests. His solidarity with dissidents in other parts of the world was unwavering. One of his last public actions, when already a very sick man, was to stand outside the Chinese Embassy in Prague to protest against the imprisonment of Liu Xiaobo — an exceptional, undiplomatic act for a former president. Yet Havel was also the epitome of Erasmian tolerance, not just unfailingly courteous but genuinely open to a wide range of philosophies and ways of life, wanting them all to be heard and seen. Usually, however, the two spirits of liberty are found unevenly distributed between individuals: the one more Lutheran, the other more Erasmian. Freedom needs both.
It is for others to say whether we can identify a similar dichotomy in non-Western cultures and traditions. My own superficial impression from countries I know much less well, such as China, Myanmar, and Egypt, is that we can. On my journeys I have met deeply admirable people who seem to me to embody each of these two spirits of liberty. And was Gandhi perhaps, like Havel, an exception to prove the rule, combining both courage and tolerance? What is certain is that those who stand up for free speech in these countries, against the armed and booted orthodoxy of their time, make harder decisions, and face graver consequences, than most of us in the West ever will.When I spoke with Jeff Probst on day 1 of filming for Survivor: Blood vs. Water (which premieres Sept. 18 on CBS), he predicted which of the new players going up against their loved ones would do well. But I also asked him which new players he thought weren’t quite so impressive. And he zeroed right in on the spouse of one of the most famous Survivor players ever — Rupert’s wife Laura.
“I think Rupert’s wife is gonna be a in a whole lot of trouble,” said Probst. Rupert already has a target for many reasons, some of which are yes, he’s won a million dollars and all that. Some of which, he can be a bit of a blowhard at times. But that comes with playing a game like this so many times and being rewarded. I mean, Rupert can do a lot. He’s one of the few guys who can go out in that water with a bare hand and catch a damn fish and go, ‘I’ve got it!’ I mean, that’s pretty cocky. Laura, I don’t see that. Now, she keeps telling me she’s a very good swimmer, so I could be completely surprised by all of this, but just going in on day one, I would say that Rupert’s wife Laura is going to have a hard time out here.”
But Laura wasn’t the only newbie that was going to have a hard time according to Probst. Click on the video player below to see more from the host, including which person he predicts will be “out fast.”Michele Bachmann, who earlier this summer joined Donald Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board, said in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio last week that she is now advising Trump on foreign affairs:
Before the event, former Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said she has been advising Trump on foreign policy and issues of concern to Christian conservatives. She said Trump is right to call for more restrictive immigration policies. “He also recognizes there is a threat around the world, not just here in Minnesota, of radical Islam,” she said. “I wish our President Obama also understood the threat of radical Islam and took it seriously.”
As we’ve noted, Bachmann believes the September 11 attacks represented God’s judgment on America; President Obama and gay rights advocates are bringing about the End Times; homosexuality is “personal enslavement” and “part of Satan”; gay people want to change laws “so that adults will be able to freely prey on little children sexually”; and Obamacare death panels will literally kill people any day now.
Her foreign policy ideas are driven by her belief that the Last Days have arrived.
While Trump frequently rails against “globalism,” the former Minnesota congresswoman goes one step further in warning that a one-world government is emerging that will usher in the reign of the Antichrist, wondering if Obama fits the description.
Obama, she says, has brought upon the End Times by supposedly promoting policies that are “pro-the goals of Islamic jihad,” aiding ISIS, “sending arms to terrorists” and lifting “up the agenda of radical Islam.”
While Trump isn’t exactly one to talk about eschatology, it is no wonder that the candidate who thinks Obama founded ISIS and secretly supports terrorism is turning to Bachmann for foreign policy advice.We often come across wooden pieces, planks and plates in our garages or attics. Rather than throwing them away you can easily use them to your advantage by recycling them. In order to do this you need to know certain DIY techniques that would help you to convert your waste wooden planks and pallets into useful and innovative products. All you need is the idea, some wooden planks, a hammer and some nails. You can make a variety of products such as cabinets, chairs, stools, tables, sofas and multiple other products. Following are a few DIY recycling ideas for wooden planks and pallets.
(1) DIY Wooden coffee tables:
Everyone loves coffee tables around the house. They come in handy for putting flower pots, magazines and lamps on them. If you have got some wooden pallets or planks and you are considering to throw them in trash, don’t. Cut the plants into equal lengths. Nail them together in form of a small coffee table. Paint the table afterwards and you’ll have a new coffee table out of the idle wooden planks at zero cost.
(2) DIY wooden bench tables:
Parks are often loaded with wooden bench tables for those who like to have picnics or some drinks along with friends. You can have one for your backyard as well. All you need is a set of wooden pallets and some easily available tools. Cut these wooden planks evenly and place them forming a moderately high bench in the middle and two benches on its sides. Use nails to keep them intact. You may paint it to give it a polished looked or keep it rough.
(3) DIY Wooden Sunbath Chairs:
People love sunbaths in their backyards when it’s sunny. If you are keen towards enjoying sunbaths in your backyard, don’t throw away those wooden pallets and planks in trash. Trim the pallets and planks in required lengths and widths. Nail them together in form of a sunbath chair. You can also make a footrest piece for each sunbath chair. This is a very convenient DIY technique for getting a sunbath chair out of waste wood at almost zero cost.My two brothers and I grew up in a Conservative Jewish home, specifically that particular suburban brand of Conservatism that mandated Hebrew school on Sundays but allowed cheeseburger cookouts at home.
Pork rarely found its way into the kitchen in our mildly observant household, but shrimp certainly did, twirled with strands of garlicky spaghetti or skewered and grilled on the patio. Sure, my siblings and I endured a decade of after-school Jewish education, and our cultural Jewishness loomed large. But we never observed the Sabbath, we never waited until an hour after sundown to break our Yom Kippur fast, and we never, ever kept kosher.
Most of us still don’t. But once a year, we come together for a big family gathering—and that meal, these days, is always kosher. It’s not Passover or Rosh Hashanah that serves as my family’s high holy day, though. In fact, it’s not a Jewish holiday at all: It’s Thanksgiving.
For most people, Thanksgiving doesn’t carry much in the way of spiritual significance, but for us, it’s the time when my family’s Jewishness—and all our distinctive ways of expressing it—becomes the most important. It’s a nonpartisan holiday made sacred for us, largely because of where this feast is staged: in a kosher kitchen, built and maintained by my non-kosher parents, with this very sort of occasion in mind.
***
It began with my eldest brother. Galvanized by a teacher at the same part-time Hebrew Academy I would later attend, he began circling a religious lifestyle in the mid 1990s, when he was 17. Most kids in our synagogue who continued their Jewish education after their bar mitzvahs were funneled into this school several towns over, but few came out the other end more religious. My other brother and I were students at the academy as well, and neither of us became devout.
But my eldest brother was different. First there was a yarmulke and then tzitzit, the little white fringes swaying beneath the hem of his sweater. Soon he was spending Friday night and Saturday at a friend’s house, where he could ride out Shabbat—we never observed it—and study Torah in peace.
He’d always been a vagabond, though, each shift in music and vestments buoyed by this stimulant or that. In late junior high he’d adopted the kaleidoscopic wardrobe and musky aroma of a lapsed hippie; a few short years later, it was all-black threads, metal on the boombox, and a tormented snarl twisting up his face. In early high school he was given to bully-baiting stunts—in one memorable triumph of pre-Trevor Project bravado, he wore a pretty dress to school, with a sign hung around his neck declaring himself a “poseur.” My mother, infinitely supportive, snapped photos of him in the plaid frock at the bus stop while I stood out of frame, tiny fists thrust triumphantly skyward in support. Although he’s five years older than me—and just 13 months older than our other brother—he and I share a twinlike bond. We operate with a live-and-let-live code that’s always kept us close.
So, for me, anyway, it was a non-issue when he declared himself baal teshuva in the twilight of his high-school career. By his sophomore year in college he had moved into a Chabad house. I spent a few adolescent weekends there, marveling at and partaking of vodka l’chaims (so indiscriminately poured!) and napping through shacharit swaddled in a blanket printed with crescent moons. There I met the wonderful, patient, and generous woman who would ultimately become his wife and my sister-in-law. The house always smelled like a disused fireplace. I liked that.
It was different for Mom and Dad, though. This was not the easy-going Judaism they raised us with, and his religious about-face must have felt like a rejection. At first they wondered if my brother’s Jewishness, like thumb-sucking, was just a phase. But as his piety deepened, his twisty peyes growing ever longer, the reality of my brother’s life choices eventually settled on them like a veil of impermeable dust. Though she never complained about it, accommodating him during winter and summer breaks was taxing on my mother, who gamely made the trip to Teaneck, West Orange, Livingston, and other hubs of North Jersey Jew
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information to make an informed decision about vaccination, but rather as support for an implicit worldview that exists within the chiropractic profession: “the power that made the body can heal the body.” There remains a small percentage of chiropractors, known as principled straight chiropractors who do not believe in diagnosis (because that is a part of medicine), and who state that they are not offering treatment; their raison d’être is solely to locate the chiropractic subluxation and remove it, to allow the best expression of Innate Intelligence. Thus, we have a clash between an empirical form of chiropractic and one that is faith-based and vitalistic, played out among our faculty, and influencing our practitioners, who then interact with patients, potentially offering them flawed information.
Ethics
Such discussions may at times fail to consider the ethics involved in this opposition. This may reflect arguments based on a limited reading of the literature, and may reflect diametrically opposed visions of chiropractic. What then ensues are attempts by practitioners to provide ammunition for a conscientious or religious exemption to vaccine. There appears to be little consideration given to examining the question of vaccination from either a utilitarian or a Kantian perspective or even to examine the communitarian argument that vaccination is a public good. The argument offered is based on personal autonomy; this is my child, and no one can tell me what I have to do to protect my child’s health. Tension is created between personal autonomy and social good, and often the former “wins.” The parents involved here, and the doctors leading them, are not fairly providing them with an assessment of risk versus benefit or with all the pertinent information. To a great extent, neither does the media, not when a celebrity such as Jenny McCarthy can publically express her belief that her child’s autism is a direct result of thimerosol in his vaccine, when the evidence suggests thimerosol has no relationship to autism.21 An emotional appeal is made and parents respond. Ethics is superseded. Evidence does not matter. This is complicated when past administrations, and recent presidential candidates of the United States exhibit anti-scientific attitudes as a political tactic.22
An editorial in Vaccine offers a rationale for compulsory vaccination.23 The state has an interest in the protection of its subjects. It wishes to ensure that a child’s safety is protected, and that a child is not put to risk through parental neglect or ignorance. This may be paternalistic at times, such as in the creation of seatbelt laws. But it may also be part of a consideration that balances community good against individual autonomy. There is an ethical issue contained within the concept of so-called herd immunity; that is, it is possible for a child to be protected from disease not because his parents accepted a small risk in having him vaccinated, but because other parents have done so- this is a “free ride,” wherein the child gets all the benefit without any of the risk. In terms of the ethical precept of justice, this is surely unfair. Additionally, failure to vaccinate can impact the so-called herd immunity that develops when a certain percentage of the population is vaccinated.
As noted above, oftentimes chiropractic physicians argue this issue based solely on a plea based on autonomy. They do not do so based on religious exemption, or even on a philosophical basis, though that might offer the most effective way to argue. Many states allow such exemptions, though this is not true across the globe. Countries such as Germany and France do not allow an opt-out of compulsory vaccination- they are arguing strongly in utilitarian terms. In the US, powers were granted to the states in the 1905 Jacobson case,24 which noted that there is no absolute right to be freed from restraint at all times. This was an acknowledgement that the states could use their power to protect the health of all, by imposing on individual interest within reasonable boundary. Today, all 50 states have laws linking vaccination to school attendance. There are allowable medical exemptions, and some religious and philosophical ones. In this, we see the classic clash of the bioethical precept of autonomy versus the public health precept of community good. This issue is probed in 3 papers by Salmon and colleagues.25-27 In one of the papers they offer guiding principles for crafting nonmedical vaccination exemption clauses; this at least suggests that the impact of such policies on a community be examined. I have not seen such consideration within any chiropractic argument. With the advent of these exemptions, the growth of childhood preventable disease is again rising.28 The philosophical reasons offered by some members of the chiropractic profession are actually in service of an intra-professional divide and a result of an attempt to create an identification of chiropractic outside that of medical health care, not because of a reasoned philosophical discussion based on ethical principles related to public health ethics. Yet the ramifications of that divide and its implications actually help to create an environment where the profession contributes to the growth of childhood illness.
Smith and Davis29 offer a possible way forward. They argue convincingly that a concerted chiropractic effort to achieve universal immunization compliance among users of chiropractic would have widespread public health benefits. They note the challenges to doing so, and in a “thought experiment” in which they did a sensitivity analysis of their survey data, they found that for people with certain comorbidities (such as hypertension or emphysema), such a program would lead to more chiropractic users receiving flu vaccine (OR=8.0), pneumococcal vaccine (OR=9) or both (OR=19).
Taking all this into account, I argue that efforts need to be taken to create better vertical integration of information about public health in the chiropractic curriculum. Vaccines, like any medical intervention, are not risk free, but are certainly generally safe for use. And I acknowledge that the pharmaceutical industry relies on developing new drugs, new vaccines and new interventions which may be brought to market too quickly. Patients and physicians are right to consider both the risks and benefits of the use of a given vaccine. But often, discussions revolving around vaccination are not based on a detailed reading of actual literature in which the risks and benefits are properly assessed. Instead, the discussions are based on philosophical issues alone. While vaccinations are covered in the public health courses offered by chiropractic institutions, this is almost always in the context of that single class. What is being taught in early trimesters may not be reinforced in later ones, and it appears that students are exposed to an anti-medical position by some members in the chiropractic educational community.
It is important to note that vaccination is outside the chiropractic scope of practice. Chiropractors cannot offer vaccinations to their patients. However, as primary healthcare practitioners, patients seek advice from chiropractors for all sorts of reasons, and chiropractors may not shy away from providing information to patients when asked. The best way to address questions from patients is to be knowledgeable about both the risks and benefits of vaccination and the ethics involved in accepting or rejecting their use. Hawk et al have offered a number of papers in which they demonstrate a strong, evidence-based approach to placing vaccination into the context of health promotion, and these can provide a guide to chiropractors wishing to use the best current evidence30-32.
This clash of worldviews, both within the profession and between the chiropractic profession and the medical profession, serves no one well, does not add to the community good and privileges autonomy over any communitarian benefit. CONCLUSION Anti-vaccination attitudes till abound within the chiropractic profession. Despite a growing body of evidence about the safety and efficacy of vaccination, many chiropractors do not believe in vaccination, will not recommend it to their patients, and place emphasis on risk rather than benefit. This is positioned within a context privileging individual autonomy, which by many is seen as core ethical value. But this puts the chiropractic profession outside the greater healthcare community and may contribute to its continued marginalization and small market impact. The public health community looks at populations, rather than individuals and uses a separate but no less critical ethical platform, that of community good. Chiropractic is a public health profession. As such, it should work to provide patients the best and most current evidence, free from bias and belief, so that the individual may choose based on having full and accurate information. That would serve the public good. This is not an endorsement of vaccination; rather, it reflects the virtue of autonomy. I also must note the development of an online website for vaccine information that was accomplished under the auspices of the Chiropractic Health Care Section of the American Public Health Association. This information website provides those who access it with up-to-date information on both the pros and cons of vaccineGiven the fact that the accrediting body for chiropractic education, the Council on Chiropractic Education, has mandated that public health training be part of chiropractic education, what do surveys suggest about chiropractors’ attitudes toward immunization? Colley and Hasssurveyed a random sample comprising 1% of US chiropractors to ask this question, and though they had a low response rate, they found that nearly 33% of those who did respond felt that there was no proof that immunization prevents disease, has not reduced disease prevalence, causes more disease than it prevents and that it would be safer to actually contract a disease than be immunized. Hawk and colleagues’ studycompared chiropractic faculty and students to chiropractic practitioners and found that 91% of faculty, 80% of students and just 62% of practitioners felt that chiropractors should provide both pro and con information about immunization to patients, with smaller percentages among all groups feeling that chiropractors should obtain information on patient immunization status.Busse et al looked at Canadian chiropractic students in particular. This study was confined to students at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College. Just over half of the students surveyed agreed with vaccination (53.3%), with the highest level of those agreeing being in the first year of their studies (60.7%). By the time they reached the 4year, only 39.5% agreed with vaccination. The level of those actively against vaccination grew through the course of the curriculum, from 4.5% in the first year, to nearly 30% by the 4year. Keep in mind that this was a cross-sectional, not longitudinal, study. One additional finding was that those students who relied upon formal information sources about vaccination tended to be more supportive toward immunization, while those who relied upon informal sources (i.e., anti-vaccination speakers) were more distrustful. A companion commentary by Pless noted how this anti-vaccine attitude makes it harder for medicine to collaborate with chiropractic. Page and colleagues then looked at how chiropractors brought up the topic of immunization to their patients.This study used a set of interviews to examine how the issue was explored between physician and patient. Communication was generally initiated after media reports on the issue, or as a result of waiting room material; however, for some chiropractors, this was an opportunity to provide anti-immunization information and material. Much of the waiting room material had an anti-immunization slant. The authors then asked whether chiropractors felt prepared to discuss immunization with their patients.Less than half (45%) the chiropractors surveyed felt that their training in chiropractic college prepared them to adequately counsel people on immunization, though 64% felt that post-graduate training they received improved their feeling toward preparation. The information sources used was predictive of negative attitudes toward immunization.In another study, Medd and Russellconducted a secondary analysis of the Canadian data to examine personal and professional behavior by chiropractors toward vaccination. While nearly 90% of those involved had themselves been immunized, only 35.7% would accept immunization for themselves in the future; while 66% had immunized their children, only 21% would refer patients for possible immunization. Those with children who were immunized were far more likely to refer patients for immunization than those who were not (OR= 6.2). And Russell and colleagues’ workhad a number of highly interesting findings. In examining behaviors of chiropractors, they found that chiropractors did commonly advise their patient about freedom of choice regarding immunization and that they often directed patients toward sources of information; however, a large portion of those studied provided information on risk or advised against immunization compared to those who provided information on benefits. Only 41.7% of those surveyed felt immunizations were safe, that 60% felt immunization should never be given to children under the age of 1, and that 30% felt they should never be provided to the elderly. One key observation was that a substantial proportion of chiropractors were unsure or agreed with a number of common misconceptions about vaccination, but most then provided information about risks to their patients. It is important to note that this study was drawn from a population of chiropractors located in Alberta, Canada, and may not represent American attitudes. In a follow-up study, Russell, Verhoef and Injeyanfound that 60% of Alberta chiropractors would have interest in participating in community immunization awareness programs. Interestingly, with regard to the influenza vaccine, those people who see chiropractors were no less likely to be vaccinated than those who never used any CAM therapies.Taken as a whole this raises questions about chiropractic training toward the precepts of public health. Most chiropractic colleges offer a stand-alone course in public health. At Palmer College of Chiropractic, where I teach, the course is located in the fourth trimester of training and meets 3 hours per week for 15 weeks. The catalog description for this course states “This course addresses the health issues facing today’s communities, from the foundations of community health to the health of the nation, healthcare delivery and environmental health and safety.”Despite receiving training public health, student attitudes toward immunization appear to change as they move through their chiropractic education.And all of this with the caveat that training in both public health and evidence-based practice is mandated as part of the accreditation process. Further, a paper written by a number of leading chiropractic scientistsin a special issue of the profession’s leading scientific journal about the current state of chiropractic and public health opens by noting the very basis for anti-vaccination opposition: “The fundamental principles of chiropractic care focus on health and the body’s innate ability to heal itself.” Why does this opposition happen, and what are the reasons offered for the opposition toward vaccination? What are the ethical implications?Busse and colleagues offers some answers, in 2 papers.Recurring themes that appear in these arguments include the following:Having noted these issues, Busse and colleagues then demonstrate how each is applied to arguments offered in chiropractic trade publications.They then go on to deconstruct each of the arguments offered just above. What must be understood is the context in which these arguments are being offered- that refers to the statement above that opens the series of articles about public health written by leading chiropractic scientists and academics: the clash of the older vitalistic philosophy of chiropractic and the more modern scientific advances of medicine. For political chiropractic, this poses a problem. While it is apparent that the American Chiropractic Association has opted to offer an approach to vaccination that is based upon an appeal to autonomy (5), this is one of the few times where an argument is specifically placed in an ethical context offered up to counter mandatory vaccination. Other arguments use science not to provide a parent with the necessary information to make an informed decision about vaccination, but rather as support for an implicit worldview that exists within the chiropractic profession: “the power that made the body can heal the body.” There remains a small percentage of chiropractors, known as principled straight chiropractors who do not believe in diagnosis (because that is a part of medicine), and who state that they are not offering treatment; theiris solely to locate the chiropractic subluxation and remove it, to allow the best expression of Innate Intelligence. Thus, we have a clash between an empirical form of chiropractic and one that is faith-based and vitalistic, played out among our faculty, and influencing our practitioners, who then interact with patients, potentially offering them flawed information.Such discussions may at times fail to consider the ethics involved in this opposition. This may reflect arguments based on a limited reading of the literature, and may reflect diametrically opposed visions of chiropractic. What then ensues are attempts by practitioners to provide ammunition for a conscientious or religious exemption to vaccine. There appears to be little consideration given to examining the question of vaccination from either a utilitarian or a Kantian perspective or even to examine the communitarian argument that vaccination is a public good. The argument offered is based on personal autonomy; this is my child, and no one can tell me what I have to do to protect my child’s health. Tension is created between personal autonomy and social good, and often the former “wins.” The parents involved here, and the doctors leading them, are not fairly providing them with an assessment of risk versus benefit or with all the pertinent information. To a great extent, neither does the media, not when a celebrity such as Jenny McCarthy can publically express her belief that her child’s autism is a direct result of thimerosol in his vaccine, when the evidence suggests thimerosol has no relationship to autism.An emotional appeal is made and parents respond. Ethics is superseded. Evidence does not matter. This is complicated when past administrations, and recent presidential candidates of the United States exhibit anti-scientific attitudes as a political tactic.An editorial inoffers a rationale for compulsory vaccination.The state has an interest in the protection of its subjects. It wishes to ensure that a child’s safety is protected, and that a child is not put to risk through parental neglect or ignorance. This may be paternalistic at times, such as in the creation of seatbelt laws. But it may also be part of a consideration that balances community good against individual autonomy. There is an ethical issue contained within the concept of so-called herd immunity; that is, it is possible for a child to be protected from disease not because his parents accepted a small risk in having him vaccinated, but because other parents have done so- this is a “free ride,” wherein the child gets all the benefit without any of the risk. In terms of the ethical precept of justice, this is surely unfair. Additionally, failure to vaccinate can impact the so-called herd immunity that develops when a certain percentage of the population is vaccinated.As noted above, oftentimes chiropractic physicians argue this issue based solely on a plea based on autonomy. They do not do so based on religious exemption, or even on a philosophical basis, though that might offer the most effective way to argue. Many states allow such exemptions, though this is not true across the globe. Countries such as Germany and France do not allow an opt-out of compulsory vaccination- they are arguing strongly in utilitarian terms. In the US, powers were granted to the states in the 1905 Jacobson case,which noted that there is no absolute right to be freed from restraint at all times. This was an acknowledgement that the states could use their power to protect the health of all, by imposing on individual interest within reasonable boundary. Today, all 50 states have laws linking vaccination to school attendance. There are allowable medical exemptions, and some religious and philosophical ones. In this, we see the classic clash of the bioethical precept of autonomy versus the public health precept of community good. This issue is probed in 3 papers by Salmon and colleagues.In one of the papers they offer guiding principles for crafting nonmedical vaccination exemption clauses; this at least suggests that the impact of such policies on a community be examined. I have not seen such consideration within any chiropractic argument. With the advent of these exemptions, the growth of childhood preventable disease is again rising.The philosophical reasons offered by some members of the chiropractic profession are actually in service of an intra-professional divide and a result of an attempt to create an identification of chiropractic outside that of medical health care, not because of a reasoned philosophical discussion based on ethical principles related to public health ethics. Yet the ramifications of that divide and its implications actually help to create an environment where the profession contributes to the growth of childhood illness.Smith and Davisoffer a possible way forward. They argue convincingly that a concerted chiropractic effort to achieve universal immunization compliance among users of chiropractic would have widespread public health benefits. They note the challenges to doing so, and in a “thought experiment” in which they did a sensitivity analysis of their survey data, they found that for people with certain comorbidities (such as hypertension or emphysema), such a program would lead to more chiropractic users receiving flu vaccine (OR=8.0), pneumococcal vaccine (OR=9) or both (OR=19).Taking all this into account, I argue that efforts need to be taken to create better vertical integration of information about public health in the chiropractic curriculum. Vaccines, like any medical intervention, are not risk free, but are certainly generally safe for use. And I acknowledge that the pharmaceutical industry relies on developing new drugs, new vaccines and new interventions which may be brought to market too quickly. Patients and physicians are right to consider both the risks and benefits of the use of a given vaccine. But often, discussions revolving around vaccination are not based on a detailed reading of actual literature in which the risks and benefits are properly assessed. Instead, the discussions are based on philosophical issues alone. While vaccinations are covered in the public health courses offered by chiropractic institutions, this is almost always in the context of that single class. What is being taught in early trimesters may not be reinforced in later ones, and it appears that students are exposed to an anti-medical position by some members in the chiropractic educational community.It is important to note that vaccination is outside the chiropractic scope of practice. Chiropractors cannot offer vaccinations to their patients. However, as primary healthcare practitioners, patients seek advice from chiropractors for all sorts of reasons, and chiropractors may not shy away from providing information to patients when asked. The best way to address questions from patients is to be knowledgeable about both the risks and benefits of vaccination and the ethics involved in accepting or rejecting their use. Hawk et al have offered a number of papers in which they demonstrate a strong, evidence-based approach to placing vaccination into the context of health promotion, and these can provide a guide to chiropractors wishing to use the best current evidenceThis clash of worldviews, both within the profession and between the chiropractic profession and the medical profession, serves no one well, does not add to the community good and privileges autonomy over any communitarian benefit.Anti-vaccination attitudes till abound within the chiropractic profession. Despite a growing body of evidence about the safety and efficacy of vaccination, many chiropractors do not believe in vaccination, will not recommend it to their patients, and place emphasis on risk rather than benefit. This is positioned within a context privileging individual autonomy, which by many is seen as core ethical value. But this puts the chiropractic profession outside the greater healthcare community and may contribute to its continued marginalization and small market impact. The public health community looks at populations, rather than individuals and uses a separate but no less critical ethical platform, that of community good. Chiropractic is a public health profession. As such, it should work to provide patients the best and most current evidence, free from bias and belief, so that the individual may choose based on having full and accurate information. That would serve the public good. Share:
References 1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Achievements in public health, 1900-1999: impact of vaccines universally recommended for children- 1990-1998. MMWR CDC Surveill Summ 1999;48:243-248
2. Meszaros JR, Asch DA, Baron J, Hershey JC, Lunreuther H, Schwartz-Buzaglo J. Cognitive processes and the decisions of some parents to forego pertussis vaccination for their children. J Clin Epidemiol 1996;49:697-703
3. Wiese G. Chiropractic’s tension with the germ theory of disease. Chiropr Hist 1996;16:72-87
4. Wilk v. American Medical Association, 895 F.2d 352 (7th Cir. 1990)
5. Policy Statement on Vaccination. http://www.acatoday.org/level2_css.cfm?T1ID=10&T2ID=117, accessed September 14, 2009
6. Khorsan R, Smith M, Hawk C, Haas M. A public health Immunization Resource Website for chiropractors: discussion of current issues and future challenges for evidence-based initiatives for the chiropractic profession. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2009;32:500-504
7. Colley F, Haas M. Attitudes on immunization: a survey of American chiropractors. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 1994;17:584-590
8. Hawk C, Long C, Perillo M, Boulanger K. A survey of US chiropractors on clinical preventive services. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2004;27:287-298
9. Busse JW, Kulkarni AV, Campbell JB, Injeyan HS. Attitudes toward vaccination: a survey of Canadian chiropractic students. CMAJ 2002;166:1531-1534
10. Pless R, Hibbs B. Chiropractic students’ attitudes about vaccination: a cause for concern? CMAJ 2002;166:1544-1545
11. Page SA, Russell ML, Verhoef MJ, Injeyan HS. Immunization and the chiropractor-patient interaction: a Western Canadian study. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2006;29:156-161
12. Injeyan HS, Russell ML, Verhoef MJ, Mutasingwa D. Canadian chiropractors’ perception of educational preparation to counsel patients on immunization. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2006;29:643-650
13. Medd EA, Russell ML. Personal and professional immunization behavior among Alberta chiropractors: a secondary analysis of cross-sectional survey data. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2009;32:448-452
14. Russell ML, Injeyan HS, Verhoef MJ, Eliasziw M. Beliefs and behaviors: understanding chiropractors and immunizations. Vaccine 2004;23:372-379
15. Russell ML, Verhoef MJ, Injeyan HS. Are chiropractors interested in participating in immunization awareness and promotion activities? Can J Public Health 2005;96:194-196
16. Davis MA, Smith M, Weeks WB. Influenza vaccination among chiropractic patients and other users of complementary and alternative medicine: are chiropractic patients really different? Preventive Med 2012;54:5-8
17. Palmer College of Chiropractic. Catalogue, 2012
18. Johnson C, Baird R, Dougherty PE, Globe G, Green BN, Haneline M, Hawk C, Injeyan HS, Killinger L, Kopansky-Giles D, Lisi AJ, Mior SA, Smith M. Chiropractic and public health: current state and future vision. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2008;31:397-410
19. Campbell JB, Busse JW, Injeyan HS. Chiropractors and vaccination: a historical perspective. Pediatrics 2000;105:e43
20. Busse JW, Morgan L, Campbell JB. Chiropractic antivaccination arguments. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2005;28:367-373
21. Offit PA. Thimerosol and vaccines- a cautionary tale. N Engl J Med 2007;357:1278-1279
22. Burns A. Michelle Bachman’s HPV vaccination views. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63381.html, accessed April 2, 2012
23. Isaacs D, Kilham H, Leask J, Tobin B. Ethical issues in immunisation. Vaccination 2008;27:615-618
24. Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 197 US11, 1905
25. Salmon DA, Teret SP, MacIntyre CR, Salisbury D, Burgess M, Halsey NA. Compulsaory vaccination and conscientious or philosophical exemptions: past, present or future. Lancet 2006;367:436-442
26. Salmon DA, Siegel AW. Religious and philosophical exemptions from vaccination requirements and lessons learned from conscientious objectors from conscription. Public Health Rep 2001;116:289-295
27. Salman DA, Sapsin JW, Teret SP, Jacobs RF, Thompson JW, Ryan K, Halsey NA. Public health and the politics of school immunization requirements. Amer J Public Health 2005;95:778-783
28. Omer SB, Pan WKY, Halsey NA, Stokley S, Moulton LH, Navar AM, Pierce M, Salmon DA. Nonmedical exemptions to school immunization requirements: secular trends and association of state policies with pertussis incidence. JAMA 2006;296:1757-1763
29. Smith M, Davis MA. Immunization status of adult chiropractic patients in analyses of National Health Interview Survey. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2011;34:602-608
30. Hawk C, Schneider M, Evans MW, Redwood D. Consensus process to develop a best practices document on the role of chiropractic care in health promotion, disease prevention and wellness. J Manip Physiol Ther 2012;35:556-567.
31. Hawk C, Schneider M, Dougherty P, Gleberzon BJ, Killinger LZ. Best practices recommendations for chiropractic care for older adults: results of a consensus process. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2010;33(6):464-473.
32. Hawk C, Schneider M, Ferrance R, Hewitt E, Van Loon M, Tanis L. Best practices recommendations for chiropractic care for children: results of a consensus process. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2009;32:639-647.In nearly every major racing championship, there is one race that stands out as the crown jewel of the annual calendar. The WEC has Le Mans. IMSA has Daytona. And in Super GT, there is the International Suzuka 1000 Kilometers.
The Suzuka 1000km, first run in 1966, has spanned over a century of sports car racing, and all the changes that it has seen over the years. The list of former champions reads off as a list of hall-of-fame drivers and cars, both domestic and foreign.
Production cars, prototypes from Groups 5, 6, and 7, the mighty Group C racers of the ‘80s, the first generation of GT1 in the ‘90s, and, since 1999, the fastest GT racers ever, the GT500 class of the Super GT series, have all fought for the overall victory. From Takahashi to Pescarolo, from Hoshino and Sekiya to Tréluyer and Lotterer, the honour roll of former winners are forever a part of racing immortality.
It is the only true endurance race in a series comprised entirely of all-out sprints, and as the oldest and most prestigious race in the Super GT calendar, it is truly a one-of-a-kind event that every team and every driver in both classes wants to win above all others.
But nothing is forever, and as 2017 has proven, it is especially true in motorsport. This year will be the final running of the Suzuka 1000km, at least, as we know it today.
Next year, a new 10-hour endurance event will be held at Suzuka Circuit on the traditional date of the last weekend of August. Different cars will take center stage. It will be a part of a different championship. A brand new story will be written in 2018, but not before the final sentence of this final chapter is written for all time, this weekend, on August 27, 2017, in the final Suzuka 1000km.
A brand new story will be written in 2018, but not before the final sentence of this final chapter is written for all time, this weekend, on August 27, 2017 – in the final Suzuka 1000km
For this reason alone, the 46th International Suzuka 1000km will be a memorable race. And that was even before factoring in the two biggest X-factors of the race, two former F1 heroes making their one-off Super GT debuts: The 2009 F1 World Drivers’ Champion, Jenson Button, and Toyota LMP1 superstar, Kamui Kobayashi.
Button, in his very first sports car endurance race, will pilot Team Mugen’s #16 Motul Mugen Honda NSX-GT alongside current track record holder Hideki Mutoh, and second-generation driver Daisuke Nakajima. As he did for eight of his 17 F1 campaigns, Button will help to carry Honda fans’ hopes of an eighth Suzuka 1000km victory on his shoulders, at Honda’s traditional home venue.
That said, it would be foolish to suggest that Mugen is a one-man effort – certainly not when Mutoh, last year’s record-setting polesitter, a former IndyCar Rookie of the Year, and a former GT300 Drivers’ Champion, is Team Mugen’s full-time ace. For Mugen, who won this race way back in 1999, they’ll need all three of their drivers to be at their best for 173 grueling laps.
And it’s the same at Lexus Team WedsSport Bandoh, who’ve drafted Kobayashi, five years removed from an iconic podium finish in the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka – to co-pilot the #19 WedsSport Advan Lexus LC500, with their flambouyant and tenacious lead driver Yuhi Sekiguchi, and the reigning Super Formula champion Yuji Kunimoto.
Between the three drivers, Sekiguchi, Kunimoto, and Kobayashi, there is a near-perfect balance of tempered aggression and metronomic precision. Kobayashi will garner the headlines, especially after his unfulfilled performance at Le Mans two months ago. But as is the case with Team Mugen, the WedsSport team need all three of their drivers to be at their best in order to win – and extend Toyota Motor Corporation’s record with a 14th Suzuka 1000km victory between the Toyota and Lexus badges.
They are two of eight teams on the GT500 field carrying less than 50 kilograms of ballast, which is crucial, considering that in the Super GT era (since 2006), no team has ever won the Suzuka 1000km carrying more than 48kg of ballast.
No team has ever won the Suzuka 1000km carrying more than 48kg of ballast
In that group, there are also a number of heavy sentimental favorites to win. The #100 Raybrig NSX-GT (Naoki Yamamoto/Takuya Izawa), owned by four-time winner Kunimitsu Takahashi, who’s yet to win this race as a team owner. Real Racing’s #17 Keihin NSX-GT (Koudai Tsukakoshi/Takashi Kogure), which has infamously suffered one misfortune after another, nearly every year at this race over the past decade.
From Nissan, there is the #46 S Road Craftsports GT-R of Satoshi Motoyama and Katsumasa Chiyo. At age 46, this will likely be the legendary three-time GT500 champion Motoyama’s last chance to finally win the Suzuka summer enduro in his 13th try, while Chiyo hopes to atone for missing this race one year ago with a back injury. The #12 Calsonic Impul GT-R (Hironobu Yasuda/Jann Mardenborough) and the #24 Forum Engineering Advan GT-R (Daiki Sasaki/João Paulo de Oliveira) also have little ballast to contend with, hoping to reinvigorate their frustrating seasons with a win at the biggest race of the year.
The points payout for this race is also crucial for both GT500 and GT300 classes: 25 points for the winning team, 18 points for second place, 15 for third place, down to 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2 for the rest of the top ten. Even one of those extra points could prove to be the difference in winning a championship at the finale at Twin Ring Motegi this November.
And while history isn’t on the side of the teams at the head of the championship fight, those teams heavy on ballast and fuel-flow restrictions have still taken podium finishes and even challenged for the overall victory in the last decade.
That includes last year’s winners, the #38 ZENT Cerumo LC500 of Yuji Tachikawa and Hiroaki Ishiura, two of four drivers looking for their third overall win at the Suzuka 1000km. The others are Ronnie Quintarelli, in the #23 Motul Autech NISMO GT-R (with Tsugio Matsuda) – which was the fastest car in the mid-season tests in June – and James Rossiter, aboard the #36 au TOM’s LC500 with Kazuki Nakajima, one of two cars fielded by the four-time Suzuka 1000km winners at TOM’s.
The #8 ARTA NSX-GT (Tomoki Nojiri/Takashi Kobayashi), just removed from a landmark victory at the Fuji 300km, could also cap off their incredible run through the “Mid-Summer Triple” with a podium, or even a victory that could put them right at the top of the table.
As GT500 prepares for its swansong at the Suzuka summer endurance race, the ultra-competitive GT300 class prepares to take center stage for next year’s new event.
With the Suzuka 10 Hours being open to FIA GT3 and JAF-GT300 cars, and hoping to attract the top teams from Super GT, Super Taikyu, and many other series around the world, it could be logically reasoned that whoever wins the GT300 class in the 46th Suzuka 1000km will enter the inaugural Suzuka 10h as it’s defending champion, in a sense.
And no GT300 team has had the run of dominance at this event quite like Subaru and R&D Sport, winners of four of the last seven Suzuka 1000kms.
The #61 Subaru BRZ R&D Sport of Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi enters 2017 as the defending GT300 winners, and they definitely look poised to win it all again aboard the mighty Blue Boxer. 50 kilograms of Success Ballast isn’t ideal, but history has shown that the ballast isn’t as big a factor in GT300 – it’s been won before at a whopping 88 kilograms, just two years ago.
It also helps that
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EFL Trophy in a previous
for this year’s competition.formatView our previous announcement to read about theAccording to a human rights report by the US State Department, gays face legal and societal discrimination in Jordan. (Photo Courtesy: panoramio.com)
Follow > Disable alert for Adnan Qatarneh Disable alert for US State Department Disable alert for AMMAN Follow >
AMMAN: Jordanian authorities have arrested 10 "gays and lesbians" for holding a get-together at a party hall in east Amman, a security official said on Thursday.
"The administrative governor of the Marka area, Adnan Qatarneh, ordered the arrest of the 10 gays and lesbians after they held a reception at a party hall on Wednesday to get to know each other," he told AFP.
"The arrests were made to prevent a disturbance of the peace," he added, without elaborating.
Homosexuality is not illegal in the conservative desert kingdom, although it is widely seen to be unacceptable.
"There are no laws in Jordan to deal with homosexuality cases," another security official said.
"It is up to administrative governors to decide how to handle such issues, including any period of detention."
In its latest human rights report on Jordan, the US State Department said gays face discrimination there.
"Legal and societal discrimination and harassment remained a problem for women, religious minorities, religious converts, and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community," the report said.Sim is holding a watching brief for the federal health ministry in Sarawak. — Picture by Sulok Tawie
KUCHING, July 4 — Two siblings infected with the rabies virus in Serian district have died at the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) this afternoon, Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian announced today.
The older sibling, a girl aged six, died at 1.43pm while her younger brother died three minutes later, said Dr Sim who is holding a watching brief for the federal Health Ministry in Sarawak.
“The other case is still ventilated and categorised as critically ill,” he added.
Dr Sim said the two siblings, from Kampung Paon, Sungai Rimu, were earlier diagnosed as brain dead and their parents then agreed for the life support to be withdrawn.
The third case of rabies from Serian, which borders Indonesia’s Kalimantan, is a seven-year-old girl from Kampung Lebur, Gedong, who developed a fever on June 23 and was taken to the district hospital where she received outpatient treatment.
The three children were initially treated at the Serian District Hospital before being transferred to the SGH on suspicion of viral encephalitis and placed in the intensive care unit.
The Medical Department later confirmed that the trio were bitten by dogs two to three months ago.
At the moment, Dr Sim said 11 health teams are still carrying out Active Case Detection (ACD) activities at the affected areas in Serian district.
“As of today 19 villages have been visited covering, 2,098 doors/ houses and 6,094 people have been reviewed,” he said.
He added that the ACD teams are also implementing health education activities related to rabies and its preventive measures to the residents of the affected villages.
The cumulative number of dog-bite cases detected in the outbreak area of Serian District from April 1 till now is at 68 cases, Dr Sim said.
However, he was unable to disclose if any other dog-bite cases have developed symptoms linked to rabies.Detailed threat analysis of Shamoon 2.0 Malware
Our Previous post talked about the initial overview of the Shamoon 2.0 sample. This analysis is a continuation of our last post but with a more insight on the working and behavior of the malware.
There are 3 components which are linked with one another which makeup Shamoon 2.0 single malware. We have analyzed each component according to the stages which the Shamoon 2.0 uses for infection on a victim's machine i.e. Dropper Component⇒ Communication Component⇒ Wiper Component.
When Shamoon 1.0 made its first wave of attack in August 2012, it had not just infected 30,000-35,000 computers but it also had crippled the entire organizations altogether which were infected with it. Its effects were seen post attack as many computers were still working irregularly and the time that required to restore the organization's full functionality led to huge loss in not just terms of money but also in terms of company’s reputation too.
The second wave Shamoon which is dubbed as Shamoon 2.0 used the similar approach which it had used previously but this time it is predicted that the amount of infection of computers will be more, since last time the attackers were able to retrieve the credentials of users for various organization, The second wave will be using the stolen credentials from the previous attack and the reason this attack is bound to be success is because of lack of awareness among the employees on securing passwords. One survey about the Middle East reports some of the facts mentioned below:
● More than 70 percent of the users said that they were storing administrative passwords in plaintext.
● Over 45 percent of the users use the same password for over multiple systems.
● More than 40 percent users share their passwords.
● Only 13 percent users change their passwords once a month.
These facts make the Middle East region more easy as a target for Shamoon 2.0. We have launched a Shamoon detection tool which can detect the new Shamoon 2.0.
Following below is the in-depth analysis that we have done on Shamoon 2.0.
Dropper Component - Disttrack:
Upon computing the hash value of the sample, the SHA256 as 394a7ebad5dfc13d6c75945a61063470dc3b68f7a207613b79ef000e1990909b
Doing a quick VirusTotal search we get the following output:
This assures us that the sample we are analyzing is of Shamoon 2.0. The date of update also tells us that it is the recent Shamoon sample which is dubbed as the Shamoon 2.0.
The sample uses the following evasion techniques for Debugging:
1) GetLastError
2) IsDebuggerPresent
3) Process32FirstW
4) Process32NextW
5) TerminateProcess
6) UnhandledExceptionFilter
The following screenshot gives information of the which compiler was used for compiling the malware, which entry point address is being used, EP section tells us the entry point of the portable executable (PE).
As mentioned earlier above the compiler used is Microsoft Visual C++ v8.0 2005
Malware in general use some basic techniques to obfuscate the code so that it is not easily readable when loaded in any debugger and to make it more difficult to reverse the malware. There are many Hashing methods that can be used. Our sample uses the Hash technique known as Base64.
We know that Shamoon 2.0 was targeted the Middle East region. The following screenshot is the evidence that this malware is specifically looking for Arabic -Yemen [ar] (ar-ye) language settings.
So the malware looks into the keyboard layout and the ID mentioned is in the reference of the keyboard layout, for example ID:1033 corresponds to the English-US [en] (en-us), here we find that the language is of the ID: 9217 i.e.Arabic -Yemen [ar] (ar-ye).
The following file operations that took place during the execution of the malware are listed as following:
1. File-Read
C:\Documents and Settings\student\LocalSettings\Temp\Shamoon-394a7ebad5dfc13d6c75945a61063470dc3b68f7a207613b79ef000e1990909b.bin
2. File-Opened
C:\Documents and Settings\student\LocalSettings\Temp\Shamoon-394a7ebad5dfc13d6c75945a61063470dc3b68f7a207613b79ef000e1990909b.bin
C:\WINDOWS\system32\kernel32.dll
3. Registry Key-Read
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize\DisableMetaFiles
Communication Component - Disttrack:
Upon computing the hash value of the sample, the SHA256 as 61c1c8fc8b268127751ac565ed4abd6bdab8d2d0f2ff6074291b2d54b0228842, doing a quick VirusTotal search we verified the sample as a part of the Shamoon 2.0
Following screenshot shows that communication component has the same hash technique as that seen in the dropper component mentioned earlier, i.e. Base64.
Since communication component is a part of the Shamoon 2.0 components it will have same compiler used
For compiling the communication component as well which is shown in the screenshot below:
During our analysis, we found that the communication component made many changes in the Registry values of the infected system, these changes are mentioned below:
Registry Key - Opened
1) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\DnsCache\Parameters
2) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\DnsClient
3) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Rpc
4)HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ImageFile ExecutionOptions\61c1c8fc8b268127751ac565ed4abd6bdab8d2d0f2ff6074291b2d54b0228842.exe\RpcThreadPoolThrottle
5) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LDAP
6) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\System\DNSClient
7) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Rpc
8) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
9) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Rpc\PagedBuffers
10) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Setup
Registry Key - Read
1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\UseDomainNameDevolution
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\ServerPriorityTimeLimit
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Rpc\MaxRpcSize
4. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\WaitForNameErrorOnAll
5. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DnsQuickQueryTimeouts
6. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DefaultRegistrationRefreshInterval
7. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\RegisterWanAdapters
8. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\DomainNameDevolutionLevel
9. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\AppendToMultiLabelName
10. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DisableAdapterDomainName
11. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\RegisterPrimaryName
12. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\EnableAdapterDomainNameRegistration
13. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\UpdateTopLevelDomainZones
14. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\FilterClusterIp
15. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\DnsTest
16. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\ScreenUnreachableServers
17. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\MulticastListenLevel
18. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\MaxNegativeCacheTtl
19. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\QueryAdapterName
20. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\PrioritizeRecordData
21. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\SystemSetupInProgress
22. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize\DisableMetaFiles
23. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DisableReverseAddressRegistrations
24. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\MaxCacheTtl
25. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\UpdateSecurityLevel
26. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\MaxCachedSockets
27. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\RegistrationEnabled
28. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\RegisterAdapterName
29. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\AdapterTimeoutLimit
30. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\UpdateSecurityLevel
31. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\RegistrationMaxAddressCount
32. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DefaultRegistrationTTL
33. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DisableDynamicUpdate
34. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Hostname
35. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\AllowUnqualifiedQuery
36. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\UpdateZoneExcludeFile
37. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\PrioritizeRecordData
38. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\RegistrationTtl
39. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\UseHostsFile
40. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\AllowUnqualifiedQuery
41. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\RegistrationRefreshInterval
42. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DnsQueryTimeouts
43. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\QueryIpMatching
44. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DnsNbtLookupOrder
45. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\MaxCacheSize
46. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\UseDomainNameDevolution
47. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\UseEdns
48. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Domain
49. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\ldap\LdapClientIntegrity
50. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DisableWanDynamicUpdate
51. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DnsMulticastQueryTimeouts
52. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\ScreenBadTlds
53. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\RegisterReverseLookup
54. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\MaxNumberOfAddressesToRegister
55. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Dnscache\Parameters\MulticastSendLevel
56. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DomainNameDevolutionLevel
These above results only indicate that the malware sample tries to communicate with the server.
Wiper Component - Disttrack:
The wiper component is the most important component out of the three components of Shamoon 2.0. Upon computing the hash value of the sample, the SHA256 as 128fa5815c6fee68463b18051c1a1ccdf28c599ce321691686b1efa4838a2acd.
A quick look up with VirusTotal confirms that this indeed is a wiper component of the Shamoon 2.0.
Initial analysis shows us that apart from using the anti-debugging techniques this component also uses Anti-VM tricks which was not seen pervious dropper sample and communication sample.
VMCheck.dll is a technique used to check if the sample is in a Virtual machine or not.
Just similar to the Dropper component and Communication component, we find that the Wiper component uses Microsoft Visual C++ v8.0 2005 shown in the screenshot below.
However, what is different in the Wiper component, which is not present in the dropper or the communication component is it uses and additional hash/crypt function along with the Base64. i.e. CryptEncrypt Function is also used. The screenshot below shows this, which only means that the malware developers really wanted the make this wiper component not more difficult to understand for researchers but also much more obfuscated than the other components that we discussed above, as obfuscated codes are not detected by Antivirus companies easily.
The language component remains same as that of the dropper with the default English option included as shown below:
In context of the registry changes that the Wiper does is same as it did with the Dropper component:
Registry Key-Read
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\GRE_Initialize\DisableMetaFiles
The cryptbase.pdb which contains all the necessary information about the encryption techniques, Keys on encryption and other functions are linked in the following way with the code of the wiper sample:
One more file that we analyzed was which had links to the Shamoon 2.0 was with the SHA256 hash as 5a826b4fa10891cf63aae832fc645ce680a483b915c608ca26cedbb173b1b80a.
Doing a VirusTotal lookup gives us the following confirmation that the software is malicious in nature and that the detection ratio is very low as well.
Now the preliminary analysis shows us the following files that were found:
Executable ntoskrnl.exe
Database c:\projects\rawdisk\bin\wnet\fre\amd64\elrawdsk.pdb
During the analysis for the file we found the following device name parameters
\#{9A6DB7D2-FECF-41ff-9A92-6EDA696613DF}#
\#{8A6DB7D2-FECF-41ff-9A92-6EDA696613DE}#
The interesting thing is that, this same details were also found in the previous Shamoon attack that took place in 2012.
We also came across these ‘060523170051Z’ and ‘160523171051Z0W1’ strings. The interesting thing about these numbers is that they are found in a different malware which has a file name ‘mimidrv.sys’. The screenshot of that malware is mentioned below.
This malware mentioned above is basically a ‘hacktool’ Trojan as identified by the other Antivirus companies. There are chances that this is another behavior that our sample also behaves like the sample mentioned below.
We find that the Mimikatz malware is related with the PowerShell. We had found out the same PowerShell which we had reported in our previous blog. Hence the Shamoon 2.0 has some behaviour with PowerShell. Following screenshot shows the PowerShell commands that Shamoon 2.0 executes:
From the evidence collected we confirm links between the Shamoon 1.0 to Shamoon 2.0.
Some features that were observed with this sample are that it is using an overlay to hid the packer information:
Analysing further, we found out the MEW 10v1.0 from Northfox packer is used:
Unlike the components that we analyzed so far this particular sample had the CRC16 Hash function which is completely different.
The malware has a SSL certificate embedded within it. The following screenshot gives the SLL certificate information,
The certificate is valid from Monday,January 11, 2010 7:49.26 PM to Friday, January 11 2013 7:49:26 PM
This above date correlates to the hard-coded date inside the program. This hardcoded date allows the program to execute since the date is inside the validity period as mentioned.
The pseudo code explains that Shamoon 2.0 changes the system time, and sets it at random time and date between Monday, January 11, 2010 7:49.26 PM to Friday, January 11 2013 7:49:26 PM.
The above code is derived from this code flow:
The reason for Shamoon 2.0 changes the time and date settings is because we found out that Shamoon 2.0 uses a commercial product which the malware developers are using which is as called RawDisk by EldoS Corporation. This software gives direct access to files, disk and partitions. The temporary license key for this product is between the time mentioned earlier and hence Shamoon 2.0 changes the system time to make the product believe into thinking that it is using a valid key, and thus the overwrite function can take place.
The MBR-Overwriting Techniques that Shamoon 2.0 Implements:
Before explaining the MBR overwriting that the Shamoon 2.0 does we need to understand what is an MBR or the Master Boot Record (MBR). MBR usually is the first 512 bytes of the disk which consists of all the important and crucial information about the data in the disk. The breakdown of the 512 bytes is as shown below:
The reason of overwriting the first 512 bytes of data is
Bootstrap code area 446 bytes Partition entry 1
Partition entry 2
Partition entry 3
Partition entry 4 Partition table (for primary partitions) 16 bytes x 4 (partitions) Boot signatureBoot signature 2 bytes Total 512 bytes
So, that in simple terms mean that target the MBR and lose all data rather than wiping the entire drive all-together.
The following screenshot is a pseudo-code for the MBR-overwrite method that the Shamoon 2.0 uses.
As seen the code above there is a comparison of a variable with ‘69’. The ASCII equivalent of 69 is ‘E’
So, the way the code works in 3 simple steps:
1. Reads the data from the location to overwrite.
2. Uses an XOR table to corrupt the data
3. Write back the XOR’ed values to the location where it read the original data from.
The Above code is derived from the following structure of code:
And the XOR operations which are responsible for overwriting/wiping the data are in the cascading representations as shown in the image below:
One more module code that we can observe is from the ElRawDisk sample is shown below that shows the correlation between the actual code and the functionality and working in a pseudo - c code.
This particular snippet shows how the IoDeleteDevice routine removes a device object from the system, once the MBR is overwritten. This IODeleteDevice routine sends a message to the system notifying that a hard-drive or device is removed, this message is sent because after the MBR is overwritten the system cannot read the drive and this routine tells the system that the device is disconnected from the system and hence the system does not further communicate with the drive. Therefore, the drive is no longer visible on the system.
Conclusion
From the whole analysis, we now can say the following behaviour. The Shamoon sample that is currently spreading is not very different from what spread in its first attack of August 2012. There is a lot of similarity in the previous sample and the new sample. But the new sample is more destructive than the older one. The modules which are split into Dropper, Communication, Wiper are independent and yet linked with one another. From the analysis, we can say that the wiper component is the most important out of the three.
The first stage that the Shamoon 2.0 does it that it checks the system date and compares it with the date embedded. If the date matches it proceeds towards the deletion stage but, otherwise Shamoon 2.0 changes the date into a date which is acceptable to the malware sample and then proceeds to the infection.
The wiper is does not only overwrites the MBR (Master-Boot-Record), but also uses the IODevices module to trigger alerts to the compromised system about the device module being removed from the system altogether making the system completely useless to the user.
The language detected as Arabic Yemen shows that it's a targeted attack towards Middle East.
Indicators of Compromise - SHA 256 hash values
5a826b4fa10891cf63aae832fc645ce680a483b915c608ca26cedbb173b1b80a
c7fc1f9c2bed748b50a599ee2fa609eb7c9ddaeb9cd16633ba0d10cf66891d8a
47bb36cd2832a18b5ae951cf5a7d44fba6d8f5dca0a372392d40f51d1fe1ac34
61c1c8fc8b268127751ac565ed4abd6bdab8d2d0f2ff6074291b2d54b0228842
128fa5815c6fee68463b18051c1a1ccdf28c599ce321691686b1efa4838a2acd
394a7ebad5dfc13d6c75945a61063470dc3b68f7a207613b79ef000e1990909b
We have launched a Shamoon detection tool which can detect the new Shamoon 2.0.10 Brands That Are Using Google Hangouts And Getting Results
By Unknown, blog post 06/05/2015
Are you using Google Hangouts to promote your business? In the right hands, Hangouts can become the ultimate weapon for connecting, engaging and building relationships with the key influencers and customers for your business.
What’s more, Google Hangouts is available to everyone, free to use, and comes with a huge range of features and apps, which makes it incredibly versatile. For these reasons, the possibilities presented by the tool for promoting your business are bound only by your imagination.
For inspiration to get you started, here are 10 brands that are using Google Hangouts creatively for their business and getting results.
Manchester United Football Club
Above: A promotional YouTube video for Manchester United’s Google Plus Front Row campaign that used Hangout technology. Photo from: YouTube
During a home match versus Liverpool Football Club, Manchester United introduced their Google Plus Front Row campaign. Using Hangout technology, the Front Row campaign involved broadcasting videos of fans through the digital advertising hoardings at the side of the Old Trafford pitch. This was a world first at the time, and allowed Manchester United supporters from all over the world to ‘be in the front row’ as their favourite team played.
Shoppable Hangout With Diane von Furstenberg
Above: The event page on Google Plus for #ShoptheHangout with Diane von Furstenberg.
The fashion designer, Diane von Furstenberg, made history by being the first brand to host a shoppable Google Hangout. All the clothes that featured during the shoppable Hangout were made available to buy via a link that took viewers to a new window where they could purchase the garment on display.
The success of #ShoptheHangout is illustrated by a number of striking statistics. A promotional trailer released a week before the Hangout generated a massive 2.3 million views on YouTube. Plus, the project generated 150 million social media impressions and over 65 million press impressions which, unsurprisingly, helped increase traffic and sales for partners selling Diane von Furstenberg clothes.
Penguin And BBH Storytime Hangout App
Above: Penguin’s Storytime Hangout page bought the ‘Billy Goats Gruff ‘story by integrating the use of webcams.
In collaboration with the advertising agency, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, the children’s book publisher, Penguin, created an app that brought the story ‘Billy Goats Gruff’ to life on their Storytime Hangout page.
By clicking a ‘Launch Storytime Hangout’ button, users were able to initiate a video call and invite attendees to share in storytime. Then, by using their webcams, participants could pick a character from the story they wanted to play, and a mask depicting that character would appear over their face.
Explaining the creation of this app, Anna Rafferty, MD of Penguin Digital, said that “While nothing will ever replace the act of snuggling up with a book and reading a story with a child, we’re using technology to give it a twist, enabling it to happen at long-distances, and connecting stories and readers as Penguin has always done.”
Warner Brothers
Above: The cast of ‘Interstellar’ discussing the film with fans in real-time via a Google Hangout. Photo from: YouTube
To promote the launch of the epic sci-fi film, ‘Interstellar’, Warner Brothers held their own Google Hangout with Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and other stars of the film. This provided film fans with the chance to ask the cast questions in real-time via a Q&A app, as well as the opportunity to buy tickets for the film and access related links. On the whole, the pioneering use of technology proved to be a fantastic method for engaging with their audience.
President Barack Obama
Above: Barack Obama talking to the American public using Google Hangouts.
Is there a bigger global brand than Barack Obama? In what the White House dubbed the “the first-ever presidential hangout road trip”, Obama spoke with nine geographically dispersed Americans using Google’s Hangout tool. Unsurprisingly, thousands of people submitted questions to ask the President. And the backgrounds of those who were lucky enough to be picked ranged from bloggers and online entertainers, to work-at-home mums and LGBT rights advocates.
Taylor Guitars
Above: The winner of the Taylor Guitar live giveaway being announced via a Google Hangout.
In collaboration with Taylor Guitars, the singer/songwriter Daria Musk held a series of Google Hangouts on her personal page. On the first of these occasions, after discussing how the collaboration came to be, Daria and Tim Godwin from Taylor Guitars gave a Taylor Guitar GS Mini to a lucky fan. Afterwards, Daria played her song ‘Maybe’ and invited the live giveaway winner, Al Ebnereza, to the Hangout.
Washington Post
Above: Washington Post’s political reporter, Nia-Malika Henderson, holding a Google Hangout discussing an immigration bill.
The American newspaper, Washington Post, are using Hangouts to allow editors and readers to debate and discuss important public issues. Not only that, but these Hangouts have allowed followers to engage with one another and listen to each other’s point of view. So far, the paper has covered a diverse range of topics, including ‘Diversity in America’ and ‘What questions do Romney and Obama need to answer?’
Taylor Swift
Above: Taylor Swift unveils her new album ‘Red’ on Google Hangouts, providing fans from around the world with the chance to ask her questions.
Pop sensation, Taylor Swift, used Google Hangouts to announce her new album ‘Red’. Taylor hosted the Hangout herself, which allowed her to answer fans’ questions about her new album. The Hangout also provided Taylor Swift’s fans with the chance to listen to the first single from the album, ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’. After using her Google Plus page to promote the Hangout, Taylor’s Google Plus followers rose from 209,739 to over 2 million.
The Food And Booze Show
Above: Mia Voss using Google Hangouts to sample beer live and on location for The Food and Booze Show.
The Food and Booze Show are using Google Hangouts to review what pubs and restaurants have on their menu – live and on location. This has proven that Hangout formats can work using mobile and Wi-Fi technology, showing that the tool can be used for businesses to promote their products and services on-the-go. When The Food And Booze Show have used Hangouts in the past, they have encouraged viewers to comment and ask questions – which has made the experience very interactive and kept the audience engaged.
Cadbury
Above: The #cremeeggbake Google Plus and Google Hangout campaign proved a massive success for Cadbury.
Having built the number of followers to their Google Plus page up to 3.5 million, Cadbury are now a firm advocate of the platform. For this reason, in the run up to Easter, the chocolate manufacturer used Google Hangouts to generate buzz around their #cremeeggbake competition – which involved participants posting recipes using crème eggs on social media.
The winners were then invited to partake in Hangouts, and the campaign was deemed a massive success. This statement is backed up by statistics that reveal Cadbury enjoyed 3 million organic views across Google Plus and 36,000 engagements – including 3,000 comments, 5,000 shares and 28,000 +1s.
Have you been inspired by this post? Then download our free ebook to find over 50 more examples of brands that are using Google’s DIY broadcast channel creatively to promote their business.
Feature photo by: Ron Cogswell
To talk to us about how our expertise in digital marketing can help grow your business visit our services page, call Mark Poppleton on 0117 971 2499 or get in touch via our contact form.London property prices have surged this year—up 8.1% in June, compared with the same month in 2012. That’s enough to invite “bubble” talk among economists.
One cause of rising prices: Chinese investors. They bought 27% of new homes sold in London (link in Chinese) in 2012, according to a report by Chinese Weekly, a UK-based paper, quoting data from Savills, a UK-based estate broker. Chinese demand for new housing amounted to about 17% of total residential real estate transaction value last year, says the report.
That trend is growing. Chinese nationals bought about £170 million ($266 million) of residential property in the first half of 2013, according to data from Knight Frank, a property consultancy, that was cited in the report. Gary Kwok, CEO of iNewHome, a UK property developer, said Chinese buyers are mainly invested in properties worth £1 million or more.
And while prominent investments in commercial real estate by Ping An Insurance, China Investment Corp (paywall), a Chinese sovereign wealth fund, and other government-backed foreign exchange funds have grabbed headlines in the last year or so, individuals are snapping up those properties, as well. Chinese mainlanders bought £1.5 billion worth of such properties in downtown London, though the period of time for that figure is unclear.
This is, of course, significant for any Londoners trying to buy a home right now. More broadly, though, it signals the ongoing capital flight out of China, as those with means of getting money beyond the barriers of China’s closed financial system seek to diversify their savings out of the country. The strengthening of the yuan against the pound only makes this more inviting:
This isn’t entirely about financial gain; while a staff member at Savills told Chinese Weekly that while 60% was for investment purposes, the rest was for personal residence. In many cases, that’s not for the investor himself—it’s for his child. Recent research from the Hurun Institute, which surveys the wealth of Chinese citizens, links the appeal of the UK’s educational pedigrees with that of its property:
Hurun Research Institute
Whatever the motivation, it’s likely only to continue. In the first half of the year, at least eight London real estate agencies opened offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, or elsewhere in China, says Chinese Weekly, making property investments even more accessible to mainlanders. Then there’s the return on investment in Chinese properties. Data from last month show that prices in cities like Beijing and Shanghai have surged nearly 20% on July 2012.UPDATE: No major injuries for Lehigh students in fatal Route 22 bus accident
A multi-vehicle crash Tuesday night on Route 22 West closed both directions of the highway near the Lehigh-Northampton county border, Pennsylvania State Police said.
Reported about 5:50 p.m., the crash just east of the exit to Airport Road (Route 987) North involved a Lehigh University school bus that ended up on its roof.
Lehigh County Coroner Scott Grim confirmed his office was responding, indicating the crash involves a fatality.
The highway closure spanned Schoenersville to Airport roads, state police at Bethlehem said.
Lehigh's Brown & White student-run newspaper reports the bus was carrying the Bethlehem school's rowing team.
BREAKING: @LehighRowing bus in major accident on U.S. 22 westbound. Status of students involved unknown. Updates to come. -- The Brown and White (@LUBrownWhite) October 27, 2015
Authorities were not immediately available for further comment.
Kurt Bresswein may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.kabukimono" were a group that dressed in a peculiar style and spoke in a vernacular which matched their often outrageous behavior. The "" were a group that dressed in a peculiar style and spoke in a vernacular which matched their often outrageous behavior.
Kabukimono (傾奇者 (カブキもの)) or hatamoto yakko (旗本奴) were gangs of samurai in feudal Japan. They appeared between the end of the Muromachi period (AD 1573) and the beginning of the Edo period (AD 1603), as the turbulent Sengoku period drew to a close. The term Kabukimono is often translated into English as "strange things" or "
|
back in 2011.
Syrian regime forces retook the Al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo from rebels at the end of last year [AFP]
Hyatt Tahir al-Sham (HTS) and their associates have been shooting protestors with live bullets, detaining those who report on critical issues, and assassinating anyone who they see as a threat to their existence. HTS/JAI have consistently detained activists who had previously served time in Assad jails due to their participation in the 2011 protest movement.
The extremist supporters defend such detentions by accusing the activists of being spies paid by the West; the same accusations the activists faced from the Syrian government.
Just last month, Jabhat al-Nusra attacked the city of Maaret al-Numan, Idlib province. The extremists killed civilians and tried to seize a Free Syrian Army base and detain its members. The population protested for days and fought back aggressively, often daring to taunt the Nusra fighters with their protests.
Only a few news outlets covered this very important news.
Biilal Abdulakreem who was only miles away, instead of covering the movement, choose to devote his considerable platform to one of those who carried out the attack on Maaret al-Numan. During Abdulkareem's interviews, the Nusra invasion of the rebellious city was not mentioned at all.
This is not siding with the Syrian people, this is siding with al-Qaeda ideology that Syrians overwhelmingly oppose
For me, this is not siding with the Syrian people, this is siding with al-Qaeda ideology that Syrians overwhelmingly oppose.
For the Syrians who protested Assad, these radical groups are counter-revolutionary. They are not a part of the uprising. It's not fair or accurate to put everyone who doesn't support Assad in the same box. This binary lacks nuance, and disrespects the activists who died at the hands of the government and extremist factions.
Bilal Abdulakreem isn't the only one fuelling this binary. Many western journalists are doing the same but from the relative safety of the government side, or from the comfort of far away western nations.
It's not fair or accurate to put everyone who doesn't support Assad in the same box
These people are painting Assad as the only alternative to extremist rule. They argue that if you don't side with the dictator, you are by default al-Qaeda supporters, and supportive of the country being ruled by radicals.
And just like with Bilal, the voice of the Syrians who oppose both is completely absent from their reporting.
The life and death struggle between revolutionaries and extremists has too often been ignored, or simply denied by western commentators - too far removed to understand the subtleties of the situation. The uprising in Maraat Numan is a symbol of resistance among Syrian revolutionaries. But after a regime bomb killed dozens, the city was characterised by some regime apologists as a hotbed of sympathizers of al-Nusra.
Western journalists who were busy making excuses for the regime's atrocity never bothered to express sympathy or concern for the prisoners being held hostage by Nusra. The powerful, brutal and Jaysh al-Islam, which rules the besieged Damascus suburb of Ghouta, is despised for its authoritarianism and is currently suppressing protests against its rule.
In recent months shocking video emerged of JAI soldiers firing at protesters. The Army of Islam - which currently holds an unjust and outsized role in the opposition delegation to the stop-start negotiations in Astana - is the evil force behind the kidnapping of one of the Syrian revolution's most beloved icons; the lawyer turned activist Razan Zeitouna.
We don't want Nusra or Jaysh al-Islam to march on Damascus
Zeitouna helped found the Local Coordination Councils, the democratically elected city legislatures that were the vanguard of the Syrian revolution. She was a symbol of resistance and liberation for the people of Douma, which is why Jaysh al-Islam felt the need to remove her.
Foreign commentators condemning the Syrian uprising as a whole are simply using the extremists as a smokescreen. They make no mention of Razan Zeitouna or the Local Coordination Councils. Indeed, most have never heard of the role they played in the uprising.
To those reducing Syria to a jihadi vs police state binary, Razan and the victims of the extremists they claim to oppose, do not exist.
At the crux of the matter, is that revolution is not a binary choice between extremist anarchy or a police state.
The revolutionaries who peacefully demonstrated in 2011 are still out there. Thousands died, but millions are still alive, scattered across Syria and the world in refugee camps.
Some are right where they started the revolution, many are leading protests in Idlib against HTS, and some are living under government siege, or quietly resisting in IS held territory.
A lucky few have gained residency in western nations, but for most of us who rose up, our demands remain the same as they did on day one. We do not want a binary world, we don't want Nusra or Jaysh al-Islam to march on Damascus.
We want Bashar Assad to get on a plane and leave the country so we can make peace and begin the painstaking process of holding elections and rebuilding the country.
Loubna Mrie is a Syrian activist who participated in the initial stages of the revolution. She later became a photojournalist with Reuters where she covered the ongoing conflict.
She is currently based in New York City where she is a researcher and commentator on Syrian and Middle Eastern affairs and is completing an MA at NYU. Her work has been published in major outlets including the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and New Republic.
Follow her on Twitter: @loubnamrie
Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.I’m writing chiefly to commend to you what Alan Jacobs has recently called his “big fat intellectual project.”
The topic that has driven his work over the last few years Jacobs describes as follows: “The ways that technocratic modernity has changed the possibilities for religious belief, and the understanding of those changes that we get from studying the literature that has been attentive to them.” He adds,
“But literature has not been merely an observer of these vast seismic tremors; it has been a participant, insofar as literature has been, for many, the chief means by which a disenchanted world can be re-enchanted — but not fully — and by which buffered selves can become porous again — but not wholly. There are powerful literary responses to technocratic modernity that serve simultaneously as case studies (what it’s like to be modern) and diagnostic (what’s to be done about being modern).”
To my mind, such a project enjoys a distinguished pedigree, at least in some important aspects. I think, for example, of Leo Marx’s classic, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, or the manner in which Katherine Hayles weaves close readings of contemporary fiction into her explorations of digital technology. Not that he needs me to say this, but I’m certain Jacobs’ work along these lines, particularly with its emphasis on religious belief, will be valuable and timely. You should click through to find links to a handful of essays Jacobs has already written in this vein.
On his blog, Text Patterns, Jacobs has, over the last few weeks, been describing one important thread of this wider project, a technological history of modernity, which, naturally, I find especially intriguing and necessary.
The first post in which Jacobs articulates the need for a technological history of modernity began as a comment on Matthew Crawford’s The World Beyond Your Head. In it, Jacobs repeats his critique of the “ideas have consequences” model of history, one in which the ideas of philosophers drive cultural change.
Jacobs took issue with the “ideas have consequences” model of cultural change in his critique of Neo-Thomist accounts of modernity, i.e., those that pin modernity’s ills on the nominalist challenge to the so-called medieval/Thomist synthesis of faith and reason. He finds that Crawford commits a similar error in attributing the present attention economy, in large measure, to conclusions about the will and the individual arrived at by Enlightenment thinkers.
Beyond the criticisms specific to the debate about the historical consequences of nominalism and the origins of our attention economy, Jacobs articulated concerns that apply more broadly to any account of cultural change that relies too heavily on the work of philosophers and theologians while paying too little attention to the significance of the material conditions of lived experience.
Moving toward the need for a technological history of modernity, Jacobs writes, “What I call the Oppenheimer Principle — ‘When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success’ — has worked far more powerfully to shape our world than any of our master thinkers. Indeed, those thinkers are, in ways we scarcely understand, themselves the product of the Oppenheimer Principle.”
Or, as Ken Myers, a cultural critic that Jacobs and I both hold in high esteem, often puts it: ideas may have consequences, but ideas also have antecedents. These antecedents may be described as unarticulated assumptions derived from the bodily, emotional, and, yes, cognitive consequences of society’s political, economic, and technological infrastructure. I’m not sure if Jacobs would endorse this move, but I find it helpful to talk about these assumptions by borrowing the concept of “plausibility structures” first articulated by the sociologist Peter Berger.
For Berger, plausibility structures are those chiefly social realities that render certain ideas plausible, compelling, or meaningful apart from whatever truth value they might be independently or objectively assigned. Or, as Berger has frequently quipped, the factors that make it easier to be a Baptist in Texas than it would be in India.
Again, Berger has in mind interpersonal relationships and institutional practices, but I think we may usefully frame our technological milieu similarly. In other words, to say that our technological milieu, our material culture constitutes a set of plausibility structures is to say that we derive tacit assumptions about what is possible, what is good, what is valuable from merely carrying on about our daily business with and through our tools. These implicit valuations and horizons of the possible are the unspoken context within which we judge and evaluate explicit ideas and propositions.
Consequently, Jacobs is quite right to insist that we understand the emergence of modernity as more than the triumph of a set of ideas about individuals, democracy, reason, progress, etc. And, as he puts it,
“Those of us who — out of theological conviction or out of some other conviction — have some serious doubts about the turn that modernity has taken have been far too neglectful of this material, economic, and technological history. We need to remedy that deficiency. And someone needs to write a really comprehensive and ambitious technological history of modernity. I don’t think I’m up to that challenge, but if no one steps up to the plate….”
All of this to say that I’m enthusiastic about the project Jacobs has presented and eager to see how it unfolds. I have a few more thoughts about it that I hope to post in the coming days–why, for example, Jacobs project is more appealing than Evgeny Morozov’s vision for tech criticism–but that may or may not materialize. Whatever the case, I think you’ll do well to tune in to Jacobs’ work on this as it progresses.By conventional rules, Donald Trump should lose to Hillary Clinton in a landslide. But if God were enforcing the conventional rules, Trump would be brooding atop his midtown Manhattan aerie, wondering how he came in last behind James Gilmore.This has to terrify Clinton. She knows how to run against a normal Republican.Unfortunately for her, a normal Republican isn't on the menu.How would Trump win? The same way he won the primaries: by selling a more entertaining story.About three years ago, the eponymous "Ace" from the legendary Ace of Spades HQ blog wrote a brilliant little essay on "The MacGuffinization of American politics.""In a movie or book, 'The MacGuffin' is the thing the hero wants," Ace writes. "Usually the villain wants it too, and their conflict over who will end up with The MacGuffin forms the basic spine of the story."The Maltese Falcon in "The Maltese Falcon," the Ark in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the daughter in "Taken."These are all classic MacGuffins. Alfred Hitchcock apparently argued that it doesn't really matter what the MacGuffin is, so long as the hero wants or needs it and it sounds important enough to justify the hero's efforts.In "Mission Impossible 3," we don't even find out what the MacGuffin is, beyond being something very dangerous called "the Rabbit's Foot."Ace's insight was that the mainstream media covers Barack Obama as if he were the hero in a movie (with Republicans as the villains, of course).Whatever Obama wants — Obamacare, unconstitutional immigrant amnesty, the stimulus, a deal with Iran — isn't important to a worshipful press corps.Whether policies are good or bad, lawful or unlawful, is kind of irrelevant. What matters is that the hero wants something."Watching [MSNBC's] Chris Matthews interview Obama," Ace wrote, "I was struck by just how uninterested in policy questions Matthews (and his panel) were, and how almost every question seemed to be, at heart, about Obama's emotional response to difficulties —not about policy itself, but about Obama's Hero's Journey in navigating the plot of President Barack Obama: The Movie."I think something similar has been at the root of Trump's success. I can't bring myself to call him a hero, but many people see him that way. Even his critics concede that he's entertaining. I see him as being a bit like Rodney Dangerfield, constantly complaining he doesn't get enough respect.Regardless, Trump bulldozed his way through the primaries in part because the nomination was his MacGuffin and people wanted to see the movie play out.Many voters, and nearly the entire press corps, got caught up in the story of Trump — much the same way the press became obsessed with the "mythic" story of Obama in 2008.People just wanted to see what happened next.In the film "Wag the Dog," a Hollywood producer and a political fixer conspire to get the president re-elected by concocting a fake international crisis in which an American soldier is taken hostage.They agree that the American POW has to be returned after the election.Why? Because as Robert De Niro's character explains, that's the final act of the story. The president needs to win the election for the audience to see the end of the story."Psychologically," De Niro says, the voters "will understand that that's the bargain. Make them pay for him... the price is their vote."This could be terrible for Clinton. She began her campaign thinking she could stage a remake of The Obama Story the way they're remaking "Ghostbusters." Same plot, only this time with women.It doesn't work that way. Fair or not, the story of Hillary Clinton: First Woman President isn't as exciting as Barack Obama: First Black President.And, more to the point, The Hillary Story is far less entertaining than The Trump Story.Clinton is boring. She's as fun as changing shelf paper on a Saturday afternoon.Meanwhile, who wouldn't want to see a sequel to "Back to School" in which the Rodney Dangerfield character becomes president?Clinton is rich, and morally and ethically corrupt. So is Trump. But at least he's entertaining. Everyone suspects they know what President Hillary Clinton: The Movie would look like. Trump: The Movie? That could be a wild ride.Clinton's best bet is to tell voters it would be a horror movie so terrifying, no one will want to see it. I'm not buying tickets to either show come the fall. But I'll be following the promotions closely.Murraycoin MRY Pretty self-explanatory - a coin that was an homage to … murraycoin.org Parody Twitter
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LinkedInRookh Kshatriya is the creator of the Anglobitch blog, The Anglobitch Thesis and the author of Havok: How Anglo-American Feminism Ruined Society.
RF’s recent essay, ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy and the Marginalization of Sex in Anglo America’, was one of the most interesting pieces of manosphere writing I have read in many a year. His thesis cleverly linked Anglo-American sexual repression to our culture’s fatal obsession with consumerism and debt slavery. And yes, it is obvious that blue-pilled males slave their pointless lives away for branded commodities assembled in Third World sweat shops to ‘win’ (or try to win) some frosty Anglobitch tail. Of course, both women and the Matrix have vested interests in maintaining this situation. Women get raised onto marble pedestals by their beta lackeys and the system at large; and by selling debt and dross to pussy-starved betas, the Matrix secures its existence for the foreseeable future. A win-win situation for both parties.
However, sexual repression in the Anglosphere serves an additional purpose: it creates a ready supply of frustrated cannon fodder useful for imposing Anglo matriarchy of other parts of the world. As well as making these deluded Gammas more reckless, prolonged sexual deprivation makes them exalt women as goddesses worth fighting and dying for. In sum, withholding sex from Anglo-American males not only serves the Matrix within the nation state; it helps the Matrix expand its gynocentric agenda beyond the Anglosphere.
The economic inequality fostered by every Anglo-Saxon nation produces a large, alienated underclass defined by low intelligence, limited horizons and cynical conformity. In the UK for example, one third of the population cannot divided 65 by 5 with pencil and paper and almost 20% are functionally illiterate. RF continually shows how clueless most Americans are about the wider world; only 1 in 3 Americans can find Great Britain on a map, for instance. With illiterate mobs coexisting alongside privileged elites, the major Anglosphere nations are more like Third World countries than progressive states such as Norway, Germany or Japan. However, this retarded Anglo underclass does serve one useful purpose: as willing fodder for the military-industrial complex.
For these bone-headed clowns join the military in droves – what other career, apart from criminality, is available to them? And this is where good ol’ Anglo sexual repression kicks in. Sexually disenfranchised males are far more likely to risk life or limb than males with a reproductive stake in the future. Widespread sexual repression not only makes the rabble take risks; it transforms women into semi-divine beings worthy of worship and self-sacrifice. Together, these factors create the perfect background noise to Anglo-American campaigns in ‘patriarchal’ regions.
And these ugly clowns are perfect cannon fodder, if nothing else. Blue collar males in the Anglosphere are deeply damaged by institutional misandry and gynocentric discrimination; they commit suicide in droves; almost 40% die single and childless; their lives are holes of self-loathing concealed by sexual false consciousness and infantile bluster. Largely deprived of the basic human need for sex, they constitute a reserve army of lemmings desperate to escape their tortuous celibacy; even a sniper’s bullet is preferable to that walking death.
Keeping these gammas in a constant state of sexual thirst thus serves the Matrix not only in economic terms (as RF so ably described) but in military terms, too. Being rabbit-brained shills and incapable of rational thought, Anglo women effortlessly conflate their own role in the military-industrial complex with the trendy liberal pacifism they picked up in college (perhaps it should be renamed the military-industrial-sexual complex – an interesting concept indeed).
Enter The Talking Heads
Meanwhile, the lamestream media skews all international news with explicit feminist and misandrist narratives, further exciting our incel White Knights with chivalrous indignation. A good example would be Boko Haram, the African Islamist outfit whose massacres of boys are conveniently omitted in most western reportage. Instead we are treated to endless ‘Find Our Girls’ headlines calculated to stir the average Anglochump’s ‘protective’ instincts towards stainless damsels. And so we are left with an ignorant, sexually frustrated horde of unemployable dolts fired up by feminist propaganda to support whatever illegal invasion the Matrix dreams up next.
Truly, the Anglosphere sets all standards of economic, educational and social progress.
I am well-known for my cynicism about Men’s Right’s Activism. Not that their views are wrong – they are not – I just don’t think they can change anything. The reason is not wholly biological, although gender biology plays a role; it is rather that the Anglo-American Matrix is too resilient and well-organized, too integrated and efficient a system to be easily overthrown by AVfM and ‘gender justice’ groups of that ilk.
The Matrix can be compared to an organism which has successfully weathered centuries of evolutionary and environmental pressure and has developed countless defensive mechanisms to secure its own existence. It utilizes gender biology, mass psychology, media, technology, education, money and language to defend itself in ways that are beyond any individual human consciousness (including mine) to completely unravel.
So we in the manosphere need to transcend outmoded narratives of ‘justice’ and ‘fairness’, or the notion that being intellectually ‘right’ makes victory inevitable. We can be proven ‘right’ a thousand times but if nothing ever changes – and it never does – none of it matters. A more effective course for the enlightened man surely lies in self-development (separatism, minimalism, personal growth) and building a new life outside the Anglo-American Matrix.
Help us grow by making a purchase from our Recommended Reading and Viewing page or our Politically Incorrect Apparel and Merchandise page or buy anything from Amazon using this link. You can also Sponsor The New Modern Man for as little as $1 a month.Long before drive by shootings and police stabbings, our ancestors used some truly badass weapons against each other. Our ancient ancestors seemed to have a knack for finding the most gruesome and painful ways to attack each other – you could even argue that no modern weapons come close to being able to inflict the same level of suffering as these ancient weapons. You might even be forgiven for being thankful for guns with their quick deaths when you read this list of top 10 badass weapons.
This is a list of the most badass weapons in ancient history. This list excludes weapons beyond the medieval period.
10 Culverin
Culverins were medieval guns. These were often used by horsemen in a medieval kind of drive-by shooting. The hand culverin were made of a simple smoothbore tube, closed at one end except for a small hole designed to fire the gunpowder. The tube was held in place by a wooden piece which could be held under the arm. The tube was loaded with gunpowder and lead bullets. The culverin was fired by inserting a lighted cord into the hole. In the image above, the hand culverin is between two small canons.
These hand culverins soon evolved into heavier portable culverins, around 40kg in weight, which required a swivel for support and aiming. Such culverins were further equiped with back-loading sabots to facilitate reloading, and were often used on ships – a precursor to the modern canon.
9 Caltrop
A caltrop is a weapon made up of two (or more) sharp nails or spines arranged so that one of them always points upward from a stable base (for example, a tetrahedron). Caltrops serve to slow down the advance of horses, war elephants, and human troops. It was said to be particularly effective against the soft feet of camels.
In modern times Caltrops have been used at times during labor strikes and other disputes. Such devices were used by some to destroy the tires of management and replacement workers. Because of the prevalence of caltrops during the Caterpillar strike of the mid-1990s, the state of Illinois passed a law making the possession of such devices a misdemeanor.
Iron caltrops were used as early as 331 BC at Gaugamela according to Quintus Curtius. They were known to the Romans as tribulus or sometimes as Murex ferreus, meaning ‘jagged iron’. The Roman writer Vegetius said:
The Roman soldiers rendered [the armed chariots] useless chiefly by the following contrivance: at the instant the engagement began, they strewed the field of battle with caltrops, and the horses that drew the chariots, running full speed on them, were infallibly destroyed. A caltrop is a device composed of four spikes or points arranged so that in whatever manner it is thrown on the ground, it rests on three and presents the fourth upright.
Punji sticks and caltrops were used in the Vietnam War, sometimes with poison or manure on the points.
8 Boiling Oil
Back in the day, you had to scale the walls of a city or castle before you could rape and pillage. This led someone to the brilliant idea that you could pour boiling oil on top of the people trying to climb in.
Oil was not difficult to come by as the women would all donate their cooking oil (a small price to pay to keep their privates private). If the town ran out of oil, they would use boiling water, or other easily obtainable things like sand.
Castles were often built with special holes in the sides to make it easier to pour this blistering liquid on unsuspecting climbers. They were so effective that they were called murder-holes. These holes were also useful for firing arrows at attackers or throwing rocks. Similar holes, called machicolations, were often located in the curtain walls of castles and city walls. The parapet would project over corbels so that holes would be located over the exterior face of the wall, and arrows could be shot at, rocks dropped on, or boiling water poured over, any attackers near the wall.
Various sources claim that molten lead was also used as a weapon in this way, but there is no historical evidence to support that view.
7 Arbalest
We all know that crossbows are badass – but what about the arbalest? The Arbalest was a larger version of the crossbow and it had a steel prod (“bow”). Since an arbalest was much larger than earlier crossbows, and because of the greater tensile strength of steel, it had a greater force. The strongest windlass-pulled arbalests could have up to 22 kN (5000 lbf) strength and be accurate up to 500m. A skilled arbalestier (arblaster) could shoot two bolts per minute. Arbalests were sometimes considered inhumane or unfair weapons, since an inexperienced crossbowman could use one to kill a knight who had a lifetime of training.
The use of crossbows in European warfare dates back to Roman times and is again evident from the battle of Hastings until about 1500 AD. They almost completely superseded hand bows in many European armies in the twelfth century for a number of reasons. Although a longbow had greater range, could achieve comparable accuracy and faster shooting rate than an average crossbow, crossbows could release more kinetic energy and be used effectively after a week of training, while a comparable single-shot skill with a longbow could take years of practice. Crossbows were eventually replaced in warfare by gunpowder weapons, although early guns had slower rates of fire and much worse accuracy than contemporary crossbows.
This weapon was so badass, that Pope Innocent II (pictured to the left) banned them at the second Lateran Council in 1139:
We prohibit under anathema that murderous art of crossbowmen and archers, which is hateful to God, to be employed against Christians and Catholics from now on.
Today the crossbow often has a complicated legal status due to the possibility of lethal use and its similarities with both firearms.
6 Hunga Munga
The Hunga Munga is an iron fighting tool named by the African tribes south of Lake Tchad; also called “danisco” by the Marghi, “goleyo” by the Musgu, and “njiga” by the Bagirmi. It is handheld weapon and has a metal pointed blade with a curved back section and separate spike near the handle. The weapon can be used in hand to hand combat (Melee) although it is normally thrown with a spinning action.
These African iron weapons are thrown with a rotatory motion (similar to an Australian boomerang), and cause deep wounds with their projecting blades. They come in many shapes and sizes and they were (and are) used across Africa from the Upper Nile on the east through Central Africa by Lake Tchad to the Africans of the Gaboon in West Africa. In parts of Central Africa, these weapons are shaped like a bird’s head.
This weapon is used in the Role-Playing game Mage The Ascension by the Euthanatos characters for their magical rituals. Buffy (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer – image to the right) used one of these from time to time to battle demons that enslave their victims and force them to give up their identities. The hunga munga was used in the opening credits of the show.
5 Morning Star
The Morning Star (also sometimes called the goedendag or Holy Water sprinkler) is a term used for a variety of club-like weapons with one or more sharp spikes sticking out of it. It would normally have one big spike poking out of the top with a bunch of smaller ones around the sides. These are often thought of as peasant weapons, but there were also very high quality ones made for the rich guys.
These weapons were most effective when you hit someone on the head with them. The Holy Water sprinkler, was a morning star popular with the English army from the sixteenth century and made in series by professional smiths. Some of them were over 6 foot long! This was the favored weapon of King John of Bohemia who was blind – he would just sit on his horse and swing the thing until he hit someone (preferably one of the bad guys).
In the game Mortal Kombat Deception, the character Havik (in the picture to the right) weilds a morning star in his form of armed combat. The Morning Star is considered to be a Holy Weapon in Dungeons and Dragons. Of course, when not engaged in battle, this was a useful tool for keeping thine wyfe and kids in line, or as a backscratcher. Badass!
4 Dead Bodies
One of the upsides to siege warfare in the middle ages was the huge number of dead bodies from people who had died of plague or other mysterious illnesses. A very handy use for these bodies was biological warfare! Most towns would barricade themselves behind huge walls that could not be breached by the enemy – but they often relied on outside sources of fresh water. This is where the bodies come in. You could dump a few bodies in the rivers leading in to the town and all you had to do was wait! A perfect opportunity to sit back and watch some jousting.
After a while, the plague would infect the town and you have a great victory! Obviously you can’t rape and pillage too soon, but at least you didn’t lose any men (except maybe the poor guys that had to carry the bodies to the river). In the image to the left, we see Jane Godbotherer being treated for the plague. She will eventually end up being used as a biological weapon.
Plague infection in a human occurs when a person is bitten by a flea that has been infected by biting a rodent that itself has been infected by the bite of a flea carrying the disease.
This type of warfare was used before the advent of catapults which were more much more effective at infecting towns with disease.
3 Trebuchet / Catapult
With the advent of the trebuchet (a very high powered catapult) came the realization that plagued bodies were no longer needed to slowly kill people in a fortified town or castle – you could simply catapult a rotting or diseased animal over the ramparts – or for truly fast results, you could
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MTO site families live in at baseline as instrumental variables to generate predicted values of W that were then substituted for the actual value in the second stage Eq. 1 (7). The equation also includes a set of baseline characteristics, X, including indicators for MTO demonstration site and numerous participant sociodemographic characteristics, to improve the precision of our estimates. (1)IV estimation of Eq. 1 essentially fits a “dose-response” model and asks whether those treatment groups and sites that experience relatively larger gains in specific elements of W as a result of treatment assignment also experience relatively larger gains in the outcome of interest. This estimation approach assumes that this is the only reason why the effect of treatment assignment on outcomes varies across randomized groups and demonstration sites. It also assumes that the only pathway through which the instruments affect the outcomes of interest is by affecting the neighborhood measures included in Eq. 1. Given the large number of neighborhood attributes affected by MTO moves, this approach cannot isolate the effect of a specific attribute. We instead view any single variable used in W to be a summary measure of neighborhood environment (for example, tract poverty captures the effects of moving to an area with a lower poverty rate and other aspects of neighborhood economic disadvantage that co-vary with tract poverty).
In a model that relates Y to a single neighborhood measure W with the only covariates (X) being the indicators for the MTO cities, the IV estimation of Eq. 1 is equivalent to fitting a regression line through the 15 data points that correspond to the average values of Y and W for each of the three randomized MTO groups in the five demonstration sites relative to the site overall mean. Below, we present several visual instrumental variables graphs that show the data and logic behind our IV estimates.
Results. As shown in Table 2, MTO does indeed generate sizable and sustained differences in average neighborhood conditions of the individuals across randomly assigned groups, despite the fact that only around half the adults assigned to treatment used a MTO voucher to relocate. One year after random assignment, the average control group family is living in a census tract with a poverty rate of 50%, compared with 34% for the average family assigned to treatment (SE of the difference ± 0.7%). This difference in tract poverty across randomized groups narrowed over time, mostly because tract poverty rates declined for controls over time. This decline was driven by control families increasingly moving into lower-poverty neighborhoods on their own, as opposed to their baseline neighborhoods gentrifying around them. Averaged over the entire study period, assignment to treatment reduced average tract poverty rates by 8.2 percentage points (SE ± 0.5%), or about one fifth of the control group average of 40%. This is equal to about two thirds of a SD reduction in tract poverty in the national tract-poverty distribution.
Table 2 MTO effects on post-randomization housing and neighborhood conditions of adult participants interviewed in long-term survey. Table shows average outcomes for control group adults and ITT contrast of outcomes for adults assigned to treatment (pooling the low-poverty and traditional voucher groups) rather than control. Housing and neighborhood conditions were measured from long-term survey data and census tract–level data interpolated from the 1990 and 2000 decennial censuses and the 2005–2009 American Community Survey. ITT was calculated by using ordinary least-squares regression controlling for baseline covariates, using weights (Table 1 and supplementary materials, sections 1 and 5). ***P < 0.01, **P < 0.05, *P < 0.10 on two-tailed t test. View this table:
MTO had more modest effects on neighborhood racial composition, as shown in Table 2. Assignment to treatment reduced the average neighborhood minority share experienced by participants over the study period by 4.6 percentage points (SE ± 0.6%), a small share of the control group’s average of 88%, although there are larger treatment-control differences in this variable in some sites than others (this is the source of variation we used for our instrumental variables estimates; supplementary materials, section 3.3). Table 2 further indicates MTO generated sustained effects on neighborhood safety and other neighborhood social processes, such as collective efficacy that are thought to be important in changing behavior (3, 5).
Because moving itself is part of the MTO treatment and could have independent effects on people’s life outcomes, it is important to keep in mind that the control group averaged 2.165 moves over the study period (Table 2). Treatment assignment increased the number of moves over 10 to 15 years by 0.584 (SE ± 0.068).
As shown in Fig. 1, the opportunity to move through MTO had mixed (null to positive) long-term effects on objective measures of well-being of the type that have been the traditional focus of the neighborhood effects literature. ITT effects are not statistically significant on economic outcomes for adults in MTO households 10 to 15 years after random assignment. Effects on a broad index of physical health measures are in the direction of better health (ITT effect of +0.060 SDs, SE ± 0.039) but are not quite statistically significant (P = 0.12; unless otherwise noted, all remaining statistical results come from t tests). Effects on mental health are marginally significant (P = 0.084) in the direction of better health (ITT effect of +0.070 SDs, SE ± 0.041). However, ITT effects are more strongly beneficial for SWB (Fig. 1, far right bar), with the offer to move to a less disadvantaged area increasing SWB by +0.098 SDs (SE ± 0.039, P = 0.013).
Fig. 1 Impact on each outcome of assignment to the MTO treatment (voucher) groups for adults interviewed in a long-term survey. The squares represent the ITT estimate for the effect of being assigned to MTO treatment (pooling low-poverty and traditional voucher groups), rather than control, for the outcomes listed on the x axis: economic self-sufficiency, physical health, mental health, and SWB (Table 2 and supplementary materials, sections 1, 4, and 5). The box whiskers represent the 95th percent confidence interval around the estimates.
The basic intuition behind our instrumental variables estimates, which try to distinguish between the effects on SWB of neighborhood economic disadvantage (as represented by tract poverty rate) versus racial segregation (as measured by tract share minority), are shown in Fig. 2. The x axis of Fig. 2A represents the average tract poverty rate MTO adults experience over the study period, whereas the y axis represents SWB, both in standardized (z score) form. The data points are the average tract poverty and SWB for adults broken out by MTO randomized group and demonstration site. The slope of this line is essentially our IV estimate of the relationship between SWB and tract poverty. A 1-SD decrease in tract poverty (a 13-percentage-point change) is associated with an increased SWB equal to 0.141 SDs (SE ± 0.054, P = 0.0009) (table S5).
Fig. 2 Instrumental variable estimation of the relationship between SWB and average (duration-weighted) (A) tract poverty rate, (B) tract share minority, (C) tract poverty controlling for minority share, and (D) tract minority share controlling for tract poverty. The y axis is a three-point happiness scale (1 = not too happy, 2 = pretty happy, 3 = very happy) expressed in SD units relative to the control group. Share poor is the fraction of census tract residents living below the poverty threshold. Share minority is the fraction of census tract residents who are members of racial or ethnic minority groups. Tract shares are linearly interpolated from the 1990 and 2000 decennial census and 2005 to 2009 American Community Survey and are weighted by the time respondents lived at each of their addresses from random assignment through May 2008. Share poor and minority are z scores, standardized by the control group mean and SD. The points represent the site (Bal,Baltimore; Bos, Boston; Chi, Chicago; LA, Los Angeles; NY, New York City) and treatment group (LPV, low-poverty voucher; TRV, traditional voucher; C, control group). The slope of the line is equivalent to a two-stage least-squares estimate of the relationship between SWB and the mediator shown in each panel, using interactions of indicators for MTO treatment group assignment and demonstration site as instruments for the mediator (controlling for site indicator main effects).
As suggested by Fig. 2, B to D, poverty concentration is more important than is racial segregation in affecting the SWB of MTO adults. SWB does not have a statistically significant relationship with the minority composition of the tracts in which MTO families reside (P = 0.478), as illustrated by the relatively flat line in Fig. 2B. The size of the increase in SWB from a 1-SD reduction in tract poverty nearly doubles once we control for tract minority share in the same model (from 0.141 to 0.261 SDs, SE ± 0.093, P = 0.005) (table S9), as seen by comparing Fig. 2, A and C. In contrast, holding neighborhood poverty constant, a 1-SD decrease in neighborhood minority share makes MTO adults, if anything, worse off (–0.279 SDs, SE ± 0.169, P = 0.098), as shown by the positive slope in Fig. 2D. The conclusion that a decline in neighborhood economic disadvantage has a more beneficial result for SWB than does a comparably sized decline in neighborhood minority composition comes from the fact that we can reject the null hypothesis that the slopes illustrated by Fig. 2, C and D, are equal (P = 0.030) (table S9).
Results are qualitatively similar if we estimate models that assume that outcomes are only affected by current neighborhood conditions, measured at the start of the survey period, May 2008 (tables S6 and S10 and figs. S4 to S7).
Discussion. To what extent does moving to a less distressed neighborhood environment affect people’s well-being? In this Research Article, we present results from a large-scale randomized social experiment (MTO) designed to address this question, which has been of long-standing concern to the social and medical sciences and to policy-makers. Random assignment in MTO overcomes concerns with selection bias by generating differences in the average neighborhood conditions experienced by otherwise comparable groups of people. MTO is unique in terms of the long duration of the follow-up data collection that has been carried out with participants spanning 10 to 15 years after randomization.
MTO has strong internal validity, but the MTO findings may not generalize to all U.S. families. Although the MTO sample is comparable with other urban minority samples in high-poverty urban areas that have been studied in this literature (20, 21), the sorts of families living in such extreme-poverty areas are very disadvantaged relative to other American adults. MTO was carried out during a time when concentrated poverty and crime rates were declining, and HUD’s HOPE VI program was demolishing many public housing projects across the country. MTO’s impacts also do not necessarily identify the effects of larger-scale mobility programs (22).
Keeping these caveats in mind, we find that over the long term (10 to 15 years) the chance to move to less distressed neighborhoods in MTO has no detectable long-term effects on adult economic self-sufficiency. In a previous paper, we showed that MTO had important long-term effects on two particularly important physical health measures that predict long-term disease risk; namely, extreme obesity and diabetes (15). We report here that MTO’s impact on a broader index of physical health was in the same direction (toward improved health) but was not quite statistically significant, whereas we found a marginally significant beneficial impact of moving to a less distressed neighborhood on a broad index of mental health.
This mixed pattern of MTO impacts for traditional, objective measures of well-being echo what was found in the interim (5-year) follow up of MTO families (7, 23). These mixed results have been disappointing to many observers, in part because the congressional legislation authorizing the MTO demonstration explicitly mentioned the goal of improving some outcomes that were unaffected (such as adult earnings). Similar mixed findings are apparent in recent quasi-experimental studies of other housing mobility programs (24–26). These mixed results have led influential observers such as Yale Law School professor Robert Ellickson, who is generally sympathetic to the value of housing vouchers over project-based housing programs, to argue that “recently published studies have begun to destabilize the former consensus that a poor adult or child is significantly disadvantaged by residing among other poor people … the case for dismantling an entire poor neighborhood … is hardly so plain” [(27), p. 439].
Yet, the results reported here might lead to quite a different conclusion, in that we find sizable positive effects of moving from a more distressed to a less distressed neighborhood on SWB, a measure that represents a comprehensive assessment by the participants themselves of the extent to which their lives have been affected. Our results suggest that living in distressed neighborhoods has more important adverse impacts, and escaping from such neighborhoods has more important positive effects, on the well-being of low-income adults than was revealed by previous experimental and quasi-experimental studies of neighborhood effects that focused on traditional measures of socioeconomic and health outcomes. Whether or not the MTO vouchers imposed additional locational constraints on families does not appear to matter much for the positive effects of such moves on well-being (table S4).
Although “happiness” has no natural metric, one can still interpret the magnitude of our results by noting that a 1-SD reduction in neighborhood poverty (about 13 percentage points) is associated with an increase in SWB that is about two-thirds of the gap in SWB between U.S. blacks and whites [which is around one quarter of a SD in favor of whites (28)] and about equal to the remaining gap in SWB between families with annual incomes that differ by $13,000 after conditioning on a standard set of control variables that differ by income and affect happiness (supplementary materials, section 3.3). This is a large amount, equal to about two thirds of the average income of MTO control group families in our long-term survey ($20,000).
Subject self-reports of SWB have the potential to provide an informative summary measure of the overall impact of neighborhood conditions on people’s lives. Although SWB measures are being used with increased frequency in the social sciences and policy analysis, SWB has not been the focus of much previous “neighborhood effects” research. The proper interpretation of self-reports about SWB remains the topic of some debate. Previous studies show different measures of self-reported SWB to be correlated in expected ways with objective indicators of well-being such as life events, biological indicators (such as smiling frequency and brain activity), and reports from significant others about the person’s happiness at both the individual and group levels (29, 30) (supplementary materials, section 2.3). We also corroborate our findings for SWB by examining the effects of MTO moves on related measures of psychological distress (table S4).
As noted in the introduction, it is also important for both science and policy to understand why changes in neighborhood environments affect the well-being of low-income adults. Isolating mechanisms with the MTO data are challenging, and our statistical power to do so is somewhat limited. We focused on distinguishing the effects of residential income segregation versus racial segregation because this is a key scientific question, because different policies may be required to address segregation by income versus race, and because racial segregation has declined the past 40 years whereas income segregation has substantially increased.
Our results suggest that changes in neighborhood poverty are more important than racial segregation in affecting the SWB of low-income adults in MTO. (We interpret neighborhood poverty as a marker for a collection of correlated neighborhood characteristics across the neighborhoods in which the MTO families reside.) The same qualitative pattern holds for adult physical and mental health outcomes as well (supplementary materials).
The rise in U.S. residential income segregation since 1970 raises the possibility that the problem of harmful neighborhood effects on people’s well-being may be getting worse rather than better over time. Increased poverty concentration in America does not seem to be simply due to increases in overall income inequality (31). The average tract poverty rate for families in the bottom quintile of the U.S. income distribution increased over the past 40 years by about 2.4 percentage points (from 17.6 to 20.0%). If the results from our MTO sample generalize to other very low-income families, the increase in poverty concentration over the past 40 years reduced the well-being of the bottom quintile of the income distribution by an amount that may be equivalent to a decline in annual household income of about $1400 (~8%). If our estimates are correct, the $1400 dollar-equivalent for the decline in well-being for families in the bottom quintile caused by increased poverty concentration from 1970 to 2007 is about equal in size to the total gain in real annual family income of $1300 that the bottom quintile has experienced over roughly the past 40 years from $15,336 in 1969 to $16,622 in 2007 [(32), converted to 2009 dollars; supplementary materials, section 3.3].
Our findings are also germane to debates about the proper objectives for public policy. For example, one recent review of U.S. antipoverty programs notes that their effectiveness depends “at least in part, on whether the programs do, in fact, reduce poverty” [(33), p. 12]. By that standard, MTO-type policy efforts to improve the neighborhood conditions of poor families would not be part of an effective antipoverty strategy because the program failed to produce detectable impacts on family income (7, 23). But if the goal is the broader one of improving the well-being of poor families, then policies that seek to ameliorate the adverse effects of dangerous, distressed neighborhoods on poor families are worthy of careful consideration.Kabul: At least 28 people were killed and hundreds wounded when a Taliban truck bomb tore through central Kabul on Tuesday.
A fierce firefight ensued the attack, a week after the insurgents launched their annual spring offensive.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a densely-crowded neighbourhood, which sent clouds of acrid smoke billowing into the sky and rattled windows several kilometres away.
The brazen assault near the Defence Ministry marks the first major Taliban attack in the Afghan capital since the insurgents announced the start of this year`s fighting season.
"One of the suicide attackers blew up an explosives-laden truck in a public parking lot next to a government building," Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi told reporters.
"As a result 28 people were killed, most of them civilians. The second attacker engaged security forces in a gunbattle before being gunned down."
Rahimi said the attack also left 183 people wounded but the Health Ministry said that figure was almost 330, with many battling for their lives in hospital.
The gunfight appeared to die down several hours after the powerful explosion, but some security officials expressed concern that other bombers may still be on the loose.
The Interior Ministry denounced the attack as a "war crime" and pledged to track down the perpetrators.
The Taliban said on their Pashto-language website that they had carried out the suicide bombing on "Department 10", an NDS (National Directorate of Security) unit which is responsible for protecting government ministers and VIPs.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed their fighters had managed to enter the offices of the National Directorate of Security. However, Afghan officials denied that, saying the target of the attack was a government office responsible for providing security to government VIPs.
The Taliban are generally known to exaggerate battlefield claims.
Pitched gunbattles were ongoing near the building, which was cordoned off by security officials as ambulances rushed to the scene. "(We) condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attack in Puli Mahmood Khan neighbourhood of Kabul, as a result of which many of our countrymen were martyred and wounded," President Ashraf Ghani said in a statement.
"Such cowardly terrorist attacks will not weaken the will and determination of Afghan security forces to fight against terrorism."
A thick plume of black smoke was seen rising from the area near the sprawling US embassy complex immediately after the blast.
Warning sirens blared out for some minutes from the embassy compound, which is also close to the headquarters of the NATO-led Resolute Support mission.
The US embassy and the NATO mission both said they were not affected by the blast.
The Taliban on Tuesday last week announced the start of their "spring offensive" even as the government seeks to bring them back to the negotiating table to end the drawn-out conflict.
The Taliban warned they would "employ large-scale attacks on enemy positions across the country" during the offensive dubbed Operation Omari in honour of the movement`s late founder Mullah Omar, whose death was announced last year.
The insurgents began the fighting season last week by targeting the northern city of Kunduz, which they briefly captured last year in a stunning setback for Afghan forces.
But officials said Afghan security forces drove Taliban fighters back from the city on Friday.
The annual spring offensive normally marks the start of the "fighting season", though this past winter the lull was shorter and rebels continued to battle government forces, albeit with less intensity.
The Taliban`s resurgence has raised serious questions about Afghan forces` capacity to hold their own. An estimated 5,500 troops were killed last year, the worst-ever toll.
Peace talks which began last summer were abruptly halted after it was revealed that Taliban leader Mullah Omar had been dead for two years, a disclosure which sparked infighting in the insurgents` ranks.
A four-country group comprising Afghanistan, the United States, China and Pakistan has been holding meetings since January aimed at jump-starting negotiations, though their efforts have so far been in vain.
(With Agency inputs)“When you get up, the kids are sleeping. When you get home, the kids are sleeping.”
That’s how Rich Pawlikowski, a UPS package car driver in Queens, New York, described his lengthening workday. “Only six to eight years ago, the summer months were light. [Now] they send us out with 10, 11, 12 hours of work,” he said.
“It’s not healthy. You’ve got to get some rest. When the end of week comes, you see all the accidents and injuries.”
UPS, with its growing package business, isn’t refusing to hire because it’s hurting. On the contrary, business is booming. Like other chronic overtime abusers, such as lucrative television production companies and Verizon with its fat franchise agreements, UPS does it because it can.
Contract provisions and laws can help. But those only get enforced if workers get organized and do it themselves.
It takes vigilance, member involvement, and in some cases a collective “Hell no!”
An overtime boycott by hospital nurses, for instance, got management’s attention fast (see “Pushed to the Wall, Nurses Refuse Overtime”). They were helped by a law against mandatory overtime, but only saw motion after emergency room staff refused any assignments.
CHRISTMAS DEBACLE
UPS Teamsters have long had contract provisions to curb overtime abuse. But workers in New York found direct action was required to get the full benefit.
The contract allows drivers to file a grievance if they work more than nine-and-a-half hours for three days in a given week. The penalty is triple-time pay for hours worked over 9.5—but what the drivers really want is a load adjustment, so they can get home before 10 p.m.
Pawlikowski said he kept grieving it, but management wouldn’t adjust his workload, preferring to pay the penalty.
During the last two Christmas seasons, Pawlikowski said, they were so understaffed that he and his co-workers were unable to get through the work. The company got nervous and even set up a task force to study the problem.
Then in February, 250 Queens drivers, members of Teamsters Local 804, were suspended after a short work stoppage. Though the immediate cause was to protest the firing of one of their members, that came on the heels of an accumulation of other contract violations.
The company started firing them in waves, but a vigorous union campaign and community pressure forced the company to rehire everyone by April.
After that flexing of union muscle, managers started adjusting workloads in earnest. The company has even started hiring.
“Drivers are ecstatic,” Pawlikowski said.
The system is elaborate. Workers have to go to a manager to get on the “9.5 list.” Previously, managers simply posted the list, but so many people signed up, they took it down. Now managers try to gatekeep.
Dodging Overtime Pay Among infamous dodges of overtime law is classifying your workers as supervisors and paying them a salary that doesn’t change no matter how many hours they put in. Employers stretch the definition of “supervisor” beyond recognition. Rules instituted in 2004 provided for “concurrent duties,” meaning workers can be alleged to be supervisors while they work line jobs, said Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute. In a recent case Dunkin’ Donuts counter workers were called supervisors, even though they only worked the register. They were working up to 65 hours a week without any overtime pay, he said. Catherine Ruckelshaus, with the National Employment Law Project, cited similar egregious overtime violations at Pep Boys and Auto Zone. OBAMA MOVES Then there’s the exemption from overtime pay for well-paid “executive, administrative and professional” workers. A salary cap instituted in the 1970s to determine eligibility is now laughably low. Make more than $455 a week and you could be exempt. The equivalent figure in 1975 was double that. (In New York and California, state caps are higher). The threshold is so absurd that President Obama in March ordered the Labor Department to come up with new rules. They haven’t been announced yet, but will likely raise the limit to somewhere between $550 and $970. That would be a solid gain, said Ruckelshaus, because a “bright line” test like a salary figure is easy for workers to understand and harder for employers to skirt.
“They always threaten, some people get intimidated. But there’s nothing they can do to you except look at you funny,” said Pawlikowski. The union provides advice and forms.
Once you’re on the list, you can tell them how much overtime you want. The limits don’t apply during peak—from Thanksgiving to New Year’s—but the improvement is noticeable.
“That’s the beauty of 9.5,” said Pawlikowski. “You get everybody on the list, it creates jobs, you get to see your family, everybody’s happy.”
REALITY BITES
Writer-producers in the highly profitable “nonfiction” section of television production, known to most of us as reality TV, are deemed “exempt” and not eligible for overtime pay—even when they work grueling 80- to 100-hour weeks. (See box at right.)
These workers create the ideas in the shows, develop scenarios, write interview questions and even dialog, prep characters, set up shoots, film, tear down, and move to the next location.
A 30-year veteran of the industry said union jobs she’s worked paid $2,500-$3,500 a week—but these non-union jobs are paying $1,000. With the long weeks, it works out to $10-12 an hour.
On a union job, she said, “You work, put in a few extra hours…but I’m not working seven days a week for a month without a day off. You can say no.”
“Production companies are trying to deliver TV shows at cheaper and cheaper prices,” said Justin Molito, an organizer with the Writers Guild (WGAE). The shows are increasingly being made on a shorter timeline and with longer hours, he said.
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A union survey in New York found that 84 percent of writer-producers worked more than 40 hours a week, every week, and 85 percent never received overtime pay. The union estimated the wage theft at $40 million a year.
That’s starting to change now that the Guild is organizing the workforce. About one-third have already voted the union in, said Molito. That and the prospect of being sued for wage theft have made some employers curb their worst abuses.
Still, workers are going before New York’s city council to expose labor violations in nonfiction TV—which is, not coincidentally, the most profitable segment of TV production.
NOT GETTING BETTER
While overtime use goes up when the economy gets better, usually abuse goes down, said Catherine Ruckelshaus of the National Employment Law Project. That’s because workers are more able to stand up for themselves.
But not in this recovery. “In the low-wage sector, it’s still a buyer’s market for the employer,” she said.
Overtime violations are rampant. These include clocking people out before they’ve finished working, paying straight time when overtime is required, misclassifying workers—like those in nonfiction TV—as exempt professionals, and claiming workers are supervisors when they aren’t.
Allegedly “independent” contractors are even found in unionized auto plants, where fly-by-night hiring agencies have workers on 10-hour days, seven days a week, with no overtime protections and at rock-bottom pay.
After this article ran in print, a truck driver called us who works 12-hour shifts, six or seven days a week, transporting parts for a Ford assembly plant in Chicago. But “we don’t get overtime or anything,” he said.
That’s because the company that pays him, CWS, has been getting away with the “independent contractor” ruse for years—though it’s clear he and his co-workers should legally be employees. The boss sets his hours, he punches a time clock, and he certainly doesn’t own the truck he drives. “Half the time we don’t even get to have lunch,” he said.
It’s a common setup. The driver said CWS has accounts with GM and Chrysler too.
NOT ENOUGH PENALTY
Overtime premium pay is part of the Depression-era Fair Labor Standards Act. It was intended to cause employers to hire more workers, by making it more costly to push existing workforces into longer and longer hours.
But the deterrent doesn’t work unless there’s enforcement to keep employers from ducking the premium, said Ruckelshaus.
Even when employers are forced into paying the premium, time-and-a-half may not be enough to have the intended effect.
Ironically, good union contracts can make paying time-and-a-half cheaper than hiring additional workers. A 1990s study by Labor Notes found that in the auto industry, only double-time pay provided enough of a goad to get factories to hire more people. This was because “adding another Social Security number” carried its own costs in training, health insurance, workers compensation, and pension coverage.
Workers at Verizon can’t remember the last time the company was hiring, but it’s not for lack of work. Verizon promised in a 2008 franchise agreement that it would finish installing its fiber optic network (FiOS) in New York City by June 30, 2014. The city can impose penalties for lateness.
Don’t Let Overtime Lists Get Hinky Overtime can get contentious among union members, but it’s a sleeper issue until there’s not enough overtime for those who want it. At Verizon, overtime is a close second to discipline as the subject of grievances, Communications Workers say. In departments where the steward doesn’t keep on top of management to maintain correct records, disputes can flare up. The solution is vigilance, even when there’s plenty of work, before it becomes an issue. It also helps if the list is public and tons of people are looking. Then the complaints go away, said UAW member Alex Wassell. For stewards at his plant, “‘Thou shall keep the hours straight’ is like the eleventh commandment.”
Instead of hiring more staff locally, the company has been pulling workers away from their homes in other parts of the Northeast for three-week shifts. Local employees, members of the Communications Workers (CWA), are working three out of four Saturdays. Even those who volunteered for the FiOS build-out, hoping for lots of overtime to pay debts or big bills, are starting to balk.
The company announced in June that it will miss the deadline. Instead of examining its hiring practices, it blamed hurricanes, uncooperative landlords, and even the 2011 strike by CWA and the Electricians (IBEW), even though in 2013 it claimed to be ahead of schedule.
‘AWFUL WORK SCHEDULE’
A scheme to evade Saturday overtime pay hit autoworkers last year at two Detroit-area Chrysler plants.
The Autoworkers (UAW) contract provides for overtime pay for working on Saturdays. But the company created a 10-hour shift system, the “Alternative Work Schedule,” with two-thirds of the production workforce scheduled every Saturday—at straight time. The idea is, it doesn’t count as a weekend if it’s part of your regular schedule.
Half those workers must switch back and forth between day and evening shifts each week. The system also evades break and lunch times.
Even the best shift, Monday through Thursday, 5:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., is grueling, said Alex Wassell, a welder repair technician at the Warren Stamping Plant.
“It’s a long day [on that shift], too,” he said. “Even three days in a row off, you’re still tired on the 10-hour-a-day schedule.”
To the dismay of rank and filers, the union allowed the unpopular new schedule to stand. UAW’s vice president even tried to sell it to indignant members at a raucous meeting with Warren Stamping workers. Local 869 members at the plant organized against it—petitioning, wearing stickers, mass-texting the company and the union, even picketing the plant.
After the picket, Wassell was fired for supposedly disparaging the company. He got reinstated and won a long fight to clear his record.
For now, the bad schedule prevails at Warren Stamping. But “Sterling Stamping is still on the traditional schedule,” Wassell said, and “that could have been because of the ruckus we made. Management and union felt they’d stay with what they had.”
Members of the local are making abolishing the “awful work schedule” a high priority in 2015 negotiations. If they’re still on it after that, Wassell said, “people will be beyond themselves.”
Alexandra Bradbury contributed to this article.Having trouble viewing the video? Try disabling any ad blocking extensions currently running on your browser.
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DRAPER — A spectacular tree donned with more than 1,000 strands of lights adorns Draper City Park during the holiday season.
Unlike a typical lit-up Christmas tree, this weeping willow replicates the Tree of Life, a symbol used in religions representing wisdom, protection and redemption.
Specifically, Draper residents are saying the lighted tree reminds them of the Tree of Life depicted in a painting based off a Book of Mormon story.
Luke Walker, who headed the project with the company Brite Nites, has been involved in the design and installation of the tree for the last three years.
“Draper City wanted the willow tree to be the centerpiece to bring people into the park and to give it the wow-factor,” Walker said. “Because of the similarities the tree has to the tree in the Book of Mormon story, people have started to coin it the 'Tree of Life.'”
Lighting the tree takes a crew of four or five men working all day for three and a half days, Walker said. At the end of the Christmas season, it takes two or three days to remove the lights.
“We added 1,100 strands of LED lights and 350 spark lights,” Walker said. “The spark lights turn off and on every three seconds, so it looks like it’s twinkling.”
Draper City held a tree-lighting ceremony Monday to kick off its holiday season.
Approximately 450 people came to see the willow tree light up, Walker said.
“I think the ceremony itself, when they switch all the lights on, is a massive deal for the city and an icon for the city,” Walker said. “It’s literally something you’ve never seen in your entire life before.”
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0 Pending CommentsA judge says she has the authority to countermand the Commander in Chief’s July decision to reject transgender applicants for military service, highlighting the judiciary’s continued efforts to seize political power from legislators and President Donald Trump.
The claim was made October 30, when Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia denounced Trump’s ‘Presidential Memorandum’ ending President Barack Obama’s policy of recruiting people who think they are members of the opposite sex.
She insisted that Trump’s policy be blocked pending a full trial:
The Court will preliminarily enjoin Defendants from enforcing the following directives of the [Trump] Presidential Memorandum, referred to by the Court as the Accession and Retention Directives: I am directing the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the U.S. Coast Guard, to return to the longstanding policy and practice on military service by transgender individuals that was in place prior to June 2016 until such time as a sufficient basis exists upon which to conclude that terminating that policy and practice would not have the negative effects discussed above.
The judge ordered the Pentagon to continue Obama’s policy of recruiting people who think they are members of the opposite sex, pending a trial and a final decision. The Democratic-nominated judge also insisted that the Trump’s policy would hurt the military, declaring that:
On the record before the Court, there is absolutely no support for the claim that the ongoing service of transgender people would have any negative effective on the military at all. In fact, there is considerable evidence that it is the discharge and banning of such individuals that would have such effects.
The lawsuit was brought by progressive groups, including the National Center for Lesbian Rights, after Trump reversed Obama’s pro-transgender policies, even though Obama has admitted twice that those policies helped Trump get elected.
Obama’s Pentagon transgender policy reached far beyond military readiness because it marked federal support for the core ideological demand made by transgender activists — that the government must compel Americans to treat a man as a woman (
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a tip for us? Awesome! Shoot us an email at [email protected] and we'll take a look!John Marco Allegro (17 February 1923 – 17 February 1988) was an English archaeologist and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. He was a populariser of the Dead Sea Scrolls through his books and radio broadcasts. He was the editor of some of the most famous and controversial scrolls published, the pesharim. A number of Allegro's later books, including The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, brought him both popular fame and notoriety, and also destroyed his career.
Training [ edit ]
Allegro went through grammar school in 1939. He joined the Royal Navy, serving during World War Two. After the war he began training for the Methodist ministry, but found that he was more interested in Hebrew and Greek, so he went to study at Manchester University with fees paid by government grant due to his military service.[3] Allegro received his Honours degree in Oriental Studies at the University of Manchester in 1951. This was followed in 1952 by a masters degree under supervision of H. H. Rowley. While engaged in further research in Hebrew dialects at Oxford under Godfrey Driver in 1953, Allegro was invited by Gerald Lankester Harding to join the team of scholars working on the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem, where he spent one year working on the scrolls. He became a lecturer in Comparative Semitic Philology in Manchester in 1954.[4][5][6]
The Copper Scroll [ edit ]
It was on Allegro's recommendation in 1955 that the Copper Scroll was sent by the Jordanian government to Manchester University in order for it to be cut into sections, allowing the text to be read. He was present during the cutting process in 1956 and later made a preliminary transcription of the text, which he soon translated, sending copies of his work back to Gerald Lankester Harding in Jordan.[7][8] Although Allegro had been first to translate the Copper Scroll, the text was assigned for editing to J.T. Milik by Roland de Vaux, the editor in chief of the scrolls.[9] While he was in England he made a series of radio broadcasts on BBC Radio aimed at popularising the scrolls, in which he announced that the leader discussed in the scrolls may have been crucified.[4] He posited that the Teacher of Righteousness had been martyred and crucified by Alexander Jannaeus, and that his followers believed he would reappear at the End time as Messiah, based on Qumran document Commentary on Nahum 1.4–9[10] (a position that he re-iterated in 1986[11]). His colleagues in Jerusalem immediately responded with a letter to the Times on 16 March 1956 refuting his claim.[4] The letter concluded,
"It is our conviction that either he [Allegro] has misread the texts or he has built up a chain of conjectures which the materials do not support."[12]
One result of this letter seemed to be that his appointment at Manchester was not to be renewed.[13] However, in July after several uneasy months the appointment was renewed.[14]
Allegro was asked a number of times by the Jordanian Director of Antiquities if he would publish the text of the Copper Scroll.[15] After a few years of waiting for Milik's publication of the scroll, Allegro succumbed and set about publishing the text.[16] His book, The Treasure of the Copper Scroll, was released in 1960, while the official publication had to wait another two years. Although several of his readings in the text are acknowledged, Allegro's book was disparaged by his colleagues.[8] He believed that the treasure in the scroll was real—a view now held by most scholars[8]—and led an expedition to attempt to find items mentioned in the scroll, though without success.
During this period Allegro also published two popular books on the Dead Sea scrolls, The Dead Sea Scrolls (1956) and The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1958). He was keen to photograph the site of Qumran and various texts, providing an important source of information for posterity.[16]
Publishing the Pesharim [ edit ]
Allegro was entrusted with the publication of 4Q158–4Q186, a collection of fragments which mainly contained exemplars of a unique kind of commentary on biblical works known as pesharim. He believed that it was necessary to get these works out as quickly as possible[17] and published several preliminary editions in learned journals during the late 1950s. He told de Vaux that he could have his share of the texts ready in 1960, but due to hold ups had to wait until 1968 for his volume, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan V: 4Q158–4Q186, to be published.[18] He reworked his material in 1966 with the assistance of a Manchester colleague, Arnold Anderson, before publication.[16] He stated in the volume that
"it has been my practice to offer no more than the basic essentials of photographs, transliteration, translation of non-biblical passages where this might serve some useful interpretative purpose, and the minimum of textual notes."[19]
John Strugnell published a severe critique of the volume, "Notes en Marge du volume V des 'Discoveries in the Judean Desert of Jordan'" in Revue de Qumran. Allegro's minimalist approach has received widespread scorn in the scholarly world, which nevertheless had the opportunity to analyse the Allegro texts for decades while waiting for other editors to publish their allotments. The first part of Strugnell's allotment was published in 1994.[20]
Change of direction [ edit ]
As early as 1956 Allegro held controversial views regarding the content of the scrolls, stating in a letter to de Vaux, "It's a pity that you and your friends cannot conceive of anything written about Christianity without trying to grind some ecclesiastical or non-ecclesiastical axe." The bulk of his work on the Dead Sea Scrolls was done by 1960 and he was at odds with his scrolls colleagues. When a conflict broke out with H.H. Rowley concerning Allegro's interpretation of the scrolls,[21] Allegro, on the invitation of F.F. Bruce, moved from the Department of Near East Studies in the Faculty of Arts at Manchester to the Faculty of Theology.[17] It was during his stay in Theology that he wrote his controversial book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, whose subtitle was "A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East". Apparently realising the impact this book would have, Allegro resigned his post at Manchester.[17]
The Sacred Mushroom and Christian Myth [ edit ]
Allegro's book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) argued that Christianity began as a shamanistic cult. In his books The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979), Allegro put forward the theory that stories of early Christianity originated in an Essene clandestine cult centred around the use of Psilocybin mushroom, and that the New Testament is the coded record of this shamanistic cult.[22][23] Allegro further argued that the authors of the Christian gospels did not understand the Essene thought. When writing down the Gospels based on the stories they had heard, the evangelists confused the meaning of the scrolls. In this way, according to Allegro, the Christian tradition is based on a misunderstanding of the scrolls.[24][25] He also argued that the story of Jesus was based on the crucifixion of the Teacher of Righteousness in the scrolls.[26] Mark Hall writes that Allegro suggested the Dead Sea Scrolls all but proved that a historical Jesus never existed.[27]
Allegro argued that Jesus in the Gospels was in fact a code for a type of hallucinogen, the Amanita muscaria, and that Christianity was the product of an ancient "sex-and-mushroom" cult.[28][29] Critical reaction was swift and harsh: fourteen British scholars (including Allegro's mentor at Oxford, Godfrey Driver) denounced it.[28] Sidnie White Crawford wrote of the publication of Sacred Mushroom, "Rightly or wrongly, Allegro would never be taken seriously as a scholar again."[30]
Allegro's theory of a shamanistic cult as the origin of Christianity was criticised sharply by Welsh historian Philip Jenkins who wrote that Allegro was an eccentric scholar who relied on texts that did not exist in quite the form he was citing them. Jenkins called the Sacred Mushroom and the Cross "possibly the single most ludicrous book on Jesus scholarship by a qualified academic".[31] Based on the reactions to the book, Allegro's publisher later apologized for issuing the book and Allegro was forced to resign his academic post.[24][29] A 2006 article discussing Allegro's work called for his theories to be re-evaluated by the mainstream.[32] In November 2009 The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross was reprinted in a 40th anniversary edition with a 30-page addendum by Carl Ruck of Boston University.[33]
Death [ edit ]
In 1988 John Marco Allegro died of a heart attack on his 65th birthday in his home in Sandbach, Cheshire.[2][34]
Works [ edit ]
Among Allegro's works are the following:
J.M. Allegro (1956). The Dead Sea Scrolls. Harmondsworth: Pelican.
J.M. Allegro (1958). The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co.
J.M. Allegro (1960). The Treasure of the Copper Scroll. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co.
J.M. Allegro (1964). Search in the Desert. Garden City N.Y.: Doubleday & Co.
J.M. Allegro (1965). The Shapira Affair. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co.
J.M. Allegro (1968). Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan V: 4Q158–4Q186. Oxford.
J.M. Allegro (1970). The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.
J.M. Allegro (1970). The End of a Road. London: Macgibbon and Kee.
J.M. Allegro (1971). The Chosen People. London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.
J.M. Allegro (1977). Lost Gods (Dutch "Verdwenen goden"). Baarn, NL: H. Meulenhoff. ISBN 9022402525.
J.M. Allegro (1979). The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth. Devon: Westbridge Books. ISBN 0879752416.
J.M. Allegro (1982). All Manner of Men. Springfield, Illinois: Charles Thomas.
J.M. Allegro (1985). Physician, Heal Thyself. Amherst, United States: Prometheus Books.
His scholarly journal articles include:
J.M. Allegro (1956). "Further Messianic References in Qumran Literature". Journal of Biblical Literature. 75 : 174–187. doi:10.2307/3261919.
J.M. Allegro (1956). "More Unpublished Pieces of a Qumran Commentary on Nahum [4Q pNah]". Journal of Biblical Literature. 75 : 304–308.
J.M. Allegro (1958). "More Isaiah Commentaries from Qumran's Fourth Cave". Journal of Biblical Literature. 77 : 215–221.
J.M. Allegro (1958). "Fragments of a Qumran Scroll of Eschatological Midrashim ". Journal of Biblical Literature. 77 : 350–354.
J.M. Allegro (1962). "Further Light on the History of the Qumran Sect". Journal of Semitic Studies. 7: 304–308. doi:10.1093/jss/7.2.304.
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]Credit: Nightwing #29
Credit: Nightwing #29
Now that DC has announced the new series Grayson, readers are realizing that Kyle Higgins might have written the last story about the solo hero Nightwing — at least for awhile.
Higgins, who's still involved in the Bat-universe with Batman Beyond 2.0 and Batman Eternal, wrapped up his almost three-year run on Nightwing in March.
After Higgins' departure, the title is being canceled after a final (and oft-delayed) post-Forever Evil issue #30 later this month.
Higgins launched the title in September 2011 as part of the New 52 reboot, re-introducing Dick Grayson as Nightwing after he had previously been wearing the Batman cowl.
The series redefined the character for the New 52 (complete with an origin story that linked him to the Court of Owls), while also breaking down the hero's unique role within the DC Universe.
Outside the Bat-universe, Higgins' next project is a much anticipated Image series called C.O.W.L., which creates a whole new universe of heroes in the city of Chicago.
Grayson #1 cover Credit: DC Comics
But before he starts the next adventure in Chicago, we looked back with the writer on his last adventure with Nightwing (who actually finished his superhero career in Chicago). Newsarama talked to Higgins about the final issues of Nightwing, whether they tie into the new Grayson series, and how Mark Waid gave him advice that contributed to his approach to Dick Grayson in the New 52.
Newsarama: I'd like to talk to you about your last issue on Nightwing, issue #29, because it really showcased everything you were able to accomplish in the series. The theme that really came through was this idea of moving forward, even when the past keeps coming back (which is particularly interesting in light of the new series he'll be starring in later this year, presumably moving forward after the adversity of Forever Evil). So this idea of moving forward — do you think that's what your whole run on Nightwing was about?
Kyle Higgins: Yeah, yeah. My last issue gave me a lot of anxiety for a lot of reasons. It was difficult to figure out how to wrap this series that I'd been doing for almost three years The book took a lot of twists and turns along the way, as any book does, so I was wondering… how do you wrap it, when there's been so many different developments?
But it's funny, because when I was first writing the book, I'd never written an ongoing series before. And I was having a lot of trouble figuring out how to make an ongoing series work. And I reached out to Mark Waid at one point, just to talk about writing.
I asked all these questions, and he wrote back and said, "Honestly, you're making this way harder than you have to. You're over thinking this."
He said that themes tend to find themselves. He said you go into it, and you have some thematic concepts and motifs in mind, but in a lot of ways, it's not for you to say what the theme of your book is from the get-go. He talked specifically about his Flash run and how, looking back on it, the run was about family. But he's like, "I didn't start with that in mind."
And so, after that conversation, I let the book develop naturally. And when I went back and looked at everything, in preparation for these final couple issues, I found the theme — he's always looking forward, never back, even though the past keeps coming back. You can't outrun it, you know? That was there in everything I'd written.
I think there was a part of me that was conscious of doing that over the course of the series, but when I was thinking about how to end the series, I didn't consciously know until I looked back at what the theme had been.
So when I got into my final issue, I knew I wanted to parallel Dick's story with another young person's story, a person whom he's there to help.
At a certain point, I had the idea to structure it so that I could show what some of the important storylines in the series meant for the character, and also tie them into the overall journey of a survivor getting past the tragedy.
It just gelled really well. I fought with it for a little bit, but in the end, I couldn't be prouder of how the issue turned out. And [artist] Russell [Dauterman] and [colorist] Pete Pantazis and [letterer] Carlos Mangual did an amazing job on it.
I really can't say enough about Russell's work on my final issue, and the issue before it. I've been incredibly blessed with all the artists I worked with. I really hope Russell and I get to work together again. I think our sensibilities work really well together, and those issues would not be anywhere near the level that I think they turned out to be if it weren't for him. I would argue that the art is way more than 50 percent — it's not a shared collaboration. And Russell really drove this thing home. I get chills looking through the pages. So I was really, really lucky on the last couple issues, getting to work with him.
It really was an honor and a privilege to have gone out on that issue. It encompassed everything I feel about Dick Grayson, and everything I've ever wanted to say, in 20 pages — which is pretty cool.
Credit: Nightwing #29
Nrama: And that final line, about catching people when they fall… it was ideal for a character with Dick Grayson's origin, watching his parents fall.
Higgins: Yeah, that's something I've been sitting on for about a year now. When I really started digging and figuring out who Dick Grayson was, and when I started moving him into Chicago and started driving the book into a place where he's really more independent, and when I started to build his world, I wanted to come up with a simple, articulate way to describe who he was in a few sentences.
And the idea of someone who catches people when they fall… I don't know. It just really gelled for me.
So I knew that's how I wanted to wrap everything, and I think it turned out really well.
Nrama: Great summation of your run, Kyle. But I have to ask you about the image that showed Dick Grayson as a Talon. That costume!
Higgins: Yeah!
Credit: Nightwing #29
Nrama: Very cool. Did the artist come up with that? Or did you have elements of that in mind?
Higgins: That was definitely Russell. I described what I was thinking what I was thinking just so far as to say, what would Nightwing look as a Talon? I suggested that maybe we could do the etching of the Nightwing symbol worked into the suit somehow.
And the one thing that I did give reference for, that I'm so happy about, was the Nightwing throwing weapons from the animated series. That was always one of my favorite designs. And Brett [Booth] started using them in our Chicago arc.
And so I asked Russell if there's any way he could work those throwing weapons into the bandolier that would run down Nightwing's chest. And it's so cool. I mean, it's so, like… I get chills looking at it.
And that whole sequence, to me, represents that idea of what he could have been, and what some say he should have been.
But it's also material that I wanted to get to eventually in the series.
I went back and looked at a lot of final issues that were done by writers that I really admire, and the one thing that has always stuck out to me about Bryan Q. Miller's finale on Batgirl was all of these moments — these flashbacks — that were Stephanie's hallucinations while she was drugged by, I think, a plant or something. But they were all these splash pages of what could have been. And it's kind of like the story of her life.
And the other big influence for me was what should have been the finale of Scrubs, before they were renewed for one final season. The finale has this amazing montage that has Zach Braff watching old, like, film footage of what his life going forward could be, with their families growing old. It was incredibly moving.
So I always loved that idea of an ending to a series giving a tease or hint of where things might go, just for the possibility of it.
So that's my favorite page in the issue, by far.
Nrama: It makes me want to see an Elseworlds story where Dick does become a Talon instead of Robin. You think you can write that?
Higgins: I would love to!
The one thing I've learned in all of this, and I know I haven't been doing it that long, is to never say never.
I have no plans for that, but you never know.
Credit: Nightwing #29
Nrama: I also liked that the little girl he saved, little Jen, was a redhead. It seems like that's Dick's weakness.
Higgins: You know, that actually wasn't something I was involved with. There are a lot of characters that, when we get to colorists, Pete's made them redheads or Andrew's made the redheads. I suppose there are only so many colors you can do for hair.
Nrama: Good point. And that color really pops the character.
Higgins: Yeah, but there is definitely an ongoing "thing" with Dick Grayson and redheads. But because of that, I've actually called out to the colorists sometimes that a character should not have red hair, because it would be too much.
But Jen turned out right. I think it's really cool. It's a good way to end the run.
Nrama: You said "never say never," and I'd love to see Jen grow up into a DC superhero or something. I kind of want to see what happens to her. Maybe she'll grow up and be in the background of Batman Beyond 2.0?
Higgins: Yeah, that's a possibility.
Nrama: I'd love to see it. Now that we know Dick Grayson is going to be in this new series Grayson, was there anything in the last issue of Nightwing that teases what's coming? Or was it purely your finale?
Higgins: It was my finale. I intentionally stayed away from whatever the Dick Grayson plans are going forward. My primary goal and focus on my last few issues was wrapping my almost three years on Dick Grayson, and telling a story that really got to the heart of who I think he is and going out on an optimistic note.Young people are less inclined to read for pleasure as they move into their teenage years for a variety of reasons, educators say. Some of these are trends of long standing (older children inevitably become more socially active, spend more time on reading-for-school or simply find other sources of entertainment other than books), and some are of more recent vintage (the multiplying menagerie of high-tech gizmos that compete for their attention, from iPods to Wii consoles). What parents and others hoped was that the phenomenal success of the Potter books would blunt these trends, perhaps even creating a generation of lifelong readers in their wake.
"Anyone who has children or grandchildren sees the competition for children's time increasing as they enter adolescence, and the difficulty that reading seems to have to compete effectively," Gioia said.
Many thousands of children have, indeed, gone from the Potter books to other pleasure reading. But others have dropped away.
Starting when Avram Leierwood was 7, he would read the books aloud with his mother, Mina. "We'd sit in the treehouse in our backyard and take turns," recalled Leierwood, of South Minneapolis.
But while Leierwood has remained an avid fan, Avram, now 15, is indifferent. When "Deathly Hallows" comes out, he will be on a canoe trip. As for reading, he said: "I don't really have much time anymore. I like to hang out with my friends, talk, go watch movies and stuff, go to the park and play ultimate Frisbee."
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a series of U.S. tests administered every few years to a sample of students in grades 4, 8 and 12, the percentage of kids who said they read for fun almost every day dropped from 43 percent in fourth grade to 19 percent in eighth grade in 1998, the year "Sorcerer's Stone" was published in the United States. In 2005, when "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth book, was published, the results were identical.
Many parents, educators and librarians say that despite such statistics, they have seen enough evidence to convince them that Harry Potter is a bona fide hero.
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"Parents will say, 'You know, my son never spent time reading, and now my son is staying up late reading, keeping the light on because he can't put that book down,' " said Linda Gambrell, president of the International Reading Association, a professional organization for teachers.
In a study commissioned last year by Scholastic, Yankelovich, a market research firm, reported that 51 percent of the 500 kids aged 5 to 17 polled said they did not read books for fun before they started reading the series. A little over three-quarters of them said Harry Potter had made them interested in reading other books.
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Before she discovered Harry Potter, Kara Havranek, 13, spent most of her time romping outside in Parma, a suburb of Cleveland, or playing video games like Crash Bandicoot.
But four years after struggling through "Sorcerer's Stone," Kara has read and reread all six books, decorated her bedroom with Potter memorabilia and said she could hardly wait for "Deathly Hallows."
But although Kara said she has enjoyed other books, she was not sure what lasting influence the series would have. "I probably won't read as much when Harry Potter is over," she said.
In a way that was previously rare for books, Harry Potter entered the pop-culture consciousness. The movies (the film version of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth in the series, just opened) heightened the fervor, spawning video games and collectible figurines. That made it easier for kids who thought reading was for geeks to pick up a book.
Until Harry Potter, "I don't think kids were reading proudly," said Connie Williams, the school librarian at Kenilworth Junior High School in Petaluma, California "Now it's more normalized. It's like, 'Gosh we can read now, it's O.K.' "
But creating a habit of reading is a continuous battle with kids who are saturated with other options. During a recent sixth-grade English class at the John W. McCormack Middle School in the Dorchester section of Boston, Aaron Forde, a cherubic 12-year-old, said he loved playing soccer, basketball and football. On top of that, he spends four hours a day chatting with friends on MySpace.com, the social networking site.
He had read the first three Harry Potter books, but said he had no particular interest in reading more. "I don't like to read that much," he said. "I think there are better things to do."
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Neema Avashia, Aaron's English teacher, said it was rare for the Harry Potter series to draw reluctant readers to books. "I try to have a lot of books in my library that reflect where kids are coming from," Avashia said. "And Harry Potter isn't really where my kids are coming from." She noted that her class is 85 percent nonwhite, and Harry Potter has few characters that belong to a racial minority group.
Some reading experts say that urging kids to read fiction in general might be a misplaced goal. "If you look at what most people need to read for their occupation, it's zero narrative," said Michael Kamil, a professor of education at Stanford University. "I don't want to deny that you should be reading stories and literature. But we've overemphasized it," he said. Instead, children need to learn to read for information, Kamil said, something they can practice while reading on the Internet, for example.
Still, there is something about seeing the passion that a novel can inspire that excites those who want to perpetuate a culture of reading. Even as the Harry Potter series draws to a close, there are signs that other books are coming up to take its place.
On a recent afternoon at at Public School 54 on Staten Island, New York, a group of fifth grade boys shouted with enthusiasm for the "Cirque du Freak" series by Darren Shan, about a boy who becomes entangled with a vampire.
"I like the books so much that even when the teacher is teaching a lesson, I still want to read the books," said Vincent Eng, a wiry 11-year-old. His classmate Thejas Alex said he had stopped reading a Harry Potter book to jump into "Cirque du Freak."
"While I was reading them," Thejas said, referring to the "Cirque" books, "I was like, addicted."M Night Shyamalan's latest movie Split is in cinemas now - it stars James McAvoy as a man with multiple personalities who kidnaps three teenage girls.
It's something of a return to form for the director, who made The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable to audience and critical acclaim, and went off the boil a bit (a lot) with After Earth and The Last Airbender.
Now the director's gone back to his roots - in more ways than one.
Digital Spy talked exclusively to Shyamalan about some very exciting future plans.
SPOILERS! SPOILERS ARE BELOW!
Universal
Still with us?
OK, so the end of Split has a very interesting post-credits sequence, which features none other than David Dunn (Bruce Willis's character from Unbreakable) with an additional mention of Mr Glass (Samuel L Jackson's character).
You can read more on the post credits sequence here.
We had the chance to have a lovely spoilery chat with Shyamalan after seeing the film so we could explore what the meaning of all this is, and he had some great revelations for us - namely that Split IS Unbreakable 2, that McAvoy's character Kevin Wendle Crumb was originally supposed to appear in Unbreakable, and that Unbreakable and Split form two parts of an intended trilogy.
He's writing the third part now and it's going to be an out and out superhero movie feature Dunn, Glass and Crumb. Oh, and we'll get to meet even more of Crumb's many personae.
Check out the interview below...
Universal
Will we see more of 'The Horde'?
The Horde references three individuals. I don't know if I'm going to introduce all of the remaining 13 but hopefully I'm going to introduce you to a bunch more. I'd like to but that's a lot of characters, that's a cast of 13. Even this movie, the first cut was three hours, there were so many characters!
I had other people in the movie that had to get cut out. It was too many people to introduce you to, to connect them to the story, and I was like, 'Why is this movie so long?' but it was because it was the most characters I'd ever had. It just happens to be one dude playing most of them.
Will James McAvoy be returning for the next movie then?
I hope so, yeah
Universal
This is now a shared universe with Unbreakable, is it possible this universe could be expanded and shared with other Shyamalan projects?
No. Kevin's character was from the original Unbreakable script. In the original script it was David and Kevin, and Elijah was advising David that he was a superhero in real life and he bumps into one of the altered personalities in a train station and then follows him back. You'd see both of those things happening simultaneously. That was the original format for Unbreakable and then I pulled him out - it was too electric, I couldn't get to the quiet movie I was trying to make. I'm not a big sequel guy - it goes against my engine - but it was fun to make this this way. A movie that you thought was this genre for the whole movie - a psychological thriller - but then it clicks over into origin story at the end, which is great.
My hope is to make a final movie from these two.
Disney
Is there any plan to extend it further than that?
I probably won't, but you never know... I just heard that JK Rowling wrote four new Fantastic Beasts movies! So who knows what inspires a writer. That would be unusual for me because what inspires me is new stories and there's another story that I've got and I'm dying to write that one. I couldn't spend my whole life writing the same characters over and over again but you never know.
We liked the idea that Cole from The Sixth Sense could also appear - because in a way he has a super power?
A common thread through all the movies is I genuinely believe there's extraordinary in the ordinary around us. So that's a common thing if you think about the movies. So there is a binding force between them and that philosophy is particularly true in Unbreakable and Split.
I'm going to tell you about grounded things in our world - dissociative identity disorder, osteogenesis imperfecta, and then I'm going to ask you a question of each of those. If someone's bones are that brittle, aren't there people walking around whose bones are hard to break, almost impossible to break, but they don't know it because they never get hurt? They must exist on this continuum.
If it is true that you can change your body chemistry with your thoughts, what if someone with this disorder thought they were a supernatural being, what would happen then?
Universal
How far are you with part 3?
I wanted to be completely done with the outline before I went on this press junket, but it was really hard emotionally because this story hasn't finished yet, meaning Split, meaning the story of its entrance to the world. You have so many emotional reactions to it. We showed the first screening of it 4 months ago in Fantastic Fest in Austin, we've been showing it at festivals, showing it to audiences, having sneak screenings.
The reaction has been so wonderful and so great, but I have a philosophy that you don't want to put your energy into that. The universe doesn't want you to. Put your energy into the story, the characters. What I should be doing this second is putting my energy into the story and the characters of this outline. I'm trying but it's very hard... you start to wonder about what's going to happen in a week. I think a week from now I'll be able to go back to that outline and be like, 'I've done everything I can for this movie, let it go and let's start this other film.'
Universal
Tonally, will it feel like a superhero film?
I think so. We'll be open about it - this is a movie about comic books, not a comic book movie, but a movie about comic books.
I just thought of something. One of the reasons I'm finding it a little confusing right now is that it's hubris to work on this before I know that we're good with Split. Whereas normally I'd be thinking about a movie that has nothing to do with this, this is its own thing. But these are related, this is related to Split.
Will it retain this feeling of a dark thriller?
The outline is almost 10 pages, it's very involved - it has its own special story. Unbreakable isn't in a sense a comic book movie - it's a movie about a guy who survives, the only person who survives a train wreck and doesn't have a scratch on him. It's a mystery and that's cool. And this one is three girls get abducted by a guy who believes he's all these people and he says another personality is coming to get them - that's a really cool idea. And then the third one should have its own cool idea separate from the fact that it's related to those two movies. That's the hope.
Split is in UK cinemas now.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment and tech news? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Twitter account and you're all set.Ricardo Duchesne by
T
Historically, Canada has successfully supported very high levels of immigration. In 1913, 400,000 immigrants arrived in Canada, representing over 5.2% of the population at the time.
Ethnic Composition of Immigrants Today Is Fundamentally Different
Over the 400 years before Confederation, there were only "two quite limited periods" of substantial arrivals of immigrants: from 1783 to 1812, and from 1830 to 1850. In these two periods, the immigrants were "overwhelmingly of British origin." [...] Between 1896 and 1914, Canada experienced high immigration levels with more than 3 million arriving within this period. However, the ethnic composition of the nation remained 84 percent of British and French origin, while the European component rose to 9 percent. Between 1900 and 1915, the high mark in "Asian immigration" before the 1960s, 50,000 immigrants of Japanese, East Indian and Chinese descent arrived, but this number comprised less than 2 percent of the total immigration flow. In contrast, in 1914, there were nearly 400,000 Germans in Canada, the largest ethnic group apart from the British (which includes the Irish and Scots) and French.
Historically Highest Number of Immigrants Since Early 1990s
Research the anti-Canadian Century Initiative.
he dishonest Canadian establishment wants us to believe that the incredibly high levels of immigration we have been experiencing since the early 1990s, ranging from 225-000 to 320,000 immigrants per year, are not historically
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and mentally but you can still go out there and battle hard. I just think we haven’t done that well enough, me included. I feel I have to be much better in my game, so I’m looking forward to the trip to get together with the team and try to find a way back here to get some more wins.”
[RELATED - Is the Blackhawks’ 'unshakable confidence' shaken?]
The Blackhawks hope to take advantage of this current respite, rest and refocus before hitting the road and facing Calgary on Saturday night. It’s been a tough stretch, but the Blackhawks say they can come out of it.
“I think as individuals we all have to dig deep. That’s the only way to get out of situations like this. Whatever you have to do, process it in your own mind, just dig deep,” Andrew Desjardins said. “It comes down to puck battles, the rawness of the game. It goes back to the basics. A lot of it is just playing smart, playing hard and winning those puck battles. That’s what the key is here. We have to be a little pissed off, too, to be honest.”
The Blackhawks aren’t too happy that they’ve made up little ground in the Central, where they’re currently third. In fact their losses, coupled with fourth-place Nashville’s surge, means they’re close to losing ground.
Instead of practicing on Wednesday the Blackhawks had off-ice workouts and “met,” as coach Joel Quenneville put it.
“I don't think we can be happy with the way we’re going along here, so we want to make sure we rectify it,” he said. “Whether we’re angry or how we want to channel it, but let’s make sure that [this is] not good enough or not acceptable.”
The Blackhawks’ offense has been hit-and-miss lately but as Hjalmarsson pointed out, what’s happening on the other side is the bigger problem.
“As long as we play well defensively, which we haven’t done lately, we usually find a way to win games,” Hjalmarsson said. “We create [scoring] chances by playing good defense: counter attack and creating chances, breaking out plays defensively. We have to find a way to be better defensively and the offense will come automatically.”
[SHOP: Get your Blackhawks gear right here]
That defense hasn’t been good lately. Overall this season, the Blackhawks have allowed 2.47 goals per game, which isn't bad at all. But in the 25 games since their franchise-record, 12-game winning streak, that number has increased to 2.96 goals per game. Part of that is defense and part of that is goaltending not being as strong as it was earlier this season. Corey Crawford, who’s been very good most of this season, struggled in recent starts before being sidelined with an upper-body injury.
The Blackhawks have time to turn things around before the postseason begins. They say they can come out of their doldrums by getting their competitiveness back. Perhaps the road rekindles that.
“You know it’s one of those things that’s up and down. Hopefully going on the road, guys will be together and spark something,” Desjardins said. “I mean it goes back to everybody having to focus a little bit more. We have to stop this and start winning, start playing the right way.”This post on the career FSO ambassador started out very similarly to the Foreign Service salary guide– to answer a ‘simple’ question that instead led to a deeper content piece.
You see, I was trying to determine which Foreign Service cone has led to the most career FSO ambassadors.
Now, my immediate thought was the political cone. As a generalization, those in the political cone interact and network the most with state politicians, learn the historical and cultural backgrounds of a state and region the best, and tend to be posted in the same geographic region the most. It is from this background, I hypothesized, that they learn to become the most qualified for the position.
In the spirit of not just making statements, I wanted to make sure I found referencing material to back my thinking up.
Unfortunately, after some Internet research I could not find a definitive answer. There were a few comments on blogs and feeds that assumed the political cone was the one, but like mine there was nothing to back this claim up.
Not to be “defeated”, I set out to answer this question.
The Career FSO Ambassador: A Very Brief Introduction
There are a total of 186 ambassadorial positions available, as of December 2014, and of that number 114, that’s 61%, are career Foreign Service Officers (this number does not take into account vacant positions).
For those that don’t know, the US Ambassador may be a career or political appointee. The majority of career FSOs have moved up the FS ranks, have earned the rank of senior FSO, and are then nominated to the position of the ambassador by the US president. Those that are politically appointed by the President did not move up the FSO ranks and may not be federal government employees.
As opposed to career FSOs who have earned the opportunity to be nominated for the position out of merit and experience, politically appointed ambassadors tend to receive extra scrutiny and ethical questioning during confirmation due to allegations of the ‘spoils system’ and that they may not be qualified to represent the interests of the US.
Additionally, most political appointments receive what some would call “comfier” appointments (e.g., Western Europe and Australia).
An example of each is US Ambassador to Argentina, Noah Mamet (political appointment), and US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Michael McKinley (career appointment).
By reading their official biographies, you will easily notice two completely different careers prior to being nominated as ambassador to their respective countries.
Finding the Data
In order to answer the question, ‘which cone leads to more US career ambassadors’, I used the ‘List of Ambassadorial Appointments’ created and routinely updated by AFSA to learn who the career appointments currently are.
I then did background research on all the career appointed ambassadors to answer this question.
That’s right, all 114 ambassadors.
As a side note: a more definitive answer to this question would be to research every career FSO ambassador ever to be appointed since the use of the five cones. However, after the amount of time it took to gather information on the current 114… “ain’t nobody got time for that”. If this were done though, it would then be interesting to see the representational change over time of each cone.
Along the way, I also collected the following information if it were available:
Gender
Date of birth
Year the ambassador joined the Service
Year the ambassador was nominated to become an ambassador
If this is their first nomination or multiple (noted throughout this review as ‘2nd+’)
As being transparent is a key aspect of this website, the following are some limitations of the data and where the data was gathered from.
The information was found on a number of different sites, but predominantly the embassy about page each ambassador is serving in, AllGov, AFSA, NNDB, and a couple of others. For purposes of reliability, I was able to cross-reference much of the information on these sites with one another.
For a number of the ambassadors, educated guesses were required. For example, some ambassadors did not list their year of birth but they did list the year they graduated from high school and/or college. To determine year of birth I subtracted 18 or 22 from the year they graduated from high school or college, respectively.
Finally, determining the cone was difficult. No database, as far as I could find, publicly lists the cones ambassadors started in upon joining the Foreign Service. Again, educated guesses were made by following the positions they held along their FS career.
For any one data category, I was able to find at least 93% of the information, except for cones. Unfortunately I was only able to determine approximately 75%.
A complete listing of the data follows. For any piece of information missing, I wrote ‘Blank’ in the field. If you happen to know the missing information, or if corrections are needed, I welcome your input by contacting me.
Additionally, and I am excited for this, you can do a LIVE FILTER of the data bellow. Want to know how many ambassadors were born in 1950 or are named John? Just type it in the search bar (where it says “live filter”). Thanks to Chris Spittles for providing the template of the live filter on his website.
The Demographics Breakdown- A Better Insight
I am a big believer in showing data visually, it’s more interactive and both you and I find it more interesting.
To this end, a map, bar charts, and pie charts are used. Feel free to scroll over, zoom, and click on the charts. They are dynamic and meant to be interacted with.
As a final reminder, all the broken down data is based on the current career FSO ambassadors that are nominated or posted.
A Global View
The map below shows all current career, political, vacant, “empty”, and not applicable (N/A) postings.
A disclaimer: the four regions in black (N/A) currently have no diplomatic relations with the United States. These four include Western Sahara, Iran, Bhutan, and North Korea. Additionally, we do not have posts in the territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen, French Guiana, and New Caledonia, and these were given the designation of empty.
You will notice that political appointees tend to be located in the more developed regions of the world while career appointees are in the developing.
For me, two surprises were India and China. Two states where I would expect career ambassadors to be appointed. That said, the cultural pull of both countries and the prestige of leading these missions are most likely the reasons they are political assignments. Furthermore, being politically appointed to these countries, I have learned, is not new. Since 1960, China and India have both been politically appointed 68% of the time.
Gender
Approximately 66% of career ambassadors are male.
First Time or Second (plus) Ambassadorial Posting
For approximately 74% of ambassadors, this is their first appointment. For 26%, or 29 ambassadors, they are currently serving their second, third, or even fourth appointment.
The Timelines
1. The average age of the ambassadors when joining the Foreign Service was 27.5 years, which is nearly five years younger than the average age of most new hires today at 32 (US News, 2012).
Originally I was going to source this article by the Washington Post, which notes 30 as the average in 2004, but then I saw the more updated number by US News. I am now wondering why the average age has been increasing over the years and how much of this has to do with the FSOT (if at all).
If you have any insights feel free to leave a comment.
2. The year the ambassadors joined the Foreign Service ranges from 1972 to 1996, with the average being 1985.
3. The cones chosen by these FSOs were as follow:
“Other” includes a mix of different agencies and specialist positions such as Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, and a Regional Security Officer (full breakdown can be seen in the data above).
As it turns out, the political cone does have the largest representation.
This means my initial thought was correct. However, at only 38%, this isn’t an overwhelming majority. Instead, it seems that each cone has the opportunity to produce an ambassador. Of the five though, you may want to hedge your bets towards political, economic, or consular, as management and public diplomacy are not represented strongly (if you really want to become an ambassador).
4. The age of the ambassador when nominated the first time ranges from 38 to 66, with an average age of 54.
5. The length in time it took the ambassador to be nominated ranges from 15 to 36, with an average time of 26.5 years.
Closing Thoughts
I find the information above to be pretty interesting.
Our ambassadors are clearly not all from the political cone, are not all the same age, and have a diverse background (you learn a little something after reading all their biographies).
This really does mean that whatever your background, aspirations, and interests upon joining the Foreign Service, you do have the potential of becoming ambassador (if this is what you aspire to be!).
The US career ambassadors are some of the most interesting individuals to read up on. If you are interested in joining the Foreign Service, I highly suggest you look up some of their bios. This will not only give you a better sense of what you have to look forward to every two to three years as you move posts, but some of the biographies also note the major political experiences they went through (elections, protests, war, etc.).
It was also fun to realize that I have actually (briefly) worked under one of the current ambassadors during my time as an intern at US Embassy, Kenya. He was the head of the economic section at the time.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the above and on the career FSO ambassadors in general!In the northern half of the U.S. — and even much of the South — installing a residential solar hot water system doesn’t make any sense. It’s time to rethink traditional advice about installing a solar hot water system, because it’s now cheaper to heat water with a photovoltaic (PV) array than solar thermal collectors.
In short, unless you’re building a laundromat or college dorm, solar thermal is dead.
The idea has been percolating for six years
In the early days of PV, when PV equipment was much more expensive than it is now, homeowners with PV systems (especially off-grid homeowners) were instructed not to use electricity for heating. After all, since electricity is precious and expensive, and since PV power usually costs even more than grid power, it made sense to save electricity for uses like refrigeration, lighting, and home entertainment.
For decades, we all assumed that the greenest way to heat domestic hot water was to use a solar thermal system. But then two things happened: PV equipment got cheaper, and heat-pump water heaters became widely available.
The logic of using a PV system to heat water was first explained to me in early 2006 by Charlie Stephens, a policy analyst for the Oregon Department of Energy. I reported the details of that conversation in an article, “Heating Water With PV,” published in the May 2006 issue of Energy Design Update.
“If you want to do solar water heating and solar space heating, solar thermal remains too expensive,” Stephens told me. “It’s not as cost-effective as using an air-source heat pump coupled to a PV array. In our climate, a properly sized solar thermal system can provide 100 percent of your hot water in the summertime, but it won’t do diddly in the wintertime. So you paid $4,000 for a system that provides 40 or 50 percent of your hot water needs. If instead, using the same money, you just add an extra kilowatt of PV to the roof, you could heat all of your hot water year round with an air-source heat pump.”
You can quibble with the details used in Stephens’ argument — it may take more than a kilowatt of PV to meet your hot water needs, for example, and his 2006 price estimate for installing a solar hot water system is now much too low — but his conclusion is even more valid now than when it was first made.
Some solar-heated water goes to waste
Solar thermal proponents know how to calculate the number of gallons of hot water produced by a typical 4′ by 8′ solar collector in a variety of climates. After calculating the thermal energy that this represents, they usually concluded (before PV prices dropped, anyway) that solar thermal collectors were a better bargain than a PV array.
But the number of gallons of hot water produced by a solar collector is always less than the number of gallons actually used by the homeowners. After all, if great quantities of hot water are produced on a day when it isn’t needed, you can’t really count the energy production in your annual tally.
Solar thermal energy is inconsistent, and during the long sunny days of summer, most solar thermal systems make more hot water than the typical family can use.
Although Charlie Stephens (pessimistically) estimated that a residential solar thermal system in the Pacific Northwest would only supply about 40% and 50% of a family’s annual hot water needs, the so-called “solar fraction” will be higher in other climates. In a 2006 study, researchers from Steven Winter Associates monitored two residential solar thermal systems for a year, one in Wisconsin and one in Massachusetts. Each house had two solar collectors. The solar fractions of these two systems were 63% and 61%, respectively.
Comparing solar thermal and PV systems
Compared to a PV system, a solar thermal system has several disadvantages:
Unlike a PV system, most solar thermal systems have moving parts (pumps and solenoid valves).
In freezing climates, solar thermal systems are sometimes subject to freeze damage.
Solar thermal systems require regular maintenance, including antifreeze replacement.
Unlike owners of a grid-connected PV system, who can be credited for their excess electricity production during the summer, owners of a solar thermal system can’t sell the excess summer production of their hot water systems.
While a pole-mounted PV array can include a tracking mechanism to follow the sun’s path across the sky, it’s virtually impossible to install solar thermal collectors on a tracker.
On average, PV systems probably last longer than solar thermal systems.
There are far more stories of troublesome solar thermal systems than there are stories of troublesome PV systems. Solar thermal systems sometimes develop air bubbles that interfere with the circulation of fluid, suffer from leaking pipes, or experience problems from summertime overheating. PV systems, which suffer none of these headaches, look attractive in comparison.
Let’s do the math
Since 2006, when Stephens first proposed that it was cheaper to heat water with a PV array than a solar thermal system, two factors have emerged that greatly strengthen his case: more reliable heat-pump water heaters have become widely available, and PV modules have gotten dramatically cheaper. (During the same time period, sales of solar thermal systems have also been hurt by a third factor: dropping natural gas prices. But that’s a topic for another article.)
Although it’s always difficult to predict future price trends, there are reasons to believe that the price of PV modules will continue to drop, while the price of the copper tubing used to make solar collectors will continue to rise.
In northern states, a typical residential solar thermal system includes two 4′ by 8′ collectors and a 120-gallon solar storage tank; the installed cost for such a system is about $8,000 to $10,000. Instead of spending $10,000 on a solar thermal system, what would happen if you invested $3,000 in a heat-pump water heater and $7,000 in a 1.7-kW PV array?
The 1.7-kW PV system would produce 2,114 kWh per year in Boston or 2,093 kWh per year in Madison, Wisconsin. Let’s be conservative and use 2,000 kWh for our example. Assuming that the average [no-glossary]COP[/no-glossary] of the heat-pump water heater is 2.0 — a fairly conservative assumption — it takes 0.0855 kWh to raise the temperature of a gallon of 50°F water to 120°F. So 2,000 kWh can produce 23,392 gallons of hot water a year, or 64 gallons a day — exactly equal to the amount of hot water that the U.S. Department of Energy assumes is used by the average American family. So, once you’ve paid for the system, you get “free” hot water.
That’s a much better deal than a solar thermal system that produces only 63% as much hot water — even if you do have to buy a new heat-pump water heater in 12 or 14 years. (Trust me — if you have a solar hot water system, you’ll have to invest in maintenance and replace a few parts over time, too.)
Of course, if your family uses less than 64 gallons of hot water a day, or your heat-pump water heater has a higher average COP than 2.0, or you live in a state with more sunny days per year than Massachusetts or Wisconsin, or the average temperature of your incoming cold water is higher than 50°F, then your new PV system will be producing extra electricity that you can use for other purposes.
In fact, many families use significantly less than 64 gallons of hot water a day. A Canadian researcher, Martin Thomas, monitored hot water use in 30 Canadian homes in 2008; the average hot water use by the monitored families was only 44 gallons a day. If your family uses 44 gallons of hot water a day, you’ll only need a 1.2-kW photovoltaic array (costing about $5,000) — or, in a sunny climate, an even smaller PV array — rather than the 1.7-kW array proposed for northern families using 64 gallons of hot water a day.
What if you use an electric-resistance water heater?
Let’s do the math for those who prefer to use an electric-resistance water heater. If you invest $10,000 in a PV system, you’ll get a 2.2-kW system (assuming a PV equipment cost of $4.54 per watt). The PV system will produce 2,736 kWh a year in Boston. Using electric resistance heat, it takes 0.171 kWh to raise a gallon of 50 degree water to 120 degrees, so you’ll end up with 16,000 gallons of hot water per year, or about 44 gallons a day — about exactly the average water use by U.S. and Canadian families, according to two recent studies.
If the family with the hypothetical $10,000 solar thermal system uses 44 gallons a day, and the solar fraction is 63%, their solar thermal system heats about 28 gallons a day on average. The PV option produces 37% more hot water, even with an electric resistance heater — and with far less hassle.
To make 28 gallons a day — an amount equal to the average output of the solar thermal system — with an electric-resistance heater, all you would need in Boston is a 1.4-kW PV system costing about $6,300.
But — but — but —
Here’s the part of the blog where I admit that my chosen title — “Solar Thermal Is Dead” — was deliberately provocative and somewhat inaccurate.
So I’ll list a few exceptions to my new rule:
Solar thermal systems still make sense for off-grid homes.
If you can get a two-collector solar thermal system installed for $5,000 or less — an attainable price in areas of the country where people don’t have to worry about freeze protection — it may make sense to install one.
In a sunny, warm climate, where a solar hot water system will have a higher solar fraction than 63%, an investment in a solar thermal system makes more sense than it does in Wisconsin or Massachusetts. (On the other hand, a PV system produces more electricity in a sunny climate, too.)
If you are skeptical about the longevity of heat-pump water heaters, you may prefer to wait a few years before buying one, and to stick with a solar thermal system in the meantime.
Before taking the advice given in this article, compare the costs and energy production figures of a solar thermal system and a PV system in your area, using location-specific energy production figures and local equipment costs and installation costs.
There are many factors to consider when choosing equipment to heat domestic hot water. One point is clear, however: if you plan to install a heat-pump water heater, you definitely don’t want to also install a solar thermal system. The correct solar complement to a heat-pump water heater is a PV array.
Green builders have an emotional connection to solar hot water systems, because they represent a fairly simple technology that’s been around for over 100 years. But it’s time to admit that a PV array is cheaper and less troublesome than fluid-filled solar collectors on your roof.
Author’s postscript: For an updated (December 2014) analysis that compares the cost of heating domestic hot water with a solar thermal system to the cost of heating domestic hot water with a PV system, see Solar Thermal Is Really, Really Dead.
Last week’s blog: “A Superinsulated House in Rural Minnesota.”As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Please see my Privacy Policy for more details.
Cinnamon Sugar Cookies – perfectly chewy, sweet, and packed with warm cinnamon. Only 6 ingredients and 15 minutes needed to make these quick and easy, gluten free cookies! What are you waiting for?
Perfect Sugar Cookies
Who doesn’t love sugar cookies? They’re sweet, crispy, chewy – pretty much the perfect treat for any time. But, what’s a cinnamon loving girl to do with regular sugar cookies? Add some cinnamon, of course!
These Cinnamon Sugar Cookies are my perfect cookie. A little crispy bite on the outside, dense and chewy on the inside, just sweet enough with a little bit of spice…so yum! And with only 6 ingredients and 15 minutes, they’re sure to be your favorite cookie too!
Better Than Traditional Snickerdoodles
If you don’t believe me that these are the perfect cookies, perhaps you’ll believe my dad. He’s very trustworthy, I promise. His all time favorite cookie has always been a snickerdoodle. He especially loves my aunt’s (his sister-in-law) homemade snickerdoodles.
When he tasted these Cinnamon Sugar Cookies, he said, “I think these might replace my favorite snickerdoodles.” Um, that’s what I’m talking about!! The vegan cookie wins!
If you love cinnamon as much as I do, check out my other cinnamon spiced recipes as well, like my Apple Cinnamon Quick Bread, Cinnamon Coffee Cake, Maple Pecan Cinnamon Scones, and Cinnamon Chickpea Blondies.
Secretly Healthy
Another reason these are better than traditional snickerdoodles, is that they are secretly healthy. Well, ok, it isn’t exactly health food, but they are certainly healthier than standard cookies.
These amazing cookies contain no oil, no butter, no dairy, no eggs, no gluten, and no refined sugar! That’s right! Sugar cookies with no refined sugar…or granulated sugar of any kind! But, trust me, they are every bit as mouthwatering!
Cinnamon Sugar Cookies
I can’t wait for you guys to try these amazing, chewy, Cinnamon Sugar Cookies!! Please leave me a comment and star rating below letting me know how much you love them! And let me see those beautiful photos – snap a quick pic and tag me on social media with #veggieinspired and @veggie_inspired.
4.8 from 10 votes Print Cinnamon Sugar Cookies (Gluten Free, Dairy Free) Prep Time 5 mins Cook Time 10 mins Total Time 15 mins These Cinnamon Sugar Cookies are perfectly chewy, sweet, and packed with warm cinnamon. With only 6 ingredients and 15 minutes, you can be enjoying these quick and easy cookies in record time! Course: Cookies, Dessert Cuisine: dairy free, egg free, gluten free, oil free, vegan Servings : 22 Calories : 133 kcal Author : Jenn S. Ingredients 2 1/2 cups almond flour (scoop and level off)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup raw creamy almond butter (I like Trader Joe's brand; it's nice and runny)
3/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 tsp pure vanilla extract Instructions Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. In a medium-size mixing bowl, whisk together the almond flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the almond butter, maple syrup and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry while stirring. Stir well to thoroughly combine. The dough will be sticky, but this is what you want. Using your hands, roll the dough, about 1 tbsp at a time, into a ball and place on the parchment lined baking sheet. Dampen your hands slightly to make the dough easier to work with. Continue until all the dough has been used. Be sure to space the balls of dough out on the baking sheet with a few inches in between because they will spread out into perfectly round cookies. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until they are starting to firm up on the outside. Let cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring the cookies too a wire rack to continue cooling completely. EAT! Recipe Notes ~If you really love cinnamon like I do - add an extra 1/2 tbsp of cinnamon. ~These cookies are best eaten on the same day. However, they are also delicious straight out of the freezer, which gives them a crunchy texture! Nutrition Facts Cinnamon Sugar Cookies (Gluten Free, Dairy Free) Amount Per Serving Calories 133 Calories from Fat 81 % Daily Value* Total Fat 9g 14% Saturated Fat 1g 5% Polyunsaturated Fat 1g Monounsaturated Fat 2g Sodium 112mg 5% Potassium 1mg 0% Total Carbohydrates 11g 4% Dietary Fiber 2g 8% Sugars 8g Protein 4g 8% Calcium 4% Iron 4% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
More Dairy Free Desserts to Love:
Gluten Free Thumbprint Cookies
Chewy Gluten Free Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies
No Bake Cinnamon Dairy Free TrufflesIf you’re familiar with the holiday of Pesach (Passover) then you know just how tiring the preparation for the week-long holiday can be. Add buying a house to the mix and you’ll have an idea as to how busy we’ve been at home-camp over the last few weeks. We were lucky to have family visit us for Passover but no matter how far in advance we started to cook, we always seem to finish at the very last minute.
My radio silence is not for lack of desire to write, but lack of fresh cooking in our kitchen. We’ve been so wrapped up in the day-to-day of becoming home owners that we have put a pause on our entertaining and have been dining from our freezer! That doesn’t mean we haven’t been eating well, I keep a well stocked freezer at all times, and there’s always a casserole, soup or stew waiting for a lazy mid-week dinner.
While you can freeze this stew, you should make the croutons fresh, or make these croutons instead, and given my affinity to La Cruset pots and pans (which happen to be on sale this week) I’d avoid the crock pot for this particular dish and give the beef the cast iron treatment!
This is not a passover recipe, but keep it in mind next week when you’re compensating for the week without bread! You’ll need the following to serve four:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, sliced thinly
1 lb good quality braising beef cut into 2.5 cm cubes
1 medium size red chilli, seeded and chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 can Italian plum tomatoes
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon fresh chopped flat leaf parsley
1.5oz dark (parev) chocolate
salt
freshly ground black pepper
Pastry Croutons
Puff pastry
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon pine nuts
Heat the oil in the heart casserole over a medium setting. Fry the onion until beginning to soften, but not brown. Add cubed meat and brown evenly, stirring occasionally. Stir in all the remaining ingredients with one can of water. Season to taste.
Cover and cook in the oven for 2-2½ hours on a low heat, around 250 degrees and be sure to tir once during cooking. When the meat is tender, remove the casserole from the oven and raise the temperature for the pastry croutons.
While the casserole is cooking, roll the pastry out to the thickness of a Quarter. Cut hearts if you want it to look like my photo, or circles if they are easier and brush with a little beaten egg. Press a few pine nuts into the centre of each. Chill the hearts on a cookie sheet for at least 1 hour before cooking the bake them for 10 to 15 minutes until they rise and have a golden brown color.
Serve a portion of the beef and chocolate casserole topped with a pastry heart or croutons.Theo Jansen is a Dutch kinetic artist, since 1990 occupied with creating new forms of life. He is father to the “Animari” beach creatures, or “Strandbeests”, made of PVC tubing, that walk the beach powered by the wind. As time progresses the Beests evolve, with the ultimate goal of living their lives on their own.
Now Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests have found a way to multiply by injecting their digital DNA directly into the Shapeways system. From now on several small strandbeests are available from his shop
. Next to being a great abstraction of the inspiring work of Theo Jansen, these strandbeests are also an example of what 3D printing is capable of. Right after birth from the 3D printer these models will work straight away and do NOT require any assembly.
Designing the Beests this way proved quite the challenge. They consist of at least 76 separate moving interlocking parts. Multiple prototypes were used to come to the first viable solution, “Animaris Geneticus Parvus” #5. But the evolution process continues with evolutions #6 with lightweight bone structure and #7 with pointy feet.
3D printing is very suitable for rapid design changes, and as time goes by the Beests will evolve and new types of DNA will be added to the store, while others are removed. Expect more evolutions and variations in the future, with possible variation in size, shape, material or means of propulsion.
Also worth mentioning, a big brother to these Strandbeests is the limited edition “Animaris Geneticus Parvus XL”, which is only available from Theo’s Dutch Gallery Akinci
Animaris Geneticus Parvus is a joint project of Theo Jansen and Dutch Designers Bo Jansen and Tim van Bentum.
Check out the models in Theo Jansen’s Shop.With the party languishing in the polls, we want the views of Labour supporters and members on where the party goes from here
The latest Guardian/ICM poll has given the Conservatives a 16-point lead over Labour - a slight narrowing on the last poll, in which the Tories were 17 points ahead.
John Harris (@johnharris1969) Latest Guardian/ICM poll:
Conservatives: 43%
Labour: 27%
Ukip: 12%
Lib Dems: 8%
The Tories are having it, Brexit contortions or not.
Guardian/ICM poll gives Tories 16-point lead over Labour - Politics live Read more
Despite May’s government’s ongoing struggles with Brexit and issues such as NHS funding, an Opinium/Observer poll found twice as many people trust Theresa May on the economy and Brexit negotiations than Jeremy Corbyn.
Barring the unexpected, Britain’s next general election isn’t until 2020. And it would be wrong to read too much into opinion polls, particularly given their inaccurate predictions ahead of the 2015 general election and the EU referendum.
But some Labour members and supporters are concerned about Labour’s performance a few months on from the party’s second leadership election in two years.
If you’re a Labour supporter or member, we’d like to hear your views. Are you worried about the party’s polling figures? What needs to be done differently to cut through to voters? Are you happy with the direction of the party under Corbyn, and do you remain hopeful that the party can win the next general election?
Take part in our poll and share your thoughts in the comments thread below.CLOSE 24/7 Wall Street CEO Douglas McIntyre looks at the 10 states where people smoke the most marijuana.
Buy Photo Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson. (Photo: File / The Tennessean)Buy Photo
The Metro Nashville Police Department has gone from being opposed to Nashville’s proposed marijuana decriminalization ordinance to now having a neutral stance on the bill following tweaks planned for the legislation by the bill’s Metro Council sponsors.
The proposal, which heads to a critical second of three council votes on Tuesday night, would lessen the penalty for people who knowingly possess a half-ounce of marijuana or less to a $50 civil penalty of 10 hours of community service.
The police department — which still says it has concerns about the amount of marijuana that would be decriminalized — had initially opposed the legislation outright over language in the ordinance that says violators "shall" be issued a citation for a civil penalty of $50. Police have said the use of the word would remove discretion from police officers.
Lead sponsor Councilman Dave Rosenberg, though, has drafted an amendment that would substitute the world “shall” for the word “may,” which would give officers more flexibility.
In an email late Friday to council members, Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson, said the language as originally filed made it mandatory that an officer issue a civil citation when someone is found possessing a half-ounce of marijuana or less.
“After discussion with the sponsor, it is my understanding that this mandatory language has now been removed,” Anderson wrote in his email. “Consequently, I feel comfortable in moving my position to neutral, neither opposing or advocating passage. I am comfortable that the wisdom of the council will prevail and a decision will be made that is in the best interest of Nashville.”
Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall, whose office presides over Nashville’s jails, announced last week that he supports the spirit of the Nashville decriminalization ordinance.
Despite the police department’s new position of neutrality, Anderson later in the email outlined what he called “information from a law enforcement perspective” that should be weighed against any positive aspects of the bill.
Writing in bullet-point form, Anderson said among top concerns is the weight or quantity of marijuana as defined in the bill. He said one-half ounce of marijuana is a greater quantity than some people realize — enough, he said, to create 50 “joint” marijuana cigarettes.
He said there needs to be a better “public understanding” of what one-half ounce of marijuana constitutes.
“Those persons who do have experience with marijuana will understand that one-half ounce can produce a significant number of ‘joints’ or marijuana-type cigarettes,” Anderson wrote. “This amount of the drug has the ability to produce a high level of intoxication multiple times to many persons.”
Anderson said he recommends that the “small amount” limit on the local legislation be reduced to 1/32 of an ounce, or approximately one to
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vegetables and whole grains puts a natural brake on how much we can eat. But it's easy to overeat refined carbs, the kind Paltrow avoids.
If the daily diet in the Paltrow household includes protein (fish/meat/eggs/pulses), unprocessed fats (butter/olive oil), plenty of vegetables and some fruit, then it is healthy, nutrient-rich and lacking in nothing. If that's what the Paltrow kids eat, she's doing them a favour.
Yes, children do have slightly different nutritional requirements from adults: they need more fat and protein. But filling their plates with empty calories in the form of white pasta, bread and rice is no nutritional kindness.
• Joanna Blythman is the author of What To Eat (Fourth Estate, £9.99). To order a copy for £7.99 with free UK p&p, go to guardianbookshop.co.uk.A trauma expert gives us the scoop on whether you could survive beheadings, disfigurements and wang removals.
A Doctor Explains Why Everyone On 'Game Of Thrones' Should Be Dead
When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die — or, sometimes, you sustain life-altering horrible injuries that are agony to endure and disgusting to behold!
As anyone who's ever spent a Sunday night glued to HBO's "Game of Thrones" knows, living in Westeros is a risky business. At any moment, you might take a sword to the face, or a screw to the foot, or have your Hodor hodored off by some crazy hodoring bastard.
And yet, strangely enough, most of the show's grievously injured characters are still alive, in some cases seemingly against all odds. But in real life, could they really survive?
We brought in Dr. Deborah Mogelof, a physican with special expertise in trauma, to give us the rundown on "Game of Thrones'" most exciting medical mysteries.
The Face Wounds of Tyrion Lannister
Thanks to a traitorous swordsman, Tyrion's face isn't quite as pretty as it used to be — albeit in better shape than in the source material. In "A Clash of Kings," he loses his entire nose in the Battle of the Blackwater. Our medical source, consulting footage of the petite Lannister's injuries, had this to say.
Dr. Mogelof: Even if the nose were cut off completely, there are no major vessels right there. I've also seen people get their noses shot off and recover.
MTV: So despite getting slashed, it's reasonable for him to still be alive?
Dr. Mogelof: Well, looking at his wound, you can see that golden-yellow kind of crusting to it. It does look like impetigo, which is a staph or strep infection. So it would already be infected there, although I don't know if they meant for it to look like that. But provided that it's cleaned out immediately, this is a survivable injury.
CONCLUSION: Assuming that Tyrion's crusty face was the mistake of an overzealous makeup artist, our favorite Lion of Lannister would still be alive and kicking, even if he weren't living in a Westerosian fantasy world.
Get All Caught Up On Who's Who In Westeros With Our Interactive Map
Jaime Lannister's Lost Hand
After being ignominiously relieved of his hand by one of Roose Bolton's men, Jaime nevertheless managed to make a full (albeit stumpy) recovery. But according to Dr. Mogelof, a real-life amputation wouldn't be so easy to contend with.
Dr. Mogelof: The biggest thing you would worry about is infection, which would happen quickly, in a matter of hours, especially if he's walking around in the forest. It would spread to his lymph glands, then throughout his body. And the loss of a hand, that's a big problem, too, obviously. But sepsis and dying of sepsis would be the primary risks.
MTV: He does encounter a sort of healer (Maester Qyburn) who cuts away the gangrenous tissue from his stump. Would that make any difference?
Dr. Mogelof: Getting rid of the dead, septic tissue is helpful, but I don't think it would 100% treat him without antibiotics. Doing only the surgical part would probably prolong his survival, but not cure him.
MTV: On a completely different note, Jaime Lannister is also involved in an incestuous sexual relationship with his twin sister. Any medical risks associated with that?
Dr. Mogelof: Not with the sexual relationship specifically. Although at that time [the 1400s, the historical era which "Game of Thrones" most closely resembles], one thing that was rampant was sexually transmitted disease. And of course, if she gets pregnant, there would be a lot issues with that baby.
MTV: Like, he might grow up to be a power-hungry little sadist? Because that would explain a lot.
Dr. Mogelof:...No.
CONCLUSION: In real life, Jaime Lannister would probably be dead of septic shock, and possibly riddled with STDs given to him by Cersei. We cannot, however, blame him for Joffrey Baratheon.
Watch Peter Dinklage Sum Up 'Game Of Thrones' In 45 Seconds
The Decapitation of Ned Stark
No, you can't survive a beheading. Yes, we asked. But if you were curious about it:
Dr. Mogelof: There are people who claim that they've seen beheaded bodies with reflexes after, where the head still makes facial expressions. The research supports that: you might get some blinking or twitching. But your spinal cord is completely severed, there's a lot of blood loss, there's no oxygen going to your brain. It would just be a reflex, the last bit of neurons firing off and that's it.
MTV: So, just to ask the ridiculous question: how beheaded could you be, and still survive?
Dr. Mogelof: You would have to miss the spinal cord. If there's any destruction of the first and second vertebrae, you're not going to be able to breathe. But if you miss the major vessels, and someone gets you somewhere where you can be sewn up and fixed immediately, you might survive.
CONCLUSION: Sorry, kids, but Ned Stark is really, truly dead.
The Theon Greyjoy Catalog of Pain
It's the one you've all been waiting for: Theon Greyjoy! Beaten, tortured, flayed, impaled, and cruelly relieved of his fingernails and his wiener, the poor captive of Bolton bastard Ramsay Snow made for a lengthy medical discussion.
MTV: Let's start with the least of Theon's woes: he's strapped to a rack and deprived of food and water.
Dr. Mogelof: Right. In that case, your worry is pure dehydration. Your kidneys start to shut down, you get an electrolyte imbalance. Your potassium can go up or down, which can eventually cause cardiac arrest.
MTV: And assuming you survive that long, then there's the fingernail pulling, the screw through the foot, the flaying. Plus, they've broken his teeth.
Dr. Mogelof: Most of this hurts a lot, but it's not going to kill you. You have to worry about infection; you have to worry about the screw going through the bone, or with the teeth, if there are roots or nerves exposed.
MTV: And this is all just a prelude to the big one: penis amputation.
Dr. Mogelof: Although that's very painful, it's survivable. There are no major vessels in there.
MTV: What would be the challenges of living with an injury like that? I'm especially curious about how he'd pee.
Dr. Mogelof: Well, in today's world — like when Lorena Bobbitt did it — they do a reconstruction. You'd have a kind of fake penis going on there. But in this case, there would still be some part of the urethra hanging out, and it could dribble out of there. As long as he continues to use it, it'll remain open.
Really, it's probably most difficult to recover from this psychologically. The big problem for guys is that their sexual impulse isn't from the penis, so [if the penis is amputated], they're still having that impulse, but they can't do anything about it. I think it's extremely frustrating.
MTV: So what you're saying is, at this point, it would actually be better for Theon if they went back and cut off the rest of his... equipment?
Dr. Mogelof: Basically, yes. I think that would alleviate the need to, ah, do something about it.
CONCLUSION: In real life, Theon Greyjoy would most likely be just as miserably, horrible, sexually frustratedly alive as he is in his fictional universe — and probably praying for a nice, fatal potassium imbalance to put him out of his misery.
"Game of Thrones" returns to HBO on Sunday, April 6 at 9 p.m. ET, ready to release a whole new set of injuries on all of your favorite characters.q327K091
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LegendaryActivity: 1484Merit: 1000 Re: [ANN] DARKNET [DNET] PoS - MNs - Upcoming Trustless Truly Untraceable Anon December 22, 2016, 05:16:32 PM #5321 thanks for the above, it is absolutely great you are doing this, quick update: injected additional 4 nodes fast (5th is pending) total nodes stands at 92
don't know if people realize this but master nodes is the *only* chance to compete with massive centralization of BTC (and others like ETH for instance) mining farms
key principle here is untouched, wide spread and propagation of "private network" of these nodes, self set a target of 100 but with correct execution even 5 and 10 one could compete against standard GPU/ASIC farm
above post on activity *behind the scenes* is great, tech improves, network gets propagated, everyone wins
fyik: four additional nodes + % of 5th costed about 240$ circa... new upcoming awesome coin
the Gulden Coin: GKWHEPx3rQyPnbgQUSHu8gtgoRCgpqed1j
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LegendaryActivity: 1484Merit: 1000 Re: [ANN] DARKNET [DNET] PoS - MNs - Upcoming Trustless Truly Untraceable Anon December 23, 2016, 02:39:51 PM
Last edit: December 23, 2016, 03:53:50 PM by q327K091 #5323 quick update: injecting additional 4 master nodes, strength of this is unbelievable, hence acting immediate, something is up (attention from "deep" sources has to be strong) also ~ 7 BTC order is hanging strong. some 40K sell orders here or there but not in great amounts
BTC is waaaay too centralized, can't be good long term... speak soon, spinning off nodes (electricity requirement for mn and general attention once they are up and running are negligible)
---
done (its has been a long I have done anything remotely so extreme) additional 4 mn (servers) injected and activated, total stands @ 96 master nodes running 24/7, all servers have sensing software on darknetd activity on a task troubles auto-restarts are triggered (but they are not that frequent)
funds came from some other coins (both POS and dust) such as NLG
got now awfully close to intended target of 100 nodes which I will reach either by above (dust POS) or via payouts
trading sentiments? I just dont see BTC (due to extreme centralization mostly in China) to have a future unless they do something about it, since we are all relative to it.. its ok it goes up, but one could also easily switch to ETH which btw also have own set of problems (again centralized mining and looking for loopholes constant to break the system) it is awful the amount of greed and just plain carelessness ///
new upcoming awesome coin
the Gulden Coin: GKWHEPx3rQyPnbgQUSHu8gtgoRCgpqed1j
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LegendaryActivity: 1484Merit: 1000 Re: [ANN] DARKNET [DNET] PoS - MNs - Upcoming Trustless Truly Untraceable Anon December 24, 2016, 03:56:30 PM #5325 and happy Holidays!
quick update: activated final 100th master node, at some later time I will tell you how I do it as we grow this and grow we shall
cheers all! a bit more positive above pleaseand happy Holidays!quick update: activated final 100th master node, at some later time I will tell you how I do it as we grow this and grow we shallcheers all! new upcoming awesome coin
the Gulden Coin: GKWHEPx3rQyPnbgQUSHu8gtgoRCgpqed1j
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jakiman is back!
LegendaryActivity: 1078Merit: 1000jakiman is back! Re: [ANN] DARKNET [DNET] PoS - MNs - Upcoming Trustless Truly Untraceable Anon December 26, 2016, 09:14:10 AM #5329 Update
New wallet (v2.1.3.1) with a number of enhancements and bug fixes will be released this week:
- In-wallet masternode management
- In-wallet Bittrex trading
- Testnet support
- Bug fixes (e.g. mac compile issues etc)
As you can all see below, the devs has been working hard even throughout the holiday period!
https://github.com/Darknet-Crypto/Darknet/compare/v2.1.3.0...master
As for the rebranding, it is progressing nicely. Dev team & media company is close to creating the final short list.
Once the short list is finalized (and secured), we will get the community to vote on it. ETA is early Jan for now.
My advice (heavily biased) is to buy more, help out the devs & HODL. 2017 will be an exciting year for DNET. New wallet (v2.1.3.1) with a number of enhancements and bug fixes will be released this week:- In-wallet masternode management- In-wallet Bittrex trading- Testnet support- Bug fixes (e.g. mac compile issues etc)As you can all see below, the devs has been working hard even throughout the holiday period!As for the rebranding, it is progressing nicely. Dev team & media company is close to creating the final short list.Once the short list is finalized (and secured), we will get the community to vote on it. ETA is early Jan for now.My advice (heavily biased) is to buy more, help out the devs & HODL. 2017 will be an exciting year for DNET. My Twitter: https://twitter.com/jakimanboy
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Fortune favours the bold!
Hero MemberActivity: 606Merit: 500Fortune favours the bold! Re: [ANN] DARKNET [DNET] PoS - MNs - Upcoming Trustless Truly Untraceable Anon December 26, 2016, 06:05:10 PM #5333 Quote from: jakiman on December 26, 2016, 09:14:10 AM Update
New wallet (v2.1.3.1) with a number of enhancements and bug fixes will be released this week:
- In-wallet masternode management
- In-wallet Bittrex trading
- Testnet support
- Bug fixes (e.g. mac compile issues etc)
As you can all see below, the devs has been working hard even throughout the holiday period!
https://github.com/Darknet-Crypto/Darknet/compare/v2.1.3.0...master
As for the rebranding, it is progressing nicely. Dev team & media company is close to creating the final short list.
Once the short list is finalized (and secured), we will get the community to vote on it. ETA is early Jan for now.
My advice (heavily biased) is to buy more, help out the devs & HODL. 2017 will be an exciting year for DNET.
New wallet (v2.1.3.1) with a number of enhancements and bug fixes will be released this week:- In-wallet masternode management- In-wallet Bittrex trading- Testnet support- Bug fixes (e.g. mac compile issues etc)As you can all see below, the devs has been working hard even throughout the holiday period!As for the rebranding, it is progressing nicely. Dev team & media company is close to creating the final short list.Once the short list is finalized (and secured), we will get the community to vote on it. ETA is early Jan for now.My advice (heavily biased) is to buy more, help out the devs & HODL. 2017 will be an exciting year for DNET.
This is good stuff. Glad to see things progressing and active devs. 2017 will be a great year for DNET. This is good stuff. Glad to see things progressing and active devs. 2017 will be a great year for DNET.A union representing Air France staff has launched a petition to try to persuade company chiefs to stop flying to Guinea and Sierra Leone until the Ebola crisis is under control.
The two countries are heavily affected by the epidemic, that has killed over 1,200 people, and staff fear their lives are in danger each time they touch down in those countries.
“We are afraid,” an employee of the airline told Le Parisien newspaper. “We know that this is a risky career – countries at war, dictators, ok, but this [Ebola]… It’s different”.
The employee is not the only member of staff fearful that they could be affected by Ebola- with over 700 having signed the petition in just a matter of days.
British Airways and Emirates have already ditched their services to Ebola hit countries, but so far Air France has decided not to follow suit and still serves Conakry in Guinea and Freetown in Sierra Leone.
In July however the French flagship carrier did give staff the right to refuse to work on flights bound for Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Citing advice from the World Health Organisation that says aviation constitutes a “low risk” for Ebola transmission the International Air Transport Association has asked carriers to continue flying to affected countries.
Air France has also stated it has a plan in place to do everything to stop the spread of Ebola.
Crew have received instructions on how to isolate a person who is suspected of being infected, for example reserving a toilet for that person, among other measures.
The airline has also ensured its flights are equipped with face masks, rubber gloves and alcohol-gel. Air France also keeps a record of anyone on the flight who might have been in contact with an infected person.
The company says the temperatures of all passengers are taken at the time of boarding to determine whether they have a fever.
Since Ebola is not an airborne virus, but requires the direct contact of body fluids, such as sweat, blood, saliva and vomit, the chances of a transmission of Ebola between passengers are low
But Patrick Henry-Haye, who is behind the petition told Le Figaro newspaper: "We know full well that people with the virus can take up to three weeks to develop the symptoms," he said
SEE ALSO: What are the chances of Ebola coming to France
(Photo: AFP)Previous Next
“Stop! Stop! Give me a chance to speak!”
His voice was nearly drowned out by the crowd.
“I’m as angry as you are!”
I wasn’t sure that was possible or likely. The mass of students who had gathered in the street between the dormitories and the classrooms were pretty upset.
This was a special kind of hurt, to take someone’s hopes and dreams, already tested a number of times over, stretched out over years, dash them to the rocks. That special sort of pain and loss demanded to be expressed, yet the very fact that it was being experienced by everyone here made it impossible to do so.
How could someone turn to a friend for support when that friend was in the exact same position? How did one shout to vent their anger when they went unheard with so many other shouting voices around them? How did they find release in tears when their tears were but drops in a bucket?
It was a situation that would have left countless students floundering and frustrated to begin with, and rather than feed into the anger, the crowd was feeding into that frustration. It was an important and interesting distinction.
I wondered what Mauer would think or do here.
The student council vice president was standing off to one side, while the treasurer took the ‘stage’ – a set of stairs by one of the dormitories. She was a very feminine and demure looking girl with straight black hair. The sidelong glance she gave me said a lot, however, about the thought processes going on in her head.
She knew this wasn’t working, but she wasn’t getting flustered.
“Listen!” the student council treasurer belted out the word, pushing his voice to its limit. But the body of students already had some who were shouting at that volume or close to it.
Not a proper unified body, but a collection of individuals. The school had made it so, pitting them against one another.
I beckoned the vice president.
I was around a corner, so only a small few students saw as she came to stand a short distance from me.
“You either have a great deal of trust in me,” I told her, “Or you still feel you can seize control of this situation.”
With the clamor, I doubted she heard everything I said. She seemed to infer my meaning well enough.
She had to lean in close to my ear to make herself heard, “About fifteen percent the first, eighty-five the second.”
I pulled out the letters, took a mostly blank paper and tore off enough that there was no writing on the paper that was left. I scribbled a note on it, folded it in three, and showed her before leaning in closer to tell her, “Take over. Tell them this to get their attention. Say what I told the treasurer to say. Then direct them.”
Speaking into her ear, I could see over her shoulder. The student council president was standing by the stairs, watching us very intently. He was a skinny guy, but with immaculate attention to his appearance. Anyone else might have looked a little stiff with their brown hair so neatly parted and their academy so crisp, face like stone, but he managed to look regal.
Recruiting the student council had been easy as pie. I’d headed over to the stretch of lawn by the water, told them things had started, and they had been mine.
Things were never all that easy, however. I’d talked to Ralph from the Greenhouse Gang, who had once been a part of the student council, and things left unsaid had left a loose thread of thought untied in my head, drifting this way and that, grazing against everything I saw and everyone I met, looking for a conclusion. Now I suspected I’d found it.
The groups of this particular Academy fell on a spectrum, and the student council was on the opposite end from the Rank. The rooftop girls were close to the Rank in disposition and attitude toward the school, yes, but when Gordon Two had said that the student council and the Greenhouse Gang didn’t mingle much, there was likely more to it.
There was a gulf, and this petite, beautiful young lady of good grooming was likely the culprit.
“When you go up,” I said, “Bring the student council president with you.”
“United front?” she asked.
“Something like that,” I said. “Take the paper. Hold it, but don’t show them and don’t say there’s proof because that’s going to be letter number three. But it’ll be something the crowd can fixate on. Don’t swear, don’t incite them too much, and try not to point fingers. They’re incited enough.”
She took the letter. “I don’t cuss.”
“You might be tempted to in an effort to win over the crowd. But it’ll be the whipcrack that sets the horse running, and you might get dragged down into that stampede.”
She gave me a nod, then walked off, still giving no evidence of the agitation that seemed to have struck everyone else. For anyone else it might have looked curious that she could be so calm. For her, it was part of her mystique. I watched carefully as she put her hand lightly on the student council president’s arm, and he was brought along as if she was a giant with an iron grip. His eyes, however, were on me.
Calculating, suspicious.
The vice president of the student council was a breaker of hearts, it seemed. I could piece together where things stood. Ralph, the heavyset, glasses-wearing member of the Greenhouse Gang was number two in the student rankings and the student council president there was number one, while this young lady was number four or five, and yet they were subordinate to her when it came to their hearts and her ability to toy with them. Perhaps Ralph had escaped. Perhaps he’d put some distance between himself and her because he knew he hadn’t.
The crowd drew a little quieter as the pair joined the treasurer at the top of the stairs. They were joined by the secretary, boy’s rep and girl’s rep.
The vice president held up the paper I’d given her, pinching one corner of it so it stood up and out from her hand. She waited patiently.
The shouting boiled down.
“Thank you,” she said. She gave the paper a little shake. A few hundred eyes watched it move, curious. “The Academy knew what was happening and they prepared for it. They invited security from other Academies to come here because they knew we would be upset. Some of us have already seen a lot of unfamiliar faces wearing security uniforms and moving in large groups. There were going to be more a month from now.”
The crowd was hers. The scenario she was painting was clear in their minds. The fact that she knew meant she had answers they wanted. She could have told them the Academy planned to murder them all, and they might have believed her for a long moment.
She remained seemingly at ease as she laid out the facts. “In the meantime, they planned to deal with any students who they thought might cause any particular trouble, lock down the labs so we couldn’t access our experiments. They would have broken the news to us in a way that they could manage. I can tell you this because we knew. We put the letter up on the bulletin board, by way of a colleague.”
Murmurs and concern swept over the crowd.
Before it could take hold, before the crowd could direct that pent up frustration at the student council, the student council president took a half step forward, raising his hands. The murmuring died down.
“We heard whispers before the semester even started, we found out for certain only a month ago. We’ve been debating this for a long time and when we came to a decision, we decided to do it this way. So you could all know and you could make your decisions instead of the Academy making it for you.”
It was so nice to work with people who were good at what they did. Both student council president and vice president were people who had talked to crowds before. They’d been filled in before this, and they adapted to new information and necessities easily.
Not on Mauer’s level, obviously, but I really liked how the vice president had worked the mention of the experiments being locked away in the middle of that one statement, then moved away from it. I’d written it down to get her to drop that seed, but she had actually done it gracefully enough that she had to have known what it was I was intending.
“Our focus has always been you students,” the student council vice president said. She raised her voice where I imagined Mauer might have lowered it to sound more intimate. She clenched a fist and it seemed somewhat ineffectual. But there was honesty in her not being perfect. “I know that sounds sappy and lame, and a lot of you won’t believe me. We have spent hours and hours down on the knoll where we meet, debating what we can do for you. For a lot of you, we’re the only people who have rooted for you that aren’t your families, and we’ll be the only ones who root for you until you build a family for yourselves. We wanted this school to be a good school for all of us.”
I winced a bit at that last segment. Family wasn’t what we needed people to be focusing on when we were trying to get them to do the reckless thing and run away with Sylvester’s rebellion.
“With that in mind,” she said, speaking louder, “please take what I say with the deathly seriousness I mean it! Stay together! Be safe, but don’t take ‘safe’ to mean you have to be happy about this! Believe me, your student council certainly isn’t!”
And with that, the crowd started shouting again. More of a group than a series of individuals.
I saluted the student council and let them continue to reassure the students, drawing them together into a unit while shaping the frustration with the Academy and the nature of the danger. The Treasurer started speaking again, talking about what to do in case of gas, if things went that far.
Things would go that far.
There was more to do, but it had to wait. In the meantime, I moved through the outskirts of the crowd.
One fellow stood off to one side, arms folded, eyes on the ground, while he leaned against a wall. A matter of three or four feet separated him from the rest of the crowd, but from his body language, it might as well have been a mile.
He was a muscular guy with a many-times broken nose that had flattened out at the bridge. Those two things put together might have explained the distance and disconnection as people avoided the tough guy. But if it did, then those people weren’t really paying attention. The look on his face was painful to see.
He wasn’t seeing or hearing any of this.
The student council was breaking up, mingling at the front of the crowd instead of holding the stage. The throng had leadership. People were taking up a chant, and the student council let them.
Broken-nose pulled away from the wall as if he’d been stuck there with something tacky and he needed some force to do it. I had to jog to catch up to him, at which point I started walking alongside him. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice me right away. When he did, he looked almost animal, and it was a kicked animal at the end of its tether. One that was liable to bite.
“Want a job?” I asked him, raising my voice to be heard.
The bite didn’t happen. Confusion crossed his features.
I shrugged. “Making an offer.”
“Fuck you on about?” he asked. A few heads turned to glance our way, he was so loud.
“I’m giving you an option. I’m offering you work. Do you have anything left to lose by giving it a shot?”
“What the fuck do you know about me?”
“I’m good at reading people!” I said, taking the foul language in stride. I did my best to look disarming.
“Not thinking about that right now,” he said. “Got family to go back to.”
I saw that look again. He wasn’t staring blindly into empty space anymore, but the darkness was there.
“Fuck family,” I said. “Look after yourself first.”
“Fuck family?” he asked, bristling. “You don’t get to tell me that. I’ve got a sister I care about.”
“With your parents? Or is she alone? Because we could look after her too.”
“With my mom and da. They’re going to be ashamed of me for all this, even if it’sn’t my fault,” he said. Then he came to, and went on the offensive, “What the fuck are you on my case about?”
“Trying to help,” I said. “Fuck your mom and da. You look after you. Come on. Put off going home. Work for me, get some experience, you can leave at any time. Travel some, spend some time with people your age. Then when you feel like you can face down your da and your mom like a proper man, you go and you see your sister again.”
“Nah,” he said. He shook his head like there was something clinging to it that he wanted to get loose. “Nah, it’s not that simple.”
“It’s not!” I said. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the crowd. “How’s about you work for me for today only? Just until it’s time to sleep? Twenty crown dollars for a day’s work. You can use some of that for yourself, some for a present for your sister, and have lots left over. If you want more, you can stick around, keep working for me.”
He shook his head.
So much was happening, time was tight, and I couldn’t spend too much time on tasks like this…
Lillian would have wanted me to look after others.
I was patient. I waited, thumbs hooked into my pockets.
“Twenty?”
“Twenty,” I said. “You just have to put up with me for today.”
“Where’s someone your age come up with that much money?”
I reached into a pocket, and fished out my wallet. I picked out the money in dollars and half-dollar bills, and showed him. Then I split the twenty in half and pushed it into his pocket.
“Ten to start. Ten when you finish for the day.”
“That’s a lot more than twenty in your wallet there.”
I grinned again, content that I’d changed his mind. “What’s your name?”
“Rudy.”
“I’m Sylvester. You work until we finish tonight, then give me your answer tomorrow about whether you want to keep working for me, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Say it. So I know you heard!” I said, raising my voice again.
“I work until tonight. Tell you tomorrow,” he said.
I indicated Rudy should follow, and started through the crowd again.
He followed.
I searched the crowd. The shape of things made for a kind of geographic correlation to mental states and approaches. The people nearer the front of the crowd were a very different type than the people at the back. Some people banded together in groups, others stood apart, and others moved through the crowd, and all of that said something about psychology.
I moved around the outer fringes. Among people who were invested enough to be here but disengaged. They came in a number of varieties. The witnesses who were here because something was happening, the skeptical, and those who came as part of a group and were seeing their friends go in a very different direction. There were others.
Among those others was a narrower selection. Those who’d come looking for an answer. They remained on the very periphery because they hadn’t found it. Rudy was one of them. I walked around the entire left flank of the crowd, the rear side, and almost the entire length of the right side before I saw another.
A girl was fighting with a friend. Her friend was frustrated with her, pulling at her arm while she was bent over as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders.
With the crowd being what it was, Rudy and I were able to draw within arm’s reach of them without them paying any attention to us.
“You’re being so lame.”
“Just leave me alone. Go! You want to go so bad, go.”
“I’m trying to be a friend.”
“Just go! Please! I’m okay.”
“Look me in the eye. I want to see you’re okay..”
She looked up and moist but tearless eyes met her friend’s. They were far from okay.
“You’re sure?” her friend asked.
The reluctant girl gave a one-shoulder shrug that hitched a little, as if she was so tense that there was a kink in the works. “I’ll manage.”
“Really really sure?”
“Go. Lust after your boy. Be happy, be angry. Do whatever. I’ll manage. But I don’t feel like getting lost in a crowd.”
“I’ll find you after, okay?”
“Okay,” the reluctant girl said. She flashed a smile.
Her friend disappeared into the mob.
I gestured for Rudy to wait, and approached the reluctant girl, positioning myself to get her attention.
Her hands kept rubbing at a runny nose or grabbing at a strand of her long hair, oftentimes two hands at once. It took her a second to see me, and she flashed a polite smile my way when she did.
“You don’t have to smile for me,” I said, leaning in to speak into her ear and be heard.
She gave me a look, as if she’d misheard or misunderstood me.
I leaned in again. “It’s not right. It sucks.”
As I leaned away, both of her hands were already at her hair, pulling one lock into strands as if she was going to braid it, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t devote the attention to the task. She nodded and sniffed.
I leaned in once more, and as gently as I could, I asked, “Do you need a shoulder to cry on?”
She reacted as if I’d slapped her.
The tears followed soon after.
I didn’t want to offer my arms and spook her, so soon after tearing down the only layer of defense she’d had, even if it had been as fragile as wet paper. I looked over my shoulder, looking for her friend. I might have to send Rudy.
Then she lurched forward, one mini-step that crossed half the distance between us, before she bounced away, hesitant.
I put my arms out and wrapped her in a tight hug.
Odd, to offer such a thing. Odd, for someone to accept the offer. As the saying went, any port in a storm.
The storm was raging right now.
“S’alright,” I murmured
|
. He said "For your family's loyalty, I will let you know of a calamity that is coming, for I have done the greatest theft of all time. For years, I pretended to be content to rule with the others in the Confederation, but now it will all come down. The worm of silk, the great pride of the central kingdom, has been stolen by me." And he showed the inside of his cloak, filled with the valuable worms, and other treasures of the east. "Of course, the gods will be shaken and rage against the theft. But I have made a new alliance with the Northern tribes, and as the gods blame each other the Golden Hordes will sweep down as a storm and conquer, with me as their sole sponsor. None, god or merchant will be spared, of the South or the East, but Bynzantine will be my chosen city, and I will rule the world's trade networks from there. Flee while you can." And Hermes left. I write this now, as a record, should I not make it home to write it again. Any god which remains would surely call for my head, but this is one time I think my lord Hermes does not lie.
Recovered Material 2765-1C-647
Discovered Location: Floor of the central market area
Description: A 15 m by 15 m glass panel. When viewed, subjects will hear the same message translated into their primary language, as spoken by a female.
Decipherable Contents:While looking through thousands of documents obtained through search warrants, Kelly
came across communications between the Irvine 11 and their defense attorney, Reem Salahi. The defense identified 20,000 pages, deemed privileged by the judge, in the D.A.'s possession.
At least one email between Salahi and a student was used to bring new charges against that student.
Wilson said Kelly seemed unaware of the protocols that needed to be followed when he came across the privileged attorney-client communications.
"It's a stop and discuss," Wilson said. "It's not a self-police."
The Orange County district attorney's office now has to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that none of the evidence it plans to use was directly or indirectly obtained through privileged information, Wilson ruled.
The defense attorneys initially asked the court to recuse the D.A.'s office from the case altogether because, they argued, the use of the privileged information prejudiced the case against the students. The defense also said that it would be difficult for the prosecutors to argue the case fairly when considering the level of involvement top deputy district attorneys and District Attorney Tony Rackauckas himself have in the Irvine 11 case.
Wilson contended that the breach was not severe enough to remove the district attorney's office.
The next court hearing is scheduled at 9 a.m. July 21 at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.DOG owners have been put on notice after a record fine was imposed on a Sydney man whose pit bull mauled and killed another dog.
Nick Raptis, 34, of Beverly Park, was fined $20, 223 and disqualified from owning a dog for three years after his American pit bull terrier Hannibal attacked a Maltese-silky cross terrier being walked by its owner at Carss Park, in Sydney's south, in April last year.
Happier times... Jennifer Aldridge and her pet dog Honey at Cronulla Beach six weeks before the dog was mauled and killed.
Jennifer Aldridge, 22, had been walking her dog Honey when the pit bull charged, dragging it out of its collar and onto a road, where the pit bull began eating Honey.
The woman's husband, Murray, tried to stop the attack by beating the dog with a shovel, but had to stop when it bared its teeth at him.Getty Poll: Trump narrows Clinton's lead nationally to 3 points
Donald Trump continues to cut into Hillary Clinton’s lead nationally, according to a national NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll released Tuesday.
Trump has reduced the 5-point advantage Clinton held last week to just 3 percentage points. But the former secretary of state still leads 48 percent to 45 percent.
Story Continued Below
Clinton dominates among minority voters. The Democratic front-runner leads Trump by a 75-point margin among black voters, 84 percent to 9 percent, and holds a 37-point advantage among Hispanic voters, 65 percent to 28 percent. Women also favor Clinton, while Trump leads among men and white voters.
Eighty-seven percent of Republicans would back Trump, while just 7 percent would support Clinton. The margin is almost just as large among Democratic voters, with 87 percent favoring Clinton and just 8 percent supporting Trump. The billionaire who often boasts about growing the party holds an 8-point advantage among independents, 44 percent to 36 percent.
While conservative and very conservative voters break for Trump and liberal and very liberal voters sway Clinton’s way, Clinton also leads among moderates by double digits, 53 percent to 39 percent.
In the Democratic primary, Clinton leads Sanders nationally by 14 points, 54 percent to 40 percent. But it’s the Vermont senator who beats Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head by a wider margin, 53 percent to 41 percent.
A majority of Republican and Republican-leaning voters trust Trump to be the party’s standard-bearer over House Speaker Paul Ryan. Nearly six in 10 said they trust the presumptive GOP presidential nominee to lead the Republican Party, while 39 percent said they trust the House Republican leader more.
The survey of 14,100 adults — 12,507 of whom say they’re registered to vote — was conducted online May 9-15. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points.Move over Carson Kressley. A new celebrity shopper has emerged!
The attention from Jeanne Cummings’s much-talked-about Politico story has naturally focused on the $150,000 in luxury clothing purchased for Sarah Palin at Neiman Marcus, Sak’s Fifth Avenue, and Barney’s. What hasn’t yet gotten any attention is who bought it for her. But buried in the same FEC disclosure form that revealed Palin’s taste for the fine life is the name of the man who appears to have been her personal shopper: Jeff Larson.
Under FEC regulations, the RNC must file what is called a “Schedule F form,” which lists “expenditures made by political committees or designated agents(s) on behalf of candidates for federal office.” This is presumably the same document from which Cummings drew for her story. Here’s a blow-up of the RNC’s most recent Schedule F. I’ve circled the controversial purchases—and the apparent purchaser—in red magic marker.
Along with the matching dates and dollar totals, note the “Transaction ID Number,” which clearly connects the questionable expenditures with reimbursement payments made to Larson. (To totally wonk out for a second, the “m” stands for “memo,” which is included to provide an additional explanation of the transaction—basically, it links a disbursement with whatever was purchased.)The Legend of Bruce Lee is a 2008 Chinese biographical martial arts television series based on the life story of martial artist and actor Bruce Lee. The 50-episode series was produced and broadcast by CCTV and began airing on October 12, 2008. It stars Hong Kong actor Danny Chan as Bruce Lee and American actress Michelle Lang as Lee's wife, Linda Lee Cadwell. The production period spanned nine months, with filming taking place in China, Hong Kong, Macau, the United States, Italy, and Thailand, and with a budget of 50 million yuan (US$7.3 million).
Lee's daughter, Shannon Lee, is credited as executive producer of the series.[1] Other martial artists such as Mark Dacascos, Ray Park, Gary Daniels, Ernest Miller, and Michael Jai White are also featured in the series, playing the roles of martial artists prominent throughout Bruce Lee's life and career.
The Legend of Bruce Lee has seen increasing viewership since its debut in 2008. The first 14 episodes broke China's former record held by Chuang Guan Dong. According to the CSM survey held on 26 October 2008, the first 30 episodes of the series received viewership ratings above 10.35%. The finale episode attained a viewership rating of 14.87%, breaking CCTV's all-time high record set in 2003.
Plot [ edit ]
Part One: High School Years in Hong Kong [ edit ]
Bruce Lee (Li Xiao Long) is a high school student in a school with mostly British students, with the Chinese students like him belonging in the minority. Bruce notices to his dismay that there was a subtle discrimination against his race in the school, which urges him to excel in order to prove that Chinese people are also competent and talented. Along with his childhood friend Qin Xiao Man, Bruce participates in a cha-cha competition and wins, much to the annoyance of his British schoolmate Blair Lewis. This competition, in addition to Blair's evident dislike of the Chinese, creates tension between the two, leading to a number of physical fights. Their bitter rivalry worsened when Bruce joined the school boxing team, whose ace boxer was Blair. The two participate in the school boxing competition, and Blair loses to Bruce. Blair then realizes that unlike him, Bruce had a good chance of winning the boxing championship. He decides to help Bruce by teaching him about the three-time champion David Cafeld. This marks the end of the enmity between the two and the start of a friendship that they maintain for many years after.
Bruce's previous run-ins with Blair had made him want to learn martial arts. He talks to Uncle Shao about this, and Uncle Shao is reluctant at first but relents to teaching Bruce some fighting techniques. Uncle Shao then also convinces Bruce's parents to have Bruce be taught martial arts by a kung fu master.
Bruce meets Yellow Brat, a servant and student of Wang Yunsheng's Kung Fu Center, who he fights and loses to. Bruce's father helps him get admitted to Master Ye's Wing Chun Academy and Bruce begins his training with Master Ye. In the boxing championship, Bruce applies the Wing Chun techniques he has learned from Master Ye and beats David Cafeld.
Now adept at fighting, Bruce uses his skills to protect the businessmen in his neighborhood from the extortions of Wang Li Chao's gang. This angers Wang Li Chao, and he orders Ah Liang to kill Bruce. Ah Liang crashes into Bruce's bike with a motorcycle. Bruce survives the crash but goes into a coma. This incident prompts Bruce's parents to send him to America, realizing that staying in Hong Kong will inevitably lead to his death. Fearing that the attempt on Bruce's life will be traced back to his gang, Wang Li Chao orders Yellow Brat to kill Ah Liang. Meanwhile, Bruce goes to America with Uncle Shao.
Part Two: Late Adolescence in America [ edit ]
Bruce spends the first few weeks living at Uncle Shao's house in Seattle. Uncle Shao then tells Bruce that he must leave Uncle Shao and have a better life. Bruce accuses Uncle Shao of getting rid of him, but he does as Uncle Shao says and leaves. He meets Jesse, an African American cab driver who cheats Bruce out of some money, but later on becomes a friend and loyal follower after Bruce saves him from some thugs. Bruce arrives at the restaurant of Ms. Ruby, a fellow Chinese and a friend of Uncle Shao's. Ms. Ruby lets Bruce live in the basement of her restaurant, and employs him as a helper and dish washer. He later quits his job in order to go to school. He enrolls at Edison Technical School, and, with the help of Jesse, was able to rent a small room and get a job of delivering papers. At the school, he meets Arroyo, and the two briefly engage in a romantic relationship. At his school's program, Bruce challenges the karate team with his Chinese Kung Fu. He angers the karate team, and they challenge him to a formal battle. Bruce agrees to fight, but only if Master Kimura, the karate expert of Seattle, will be the one to fight him and if reporters will cover the event. Kimura assents to this. He and Bruce fight, and Bruce defeats him in an astonishing eleven seconds. This makes Kimura question his beliefs about martial arts and become fascinated with Bruce's Kung Fu that he asks to be taught more about it. Bruce declines, but Kimura's persistence soon wears him down and Bruce grudgingly accepts Kimura as his student. This action of Kimura angers the Karate community. He refuses to quit learning from Bruce, and he is soon considered an outcast. Kimura becomes one of Bruce's closest friends, and they also maintain a student-teacher relationship for many years. Bruce soon shares with Kimura the secret of his Kung Fu, which is actually a mixture of moves from Wing Chun, Boxing, and even from cha-cha. This peculiar style of Bruce stems from his belief that martial arts should be practical and usable in actual combat. He therefore often takes moves from a particular style and adapts them into his own.
Part Three: College Years and Opening a Kung Fu School [ edit ]
Bruce passes the entrance exam at the University of Washington. Unsure of what he should major in, he asks for the advice of Professor Kane. After a lengthy discussion, Bruce decides on taking up philosophy. Bruce later applies many of what he learns at school to his martial arts. He takes a particular interest in the philosophy of Yin Yang. He also starts to teach Kung Fu for free to his schoolmates.
Kimura talks to him about opening a Chinese Kung Fu school. Bruce confesses that while it is his dream to open one, he cannot afford it. Kimura then volunteers to sell his dojo and use the money to help Bruce, but Bruce refuses, saying that he does not want to be indebted to Kimura that way. Kimura sells the dojo anyway. Bruce is enraged at first, but soon accepts Kimura's help, vowing to repay him someday.
Arroyo urges Bruce to come to the Philippines with her, where they can share a life of comfort together. Bruce tells her that he does not want to leave America because of his dream of becoming a Kung Fu master and philosopher. Arroyo expresses her dislike for Kung Fu. Bruce breaks up with her, knowing that she will never understand his passion. He then meets Linda Emery. The two start dating, and Bruce tells Linda about his dreams. She begins to share his enthusiasm with Kung Fu and even starts to take some Kung Fu lessons from Bruce.
Kimura and Bruce rent a basement for the Kung Fu school, but Linda advises them to delay the opening in order to participate in the Asian Cultural Festival, an event which she believed will serve as a good way to promote the opening of the school. Bruce agrees to this. Their promotion was going well until Bruce was challenged and defeated by Yamamoto, a 6-dan karate master who held a grudge on Bruce for speaking low of karate. Bruce demands a rematch and loses again, but he refuses to stop challenging Yamamoto.
Blair makes a reappearance in Bruce's life. He also enrolls at Bruce's school and becomes a great help to Bruce's improvement by urging his friend Professor Dan Inosanto, a Fil-Am expert on martial arts techniques, to meet with Bruce. Inosanto becomes one of Bruce's closest friends as well as his occasional advisor on martial arts. Wally Jay, a jujitsu master, piques Bruce's interest. He challenges Wally Jay in order to learn more about jujitsu techniques. At the end of the match, it was apparent that Bruce will win, but he chooses to let the duel in a draw so that Wally Jay may keep his prestige. This earns him respect from Wally Jay and the two exchange knowledge on martial arts.
Believing that only in fighting various martial arts masters can he improve his style, Bruce posts a sign at the gate of his school containing a brazen statement of challenge, "No matter the time, place or person, if I am challenged, I'll be there. –Bruce Lee." His display of arrogance angers the martial arts community and they send Yamamoto to defeat Bruce once and for all. However, now equipped with new techniques from jujitsu and wise advice from Inosanto, Bruce defeats Yamamoto.
Yamamoto finally agrees to teach Bruce some of his own karate in exchange for lessons on Bruce's Kung Fu. Bruce teaches everything he knew to Yamamoto, even if he knew that the former wasn't doing the same. This trade was actually a ruse on Yamamoto's part, which allowed another martial artist named Ed Parker to learn all of Bruce's moves. Ed Parker then fights Bruce and uses Bruce's Thrusting Punch to defeat him. Bruce ends up in a hospital due to his injuries. Ed Parker feels guilty for this afterward, realizing that what he did was dishonorable. He visits Bruce in the hospital and formally apologizes. Ed also gives his 20 years' worth of notes on karate to Bruce, which Bruce gladly uses to expand on his martial arts theories.
Linda's mother meets Bruce, and it is clear that she dislikes him. She asks Linda to break up with Bruce, but Linda refuses and leaves their home. Her mother suffers a heart attack. Bruce urges Linda to visit her mother despite their differences. He goes with Linda to the hospital and wins Linda's mother's approval.
Bruce takes part in the California Karate Competition and defeats the three-time champion, Hoffman. After the match, Hoffman approaches Bruce and they teach each other. Hoffman also talks to Bruce about moving his Kung Fu school to Oakland, where Hoffman thinks it will gain more students and attention. Bruce agrees and decides to go to Oakland immediately, to the dismay of his friends. He drops out of college and bids goodbye to Professor Kane. Linda becomes furious with him for not discussing this with her. Bruce asks her to marry him but Linda refuses. Their quarrel ends the next day when Linda realizes how much she loves Bruce and agrees to marry him. Bruce sets up their marriage at once. They have an outdoor wedding, attended by their closest friends and Linda's mother. Linda also decides to leave school. She soon gets pregnant with their first child, Brandon.
Part Four: Oakland [ edit ]
Bruce buys a house for him and Linda and opens a bigger Kung Fu school with the help of his friends Jesse, Kimura and Uncle Shao. The rent, however, was too expensive for Bruce, so Uncle Shao decides to lend him the money.
Meanwhile, the kung fu masters in America become enraged with Bruce for putting up a martial arts school without approaching Master Wang, the president of the Chinese Martial Arts Association in California. On top of this, Bruce also teaches many non-Chinese students, which is strictly prohibited among the Chinese. The masters challenge Bruce to an official match against Yellow Brat. Should he lose, Bruce is either to close down his school or to stop teaching non-Chinese people. But should he win, Bruce will be allowed to continue running his school whichever way he wanted. The two fight fiercely against each other, but the battle is interrupted when Linda unexpectedly goes into labor. The match is stopped, and Yellow Brat allows Bruce 15 days before they will have to fight again.
Bruce goes home to Hong Kong after receiving the grim news that his father has died. He returns to America for his match with Yellow Brat. Master Wang, seeing how the match was going to inevitably end, declares Bruce the winner. This enrages Yellow Brat, and in a fit of fury, strikes Bruce on the back with a large piece of wood. This seriously injures Bruce and paralyzes him from the waist down. He is told by his doctors that he may never walk again, let alone practice martial arts. Horrified by this news, Bruce becomes depressed and withdrawn, claiming that he would rather die than not be able to practice his Kung Fu. However, stern and encouraging words from Linda makes him become determined to walk again even while knowing it would take a miracle for him to heal. Master Wang visits Bruce along with the other Kung Fu masters. Together, they all apologize for what Yellow Brat did and knelt down to beg for Bruce's forgiveness. Bruce bids them all to rise, saying that instead of fighting amongst themselves, the Chinese must stand united. His words earned him profound respect from the masters, especially from Wang.
His paraplegia confines Bruce to a wheelchair. Unable to teach anymore, he ordered his friends to close down the school, and they reluctantly oblige. With Linda's help, Bruce writes a book about his martial arts theories. Linda decides to bring Brandon home, who had been staying with her mother since Bruce injured his back. She makes Brandon stand on his own and tells him to walk to Bruce. To Bruce's horror, Brandon starts falling. Fueled by fear for his son, Bruce reflexively reaches for Brandon, and, to his and Linda's surprise, was able to stand up. Bruce slowly regains his strength and starts training again. Together with Uncle Shao and Kimura, he decides to call his style "Jeet Kune Do". They reopen the Kung Fu school, and the news of Bruce's miraculous recovery entices many people to become his students. Bruce also decides to join the Karate national championship. Inosanto tells him that Bruce's only true rivals in the competition are Rolex, the defending champion and Piao Zhengyi, a taekwondo genius. Knowing that Bruce's current skills will not be enough to defeat Rolex, Inosanto advises Bruce to spar with Piao and exchange techniques with him. Rolex, on the other hand, was helped by Ed Parker, Yamamoto and Wally Jay.
The two finally meet in the championship match. As Bruce and Rolex are almost evenly skilled, the fight was difficult for them both. Rolex proved to be a formidable opponent, but Bruce prevails in the end. Bruce's fame in the world of martial arts piques the interest of George, a Hollywood producer. He talks to Bruce about making a movie featuring Bruce and his Jeet Kune Do. Bruce is delighted at the notion, for he feels that it was time to change the rather ludicrous portrayals of his people in movies. He saw movies as the medium through which the world would change their impressions of the Chinese.
Part Five: Hollywood [ edit ]
Bruce decides to pursue Hollywood. In order to do so, he leaves Oakland and moves to Los Angeles with Linda and Brandon. He also decides to leave the Kung Fu school to Kimura and Uncle Chao.
George, Bruce and the screenwriter Robert brainstorm over the movie's plot, which they then called Kung Fu. George's boss Mr. William sees the great potential in the movie; however, he was not convinced that a Chinese man like Bruce should play the lead. Without George's knowledge, William arranges for the Hollywood actor Robert Douglas to be taught Kung Fu by Bruce, so that he could be the lead actor for the movie. Bruce and George find out about William's intentions. Bruce is so enraged at the deception that he even accuses George of being in on the lie. Nevertheless, Bruce refuses to go back to Oakland, and makes a living by training Los Angeles police officers instead.
Bruce goes to Hong Kong with Linda and Brandon. He pays a visit to Master Ye, who, as it turns out, was offended when Bruce created Jeet Kune Do. He felt that Bruce was being arrogant and disrespectful. Bruce assures Master Ye that Jeet Kune Do is a practical style of fighting that owes much to Master Ye's Yong Chun Quan.
George once again comes to Bruce with a television project. Still wary of another deception, Bruce meets George with skepticism. However, George gives him a contract and a $2000 deposit upfront. This removes Bruce's doubts and he agrees to work on the TV series The Green Hornet as Kato. The Green Hornet turns into a hit series and a second season is promised, but Mr. William decides to discontinue the show.
Still determined to let Bruce star in a movie, George convinces Bruce to work on the movie Silent Flute. As with their past ideas, Silent Flute will feature kung fu. Mr. William grants George permission to make the movie, with the condition that it will be filmed in India. George and Bruce attempt to satisfy this term; however, they could not find suitable taping locations in India. George tells Mr. William about their predicament, and Mr. William confesses the truth: he has $800,000 deposited in India that he can only use in India. The only reason he had agreed to make the movie was so the money would not be wasted. Mr. William then gives them the choice of either filming in India, or cancelling the project entirely. Bruce refuses to compromise, and the movie is cancelled.
Part Six: Rise to Fame in Hong Kong [ edit ]
The movie industry, however, had not fully closed its doors on Bruce. The Hong Kong film company Golden Harvest seeks him out with a movie project, The Big Boss. The company president, Mr. Chow, saw Bruce Lee as the way to saving Golden Harvest from going into bankruptcy. They travel to Thailand, the shooting location for the movie. While the movie was being made, the master Thai boxer King Charles sends Bruce a letter of challenge. Bruce happily accepts the challenge but spends some time first to learn about Thai Boxing. He also tells King Charles that their duel will be filmed, and if Bruce won, he will get to use the footage in The Big Boss. He and King Charles fight, he is a formidable opponent and for a lot of the match dominated but Bruce wins. In addition to the footage of the fight, King Charles also teaches Bruce about the secret of his ferocious knee technique: heavy iron shoes, of which he gives Bruce a pair.
The Big Boss becomes a box office success and Bruce becomes a famous and sought-after movie star in Hong Kong and in other nearby Asian countries. Though he receives other offers from other companies, Bruce decides to stay with Golden Harvest, to the relief and appreciation of Mr. Chow. Mr. Chow gives Bruce a fully furnished house as a gift, and Linda comes to Hong Kong along with Brandon and Shannon to live with Bruce.
Bruce starts working on his second movie, Fist of Fury, but demanding beforehand that he be given the authority that a director has. Mr. Chow obliges, but this arrangement causes some friction between Bruce and the movie director, Director Ho.
Bruce had been working nonstop on the script of Way of the Dragon, a movie that he planned to direct himself. Mr. Chow is hesitant, in letting Bruce write and direct his own movie, but his doubts disappear upon reading Bruce's script. Mr. Chow also suggests that Bruce start up his own production company under Golden Harvest. This way, Bruce will be able to fulfill all of his visions. Bruce agrees and starts the production of Way of the Dragon.
Part Seven: International Fame and Death [ edit ]
The success of Way of the Dragon far exceeds those of Bruce's previous films, catapulting him into international stardom. Hollywood hears of his success in Asia. Mr. William, realizing his mistake in not pursuing Bruce before, sends George to offer Bruce another movie, Blood and Steel. Wary of yet another possibility of being lied to, in addition to the fact that he is currently making the movie Game of Death, Bruce refuses at first. Bruce talks to Mr. Chow, who then assures him that he may work with Hollywood. He advised Bruce to represent Golden Harvest so that the project will become a joint project between them and Hollywood. Bruce accepts the offer and postpones the making of Game of Death in order to work with Hollywood. He then changes the movie title of Blood and Steel into Enter the Dragon. In the middle of making the movie, Bruce collapses due to overwork and is rushed to a hospital.
A series of prank calls in the middle of the night starts to occur in the Lee household, promptly scaring Linda. Meanwhile, still in the hospital for further examinations, Bruce becomes bored and decides to go home despite his doctor's advice. He then receives a call from Ah Lin saying that Master Ye has died. Bruce attends the wake but does not go to the funeral. He visits Master Ye's grave afterward, expressing his fear that Master Ye is angry at him for creating Jeet Kune Do.
Perhaps influenced by Master Ye's death, Bruce buys a life insurance policy. He then resumes the production of his movie Game of Death. His head aches from time to time, but he refuses to rest, which makes Linda fear for his health.
It is then revealed that it was Yellow Brat who had been harassing Linda with the late-night phone calls. He challenges Bruce to yet another fight. Linda and Bruce talk about the Yellow Brat's challenge. Linda is against it, but Bruce argues that Yellow Brat will continue harassing them if Bruce does not accept the challenge.
Linda, Kimura, Professor Inosanto, along with Bruce's brothers from Yong Chun Quan serve as spectators in the fight. In a totally 1 sided fight where Yellow Brat fails to land a single hit Bruce defeats Yellow Brat but does not deliver a finishing blow. The scene ends with Linda offering a towel to Yellow Brat. Yellow Brat accepts the towel and appears to have a change of heart.
Bruce then visits Xiao Man's home and goes to a meeting with her and Mr. Chow to discuss their upcoming projects. Meanwhile, Linda anxiously waits for Bruce to come home. Bruce suffers another headache and complains of dizziness, so he was made to lie down on a couch. Xiao Man gives him a pain reliever and he falls asleep. He doesn't regain consciousness and was therefore rushed to a hospital, where he is then pronounced to be dead.
The last part of the episode features the original newspaper articles, as well as old footage on the nationwide mourning of Bruce's death. Bruce's grave is visited by Linda and Bruce's friends. A voice narrates how Bruce Lee greatly influenced the world's view on the Chinese and their Kung Fu, along with his contributions to Kung Fu films. The episode ends with a faint voice whispering, "Shh... don't wake him."
International syndications [ edit ]
Brazil: "Bruce Lee – A Lenda" began airing on Rede CNT on May 2, 2011.
Italy: "La Leggenda di Bruce Lee" began airing on RAI 4 from April 4.
United States: began airing on KTSF on weeknights at 9:00 pm from April 2009.
Vietnam: aired on HTV2 and DN1-RTV with a translated name Huyền thoại Lý Tiểu Long in 2009.
in 2009. South Korea: 이소룡 전기 began airing on SBS from May 2009.
began airing on SBS from May 2009. Japan: ブルース・リー伝説 began airing on BS NTV from October 3, 2009. It was released on DVD by VAP in 2010.
began airing on BS NTV from October 3, 2009. It was released on DVD by VAP in 2010. Canada: The Legend of Bruce Lee began airing on Fairchild Television on March 15, 2010.
Hong Kong: began airing on ATV Home on May 14, 2010 but with episodes trimmed from 45 minutes to just 30 minutes. The first four episodes included interviews with Danny Chan at the start of each episode. Also, the opening theme was replaced by the ending theme and vice versa.
Philippines: Begin airing on Q on June 28, 2010 replacing Idol World: Super Junior.
. Taiwan: Begin airing on TTV on September 27, 2010.
Venezuela: "La Leyenda de Bruce Lee" began airing on Televen on October 15, 2012
Netflix in the UK. All 50 episodes are on Netflix in the UK
Indonesia: The Legend of Bruce Lee airs on Hi Indo in 2018.
Also, in the United States, Lions Gate Entertainment edited the series into a 183 minute long film and released it on DVD on September 21, 2010.[2]
Cast [ edit ]Yes, literally. This guy is asking for your money in exchange for a swift kick to the groin. According to an interview with Las Vegas Weekly, this guy, I'm going to call him Jimmy, and his roommates have been doing this since February. Jimmy says they make a couple hundred dollars a day and has even raked in a whopping $1,750 in just one night of nut crunching...fun?
When asked, 'What kind of pain are we talking about?', Jimmy replied:
There are some tricks to it, a certain way to ride my pants up. I’d say one out of every three kicks connects. I count on a few misses a day to keep me from being out. I got put out of the game a couple weeks ago when I had an NFL kicker come up. Right after he kicked me, he showed me his Super Bowl ring.
Jimmy says most people kick him as hard as they can, but as he tells Las Vegas Weekly, that is what he expects: T
hey want to kick me, they want to go for it, as hard as they can. They want to see me drop. They want to see me in pain. That’s the whole point. That’s how they get their entertainment and I provide it, I guess. Supply and demand.
Times are tough and the money he is getting for the short amount of work is actually pretty good, but this guy is literally nuts. Next time you want to complain about your job, remember you could always go and get your balls repeatedly booted in for $100+/day. You could even undercut the business and give out 2-for-1 deals. Genius, right?
[Via Las Vegas Weekly ]First Major Drilling in Golan in Decades to Begin in Weeks
The Israeli High Court has thrown out the last objections from environmental groups and approved Afek Oil and Gas, a subsidiary of politically well-connected Genie Israel, to begin exploratory drilling in the Golan Heights.
Genie Israel is run by retired Israeli General Effi Eitam, who famously declared Palestinians “creatures who came our of the depths of darkness,” and predicted Israel would eventually have to kill them all. The company also has a “strategic advisory board” that includes Rupert Murdoch and other well connected international individuals, and formerly also included Dick Cheney.
The move to drill in Golan faced its biggest obstacle within Israel from the environmentalist movement, but a much bigger problem is that the Golan Heights are considered, per UN Security Council Resolution 242, Israeli-occupied territory that actually belongs to Syria.
Afek got around environmental complaints by arguing that they’re only drilling for exploration, not production, but is expected to move toward commercial production in a few years.
Last 5 posts by Jason DitzHot_Bid Profile Blog Joined October 2003 Braavos 36026 Posts Last Edited: 2012-09-05 13:12:43 #1
We took into consideration several factors when making this decision. First, we considered the players' Code S and Code A schedules after they return to Korea, which would be after almost 40 hours of flight and travel time within four days. We feel that this amount of travel immediately before their GSL matches may affect their performance too greatly. Second, both players are minors (15 and 16 years old, respectively), and the teams have expressed concerns about them traveling by themselves.
We understand that many fans may be disappointed about this but we feel it is the right decision for the players and teams, as well as for the TSL4 Finals game quality. Accordingly, we have increased the prize pool by $1,000 for first place. We are sorry to those fans who were hoping to meet the players in New York. Unfortunately we will not be flying our TSL 4 finalists Creator and Life to New York to play the finals live. The finals will be played beforehand and cast from replays on Saturday by Day[9] and djWHEAT.We took into consideration several factors when making this decision. First, we considered the players' Code S and Code A schedules after they return to Korea, which would be after almost 40 hours of flight and travel time within four days. We feel that this amount of travel immediately before their GSL matches may affect their performance too greatly. Second, both players are minors (15 and 16 years old, respectively), and the teams have expressed concerns about them traveling by themselves.We understand that many fans may be disappointed about this but we feel it is the right decision for the players and teams, as well as for the TSL4 Finals game quality. Accordingly, we have increased the prize pool by $1,000 for first place. We are sorry to those fans who were hoping to meet the players in New York. @Hot_Bid on Twitter - ESPORTS life since 2010 - http://i.imgur.com/U2psw.pngHardware
If you're looking for a stylish fashion-forward smartwatch that can double as a luxury timepiece, look elsewhere. With its square display, polycarbonate shell and wide silicone bands, the Pebble Time is decidedly more geek than chic. Yet, the Time has a charm all its own, with a casual, sporty look that I rather like. Sure, it'll probably look out of place at a fancy cocktail party, but for a simple everyday watch, I think it's alright.
Additionally, while most smartwatches tend to be oversized and bulky for my slender wrists, the Time's 40.5 x 37.5mm case isn't too big or too small; it fits me just right. It's a hair thinner than its predecessor at 9.5mm (the original Pebble was 11.5mm thick) and has a slight bend to better hug the curvature of the wrist. The stainless steel border surrounding the display also gives it a touch of class that I really appreciate -- it's certainly better than the original's all-plastic styling.
The real differentiator between the Time and the original Pebble, however, is the display -- it's now in color. But instead of going with an OLED panel, Pebble opted for a color e-paper display. Yes, this means that the screen isn't quite as bright and luminous as the Apple Watch and most Android Wear devices. The colors of e-paper are also a lot more muted than what you would see on an OLED display. But e-paper gives the Time a few significant advantages.
For one thing, the display is on all the time; there's no need to press a button or flick your wrist to see what time it is. The 2.5D Gorilla Glass display is also very readable even under really bright sunlight, which isn't what we can say about some of the other smartwatches. If you do want the display to be brighter, there's an LED backlight that you can turn on momentarily, but there's unfortunately no backlight timer to make it last longer than a few seconds. The biggest advantage, though, is battery life. While the Apple Watch and Android Wear devices might manage a day or two
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ucker (89%) (11%)
Got Veren Ass Giver (Gay) (92%) (8%)
Götübozuk. Loose ass! (68%) (32%)
Götümü ye Eat my ass (lick) (79%) (21%)
Götüne koyayım fuck your ass (88%) (12%)
Inci Siker Pearl fucks (58%) (42%)
Kaltak Bitch (67%) (33%)
Orosp whore (13%) (87%)
Orospu Bitch (77%) (23%)
Orospu cocugu Son of a bitch (84%) (16%)
Orospu cocugu Erman Dinkay Suck My Dick Dumbass (21%) (79%)
Orospu �ocu�u Son of a bitch (75%) (25%)
Pezevengin çocuğu son of a pimp (79%) (21%)
Pezevenk Pimp (89%) (11%)
Piç Bastard (88%) (12%)
Pi� Bastard child (24%) (76%)
Salak Stupid - Silly (87%) (13%)
Sersem sikin mahsulü. You offspring of a micropenis! (45%) (55%)
Sik kafalý japon askeri Dickhead japanese soldier (83%) (17%)
Siki tutmuþ The one who hold the cock (72%) (28%)
Sikik orospu cocugu fucking son of a bitch (67%) (33%)
Sikilmis Eksisozluk you fucked asshole (14%) (86%)
Sikimin eşşeği My dick's donkey (exactly) (70%) (30%)
Sikimin suyu Juice of my dick (73%) (27%)
Sikkafa Dickhead (70%) (30%)
Siktir git Fuck off (84%) (16%)
Siktir lan get fucked (68%) (32%)
Tassakli krallar siksin ebeni Kings with balls fuck your midwife (47%) (53%)
Travesti Travestite (71%) (29%)
Turk Bozi Tgha My Turkish Brother (42%) (58%)
Yaragimin basi Top my dick (33%) (67%)
Yarak Dick (91%) (9%)
Yarak kafalı Dick head (89%) (11%)
Yarak kafali Dickhead (75%) (25%)
Yarrağımı ye Eat my cock (from ass or pussy) (81%) (19%)
Yarrağımın antifrizi Antifreeze of my dick (79%) (21%)
Yarrağın içeriye uzamış Your dick is ingrown (82%) (18%)
Yarragimin anteni the antenna of my cock (86%) (14%)
Yarrak Agizli Dick Mouth (92%) (8%)
Yarraðýmýn kurma kolu. The winding arm of my dick. (75%) (25%)
Yarra��m� ye Eat my dick (40%) (60%)
a.q fuck your pussy (76%) (24%)
agzina isiyim pee in your mouth (88%) (12%)
am biti pussy lice (93%) (7%)
amcik agizli pussy mouth (87%) (13%)
amcik hosafi pussy jello (89%) (11%)
amin oglu son of pussy (69%) (31%)
amina koyayim fuck you (62%) (38%)
amina osuray?m fart to your pussy (72%) (28%)
anam avradým olsun ki upon my mum (40%) (60%)
anasýný eþþek kovalasýn Let the donkey your mum (38%) (62%)
antenle otuzbir cekmek masturbating with an antenna (45%) (55%)
ass hole got deligi (86%) (14%)
atyarragi horse dick (91%) (9%)
bizirina dil atarim I lick your clitoris (70%) (30%)
bok ye eat shit (93%) (7%)
chukumu yala suck my dick (63%) (37%)
corci'nin am� fucking pussy (46%) (54%)
dallama dumbass (80%) (20%)
dalyarak branch-dick (thin dick) (86%) (14%)
daþak geçme lan Please do not mock (50%) (50%)
fenerbahçe whore house (39%) (61%)
gece siker night fucks (43%) (57%)
gece sikicileri night fuckers (56%) (44%)
girsin gotune keman yayi may a violin bow enter your ass (88%) (12%)
girsin sana to yr ass / pussy (54%) (46%)
got veren ass giver (84%) (16%)
gotoglani assboy (80%) (20%)
gotunu sikeyim fuck your ass (81%) (19%)
göt deliği Asshole (81%) (19%)
götveren ass giver (77%) (23%)
ibne oðlu ibne son of a fag. (74%) (26%)
inci siker pearl fucks (51%) (49%)
it oğlu it offspring of a dog (75%) (25%)
kalantor horny, old man (36%) (64%)
keriz fool (89%) (11%)
kicimi op kiss my ass (89%) (11%)
o.ç. son of a bitch (73%) (27%)
orospu cocugu son of a bitch (83%) (17%)
oruspu cucugu son of a bitch (30%) (70%)
ossurturum böyle I left in poor condition (33%) (67%)
otuzbir masturbation (49%) (51%)
otuzbirci wanker (88%) (12%)
pezevenk pimp (76%) (24%)
pic bastard (88%) (12%)
pipi little dick (70%) (30%)
piç oðlu piç son of a bastard (42%) (58%)
puşt gay man who enjoys getting from ass (55%) (45%)
seni sikeyim fuck you (54%) (46%)
sik beni fuck me (85%) (15%)
sik kafali dick head (88%) (12%)
sik kili pubic hair (71%) (29%)
sikem chichen chech ha i fucked your mouth (20%) (80%)
sikik hayvan fucked animal (44%) (56%)
sikimde degil I don't fucking care (92%) (8%)
sikimin kurma kolu crown of my dick (81%) (19%)
sikimin siktisi my dick's fuck (42%) (58%)
siktir. fuck off (88%) (12%)
som agizli ibne raunchy gay (43%) (57%)
taşşaklarımı yala suck my balls (83%) (17%)
tam bir surtuksun,kaltaksin you are such a bitch (78%) (22%)
yarraðýmýn antifrizi you are an antifreeze of my dick (57%) (43%)
yedi ceddini siktigimin oglu the son of seven dynasties I fucked (87%) (13%)
yedinmi yarraðý þimdi You left in poor condition now (37%) (63%)
çük kafalý little dick head (57%) (43%)A scientist measures a deadly bird flu virus grown in a lab at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Atlanta headquarters. (James Gathany/CDC)
Nearly 700 positions are vacant at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because of a continuing freeze on hiring that officials and researchers say affects programs supporting local and state public health emergency readiness, infectious disease control and chronic disease prevention.
The same restriction remains in place throughout the Health and Human Services Department despite the lifting of a government-wide hiring freeze last month. At the National Institutes of Health, staff say clinical work, patient care and recruitment are suffering.
Like HHS, the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have maintained the freeze as a way of reducing their workforces and reshaping organizational structures after a directive last month from the Office of Management and Budget that said all federal agencies must submit a plan by June 30 to shrink their civilian workforces. HHS, State and EPA also face significant cuts in the Trump administration’s budget proposal for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. The administration, which unveiled a “skinny budget” for fiscal 2018 in March, is scheduled to release its full budget next week.
A senior CDC official said unfilled positions include dozens of budget analysts and public health policy analysts, scientists and advisers who provide key administrative support. Their duties include tracking federal contracts awarded to state and local health departments and ensuring that lab scientists have the equipment they need.
Though HHS has exempted many positions from the freeze, including physicians and personnel who respond to cybersecurity and public health emergencies, many support personnel who often play critical roles have been affected.
“It’s all the operational details,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because CDC staff are not permitted to comment publicly without approval from HHS. The situation has been made worse, the official said, because the agency has been operating without a permanent director since Tom Frieden stepped down in January. That job is considered one of the most crucial public health positions in the government given the CDC's role in tracking and stopping infectious disease outbreaks in the United States and worldwide.
When HHS Secretary Tom Price visited the Atlanta-based agency in April, the former Georgia lawmaker called CDC “an absolute jewel to our nation,” adding that its location in his home town “makes it extra special.” In a meeting with senior leaders, Price promised to name a director within the month.
But at least 125 job categories have been blocked from being filled, according to a recently released CDC document. Each covers multiple people. The document was released through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Sierra Club and reviewed by The Washington Post. Many of the unfilled jobs are high-level positions, at least GS-12 and above, according to the document.
Several positions are in the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, which regulates some of the world's most dangerous bacteria and viruses and manages the nation's stockpile of emergency medical countermeasures. Others include positions in the director's office, infectious disease offices and the office for noncommunicable diseases, injury and environmental health.
The hiring freeze, imposed by an executive order that President Trump signed Jan. 22, covers currently open positions, prevents new positions from being created and blocks lateral transfers, officials said.
[Here are The Washington Post reporters who cover federal agencies]
The Sierra Club's public health policy director, Liz Perera, said the administration’s “thoughtless freeze on hiring public servants prevented the CDC from filling critical roles at programs essential to preventing chronic and infectious diseases, advancing immunization and safeguarding environmental health.”
An HHS spokeswoman referred questions about the freeze to a May 2 speech by Price, who asked managers to review the efficiency of operations and draft plans to reduce staff. The budget process should be viewed as a way to “reimagine how we can do the work that we do and how we can do it better,” he told employees.
“We’re not looking to achieve an arbitrary financial goal or workforce numbers,” Price said. “We’re certainly not gunning for specific programs or agencies.”
It’s unclear how many positions have been affected across HHS. At NIH, hiring is permitted for “essential patient care staff vacancies,” but reassignments are not allowed and contractors cannot be used for full-time duties, according to an internal NIH memo last month.
Some support positions, such as program assistants and laboratory assistants, remain vacant. Many of those personnel log in or handle patient specimens and issue reports, jobs that directly affect patient care, said a senior physician at the National Cancer Institute who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of funding retaliation.
One such assistant who worked for the physician left late last year, but the institute has been unable to replace her because the human resources department “was overwhelmed by the demand and could not process recruiting actions,” the clinician said.
Recruitment for a senior laboratory position also has been held up “since it's complicated to get exceptions granted,” the doctor said.
Read more:
Obamacare repeal guts crucial public health funds
Anti-vaccine activists spark Minnesota's worst measles outbreak in decades
New Ebola outbreak declared in Democratic Republic of Congoby Joshua Russo
Editor-In-Chief
Doom and Fallout 4 get VR support in 2017
During their E3 media briefing Bethesda announced that they are jumping into the virtual reality market with BethesdaVR. Doom will be receiving a virtual reality tour of Hell, bringing the demonic world to life for the HTC Vive.
Also coming to an HTC Vive in 2017 is Fallout 4. The open world post-apocalyptic first person role-playing game seems perfect for virtual reality.
DOOM & Fallout 4 are coming to VR. Tune in for more details during the #BE3 Plus post show pic.twitter.com/LKsbzY0qh4 — Bethesda (@bethesda) June 13, 2016
No footage was shown during the show but demos were available to the audience after the show and more details will follow during the Bethesda post-conference show.
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commentsI got Ingress working as well. Only downside is that it doesn't seem to play as well as on my Nexus 5 (which I guess is understandable). Certain things are just as good but when it comes time to fight, it seems to lag a bit more. It's still great that you can play the game but when I'm going out to play for a long time, I'll either put my SIM card in my Nexus 5 and play from it, or enable hotspot on the Z30 and play from the Nexus.
Hopefully 10.3/10.3.1 improves things a bit. And funny/sad I guess that the only reason I'm still using my Nexus 5 now is to play Ingress.
Oh... and I don't know if it is just me, but playing Ingress on the Z30 just kills the battery.IMMIGRATION Minister Chris Bowen has admitted the high court judgment to continue an injunction against the Gillard government's plan to send asylum seekers to Malaysia is a significant blow for the Government's plans to undermine the people smuggling model.
Mr Bowen has spoken of his disappointment with the ruling, which has effectively made an injunction on plans to send asylum seekers to Malaysia permanent.
``Let's make no bones about it. This is…disappointing,'' he said.
Mr Bowen said the Government had commissioned ``urgent'' legal advice for the ramifications of the judgment for offshore processing more generally.
He said the cabinet would ``carefully'' consider options.
When asked if the Government would consider the opposition's suggestion of using Nauru as an offshore processing location - if it is still legal - Mr Bowen said he couldn't rule anything in or out.
He described the decision as a significant blow for the Government's plans to undermine the people smuggling model.
When asked how the Government got its legal advice so significantly wrong on the matter, Mr Bowen said the High Court had applied a “new test”, which had not been understood before.
In a major upset for the Government, the full bench of the high court has this afternoon found the plan to be legally flawed.
“Today the High Court held invalid the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship's declaration of Malaysia as a country to which asylum seekers who entered Australia at Christmas Island can be taken for processing of their asylum claims,” a statement said.
“After an expedited hearing before the Full Bench, the Court by majority made permanent the injunctions that had been granted earlier and restrained the Minister from taking to Malaysia two asylum seekers who arrived at Christmas Island, as part of a larger group, less than four weeks ago.”
The plan has been stalled since August 7, when human rights lawyer David Manne took the matter to the nation’s top court.
Lawyers for asylum seekers caught up in the plan have argued that the deal is not lawful because Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN refugee convention and will not provide enough human rights protections.
Under the plan, the Gillard Government wanted to send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia in exchange for 4000 genuine refugees.
The Government has always claimed to be on strong legal grounds with the plan.
However, Chief Justice Robert French said today: "The declaration made... was made without power and is invalid."
Legal Professor Don Rothwell said that by implication, Minister Chris Bowen needed to demonstrate a country was an appropriate country for which asylum seekers could be sent for offshore processing.
There can be no appeals to the High Court on this decision, however the Government may seek to amend the legislation in the parliament in order to get its plan through.
"It is always a legitimate tactic open to a Government when it loses a case like this to review the legislation,'' Prof Rothwell.
He said Minister could seek to "revive'' the Malaysia solution by issuing a valid declaration in accordance with the terms the court has identified.
He said that at face value, that could include Malaysia becoming a signatory to the UN refugees convention, or Australia and Malaysia entering into a legally binding agreement as to the treatment of asylum seekers.
"It indicates that any attempt by the Government at this point in time to make arrangements for offshore processing are significantly constrained,'' Prof Rothwell said.
Opposition Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said the judgment marked a major policy bungle.
“On Julia Gillard’s year of delivery, this minister has failed to deliver,” he said.
“(The deal’s) construction was always pretty shoddy.”
Mr Morrison said he’d been to Malaysia and it was plain that the protections claimed did not exist.
He said the Opposition still favoured the plan of re-opening Nauru for offshore processing.
Originally published as Court scuttles Gillard's Malaysia dealThe Associated Press has an exclusive report on a long-standing problem involving United Nations peacekeepers who target women and children as young as 12 for sex in countries where they are stationed. The AP found thousands of accusations of sexual assault lodged against peacekeepers but the men responsible are very rarely held accountable. The article focuses in particular on a sex ring in Haiti that existed from 2004 to 2007. The AP has a copy of a UN report in which victims are identified by number, i.e. V02:
V02, who was 16 when the U.N. team interviewed her, told them she had sex with a Sri Lankan commander at least three times, describing him as overweight with a moustache and a gold ring on his middle finger… During her interview with investigators, another young victim, V07, received a phone call from a Sri Lankan peacekeeper. She explained that the soldiers would pass along her number to incoming contingent members, who would then call her for sex.
The UN report eventually concludes the number of sexual assaults is too numerous to describe in detail and involved 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers:
“The sexual acts described by the nine victims are simply too many to be presented exhaustively in this report, especially since each claimed multiple sexual partners at various locations where the Sri Lankan contingents were deployed throughout Haiti over several years,” the report said. Investigators showed the children more than 1,000 photographs that included pictures of Sri Lankan troops and locations of where the children had sex with the soldiers. “The evidence shows that from late 2004 to mid-October 2007, at least 134 military members of the current and previous Sri Lankan contingents sexually exploited and abused at least nine Haitian children,” the report said. After the report was filed, 114 Sri Lanka peacekeepers were sent home, putting an end to the sex ring.
The AP contacted Sri Lanka to ask what happened to the soldiers who were implicated in the crime. After refusing to answer for six months, the government finally replied that the UN considered the matter closed. None of the soldiers were imprisoned and some are still serving in the military.
For its part, a UN spokesman offered the AP this sort of pablum: “Improving the assistance provided to victims, who are at the heart of our response, is fundamental.” The UN continues to send Sri Lankan peacekeepers to Haiti.
Again, the Haitian sex ring is just one example. The AP found 2,000 complaints of sexual abuse over the past 12 years, with over 300 of those involving children. In very few cases are the soldiers involved ever punished. That decision is not up to the UN, but to the home countries who provide the soldiers.
A woman who was raped by a peacekeeper tells the AP, “As far as the U.N. goes, they came here to protect us, but all they’ve brought is destruction.”Goldsmiths, University of London is launching a world-first postgraduate degree in Queer History, beginning in 2017. The university is also in discussions about the creation of a National Queer Archive.
1983 London Lesbian Strength March - AlisonW
A small number of other universities in the UK offer postgraduate qualifications in gender, sexuality and culture, while some US institutions offer Queer Studies, often as a minor or as classes incorporated into Gender Studies degrees.
Goldsmiths is the first university to offer a specialist MA in Queer History.
Goldsmiths aims to develop a centre of excellence for research in the field and to become the global name for the study of Queer History.
The university’s long-term vision is the creation of a fully accessible National Queer Archive in south London, involving MA and PhD students in the process.
Planning for this essential repository of primary material is in its early stages. An archive would provide a much-needed launch pad for a new generation of academics focusing on queer issues, and play a vital role in disseminating knowledge.
Symbolically, it will help rescue from obscurity a neglected history that has so often been denied legitimacy.
Led by Professor of History Jan Plamper, the new MA in Queer History introduces themes and research methods in Queer History and lays a solid foundation in the wider discipline of history.
The programme, based in the Department of History and launching in September 2017, will dissect historically binary categories, such as male/female, heterosexuality/homosexuality, active/passive, and uncover the processes through which these categories came to be seen as ‘natural’.
It also focuses on questions of power, including how sexual orientation and race throughout history have often become interlinked in asymmetrical, oppressive ways.
The MA will mainly explore the Early Modern and Modern periods, and includes classes on the nature of homosexuality in mid-Victorian Western society, and emancipatory movements (especially of the post-1969, post-Stonewall period).
Dr Vivienne Richmond, Goldsmiths Head of History, comments: “The Department of History at Goldsmiths has long pioneered the study and understanding of past societies through their belief systems and their attitudes to subjects such as love and the body.
We teach issues, themes, and controversies so that students can study not only the linear aspects of traditional history but also concepts. Queer History is a natural extension of our work.
“The persecution of LGBTQ people in many parts of the world is acute and worsening, despite huge strides in equality elsewhere. Such injustice is fed by ignorance and there is an urgent need to counter this through insight and understanding. Alongside the imperative to confront prejudice with fact, is also a responsibility to celebrate and commemorate.”
Professor Plamper, course convenor, continues: “Through the study of history we can observe how LGBTQ narratives have developed across time, and critically explore the roots of the community. This helps build an understanding of one’s own story and identity in the present for those who consider themselves queer, but it also raises consciousness in everyone else.
“Developing self-confidence through knowledge is a powerful antidote to both subtle and not-so-subtle oppression.
“Scholarship should be at the vanguard of this, yet Queer Studies remains ‘closeted’ or indeed has been quashed at other institutions. A centre of excellence for the study of Queer History is very much overdue.”
Applications open in October 2016 for students wishing to begin the course in September 2017.
Visit www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-queer-history for further information.
Read more from Professor Plamper on Gay Star NewsAn Oklahoma legislator is proposing a ‘what about the children?’ bill (HB 2696) that aims to tax violent video games. Former schoolteacher and current Democratic member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, William T. Fourkiller, wants to levy an excise tax rate of one percent on the sale of violent video games; because these games supposedly spawn the obese bullies which plague our society.
“Violent video games contribute to some of our societal problems like obesity and bullying, but because they raise a lot of revenue, they can also provide part of the solution,” Fourkiller told Oklahoma City’s KFOR.
A sense of urgency surrounds HB 2696 as it has been pushed under the emergency heading; Fourkiller says its necessary for the “preservation of the public peace, health and safety.” The tax’s goals seem to be genuine, and not simply intended to fatten the government wallet. The money gained from HB 2696 will go directly to curing Oklahoma children of the socially undesirable gaming sins which the bill is attacking; half of the money will go towards the Bullying Prevention Revolving Fund, and the other half will go towards the Childhood Outdoor Education Fund.
“A gentleman shot a police officer and stole his car,” Fourkiller points out. “He had been playing Grand Theft Auto.”
A glaring problem with the bill is that it seems to be geared towards a vague swath of video games in its definition: “’Violent video game’ means a video or computer game that has received a rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board of Teen, Mature or Adult Only.” That means, aside from obvious games like Fallout, Bully, Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty, the bill would be taxing games like Beatles Rock Band, You Don’t Know Jack and The Sims 3; though according to the KFOR piece, Fourkiller says he isn’t targeting the video game industry.
As far as obesity goes, sedentary TV screen time as a whole has, in the past, been painted as the main culprit for spawning overweight children. However, Reason points to a recent Michigan State study which found that race, age and socioeconomic status were stronger indicators of a child’s future BMI, rather than cellphones, gaming or the Internet.
Fourkiller may also have an outdated idea of gamer demographics, as the ESA published a study which determined the average gamers’ age to be 37, with 29% of all gamers over 50 and only 18% of gamers under the age of 18. So, if Oklahoma’s gamer demographic mirrors the ESA study, this proposed sin tax could end up affecting many adults who enjoy their sinful games.
If the bill doesn’t get a majority in the Oklahoma House and Senate, it will go to the public to vote on in November. Though 1% of a $50 game is only 50 cents and may not seem much, the fear is that this bill could be laying the groundwork for larger anti-gaming movements. It’s definitely not the first time these sentiments have surfaced in legislation: Texas in 2006, Jon Erpenbach from Wisconsin in 2007, New Mexico’s “No Child Left Inside” movement in 2008. Of course, none of these propositions seemed to make it far, and as we’ve seen with the California violent video games case in July, going after games for their content can be unconstitutional as it infringes on First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court’s ruling in California addresses much of Fourkiller’s argument: Violence isn’t the sole realm of video games; violent video games aren’t necessarily connected to aggression; interactiveness, or “taking on a role” as Fourkiller puts it, invites commentary and perspective, not brainwashing; and ultimately, esthetic choices about art and literature aren’t the government’s decision. But what do you think? Is this recent anti-video game legislation an example of a sentiment gaining traction? Is this an issue that even concerns the government? Or should it be up to parents alone to police gaming habits?
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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Chip Solar House is powered by the sun and controlled through Xbox KinectEmergency crews from several towns work an area outside the New Hampshire Ball Bearing plant after an explosion, Monday, Feb. 10, 2014 in Peterborough, N.H. At least 13 people were injured, but a company spokeswoman says none of the injuries appears to be life-threatening. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)
PETERBOROUGH, N.H. (AP) — An explosion at a New Hampshire ball bearings plant has injured at least 13 people, but a company spokeswoman says none of the injuries appears to be life-threatening.
Spokeswoman Kathy Gerrity says it's unclear what caused the explosion Monday afternoon at New Hampshire Ball Bearings Inc. in Peterborough.
Monadnock Community Hospital spokeswoman Laura Gingras (JIN'-grahs) says 13 people were treated there. She says two were then flown to other hospitals and six were released by Monday evening.
The southwest New Hampshire plant employs 700 people. Gerrity says she's unsure how many people were inside when the explosion happened Monday afternoon but there are usually about 450 working around that time.
New Hampshire Ball Bearings' corporate headquarters are in Chatsworth, Calif. It's a division of Japanese company Minebea.San Jose Victim’s Lawyer; Police Forced Trump Supporters to Walk THROUGH MIDDLE OF MOB (VIDEO)
Sean Hannity had the father on tonight of the 14 year-old Trump supporter who was violently beaten by the San Jose anti-Trump mob last week. Harmeet Dhillon, the lawyer for the woman violently assaulted and spit on outside the Marriott, was also on Hannity.
This 14 year-old boy was repeatedly sucker-punched, chased and tackled by the violent mob.
The father described the horrible abuse his son went through outside the Trump rally.
Father of son attacked at Trump rally: “One individual hit my son in the back of the head…& they started chasing after him.” #Hannity — Fox News (@FoxNews) June 10, 2016
** Kristinn Taylor spoke with the father and wrote about the boy’s assault earlier today.
The lawyer said San Jose police FORCED the Trump supporters to walk THROUGH the gauntlet of violent anti-Trump thugs.
Victim’s father: We were directed through the mob. It’s one thing to let people protest. It’s another thing to make the people go through the protest. Force them to. We weren’t allowed to go away from the protest. Victim’s lawyer Harmeet Dhillon: I’ve heard anecdotally from people who have spoken to police officers. Right before we were directed into this mob this group of Trump supporters was thanking the police for being there. This is a generally pro-law enforcement crowd. It’s not a knock on police in general but in this specific instance it’s shocking to see 250 of them lined up and not lifting a finger to help hundreds of victims.
Hundreds of Trump supporters were assaulted, spit on and beat-down after the rally.
FOX News posted the entire segment.
The left declared war on America last week.When I wrote my piece entitled “One More Thing…” in August following the news that Steve Jobs was formally stepping down as CEO of Apple, I knew that sooner or later there would have to be a follow up. Unfortunately, it ended up being sooner.
While the reaction following Jobs’ resignation was powerful, the reaction to his passing has been nothing short of amazing. Former employees, colleagues, celebrities, adversaries — even the President of the United States paid tribute. But once again, the most fascinating group of people showing their support are the ones who did not know Steve Jobs. It’s the everyday people that simply used and loved his products.
The Tweets, Facebook messages, blog posts, etc, flowing in from all over the world have been a unifying force. I happen to be in London right now, and in one Tube ride the day after he passed, I overheard several emotional conversations about Jobs. I also met a complete stranger yesterday and when I told him I was American, it was the first thing he brought up. Even my mother messaged me about it.
This type of global unity tends to happen when a major celebrity passes away — think: Michael Jackson — because nearly everyone on the planet knows who they are. People always look for common bonds, and those are easy ones to establish. That’s because pop culture shoves them in our faces for years if not decades. And the type of fame they achieve goes hand-in-hand with celebrity.
But Steve Jobs was not a celebrity — at least not in the traditional sense. Sure, he was famous, but he did not seek fame. Nor did he need it. The main goal of his career was not to sell his image. He was the head of a company.
When you think about it that way, I think the reaction we’re seeing to his passing points to something different. One element, as I wrote about following his resignation, is the emotional tie that people have to Apple products. Because so much thought and care is put into them, those who purchase and use them tend to cherish them. And as iPods, iPhones, and iPads have come around, the Apple user base has grown exponentially. Steve Jobs was the personification of Apple’s products — hence, a strong connection.
But it goes even deeper.
People have been writing about their profound sadness over the loss even though they’ve never met Jobs. And many of them have noted that they didn’t expect to feel this way. Thinking about it, I believe this is related to two things.
First, Jobs died young. Even though his illness ravaged his body and made him appear far older than he actually was, Jobs was only 56 years old at the time of his passing. The average male life expectancy in the U.S. is just about 76. For the world overall, it’s 67. To be fair, those ages are calculated at birth, but Jobs was also a billionaire with access to any doctor in the world that he could have wanted. He was simply dealt a bad hand with cancer. And it robbed him of at least 20 years on this planet.
But it didn’t just rob Jobs. It robbed us too. That’s why people who haven’t met the man care so deeply. Not only is his early death a sad story, it takes away a man who will go down as one of the greatest innovators of not only our time, but of any time. And while you could certainly argue that someone like Michael Jackson contributed great art to the world — he did — he hadn’t done anything significant in nearly 20 years at the time of this death. Steve Jobs was in his prime when it came to his trade, when he passed away.
It’s both sad and frustrating to think about what we’re going to miss in terms of innovation over the next 20 years because Jobs won’t be here. Even if you aren’t a fan of Apple, you cannot argue that Jobs hasn’t transformed industries and made them significantly better. He was a true iconoclast.
And we’re now in an age where technology is becoming increasingly important to everyones’ lives on a daily basis. The fact that we have to push forward without the best mind in the field is quite frankly, a little frightening. Others will step up. But there will never be another Steve Jobs. The world aches knowing that.
Many artists and geniuses aren’t appreciated in their day. It’s only after they’ve died that their legend is established. But Jobs was appreciated and given proper respect well before his death. This also plays into the outpouring of emotion we’re seeing. Most people realize that the world has just lost a genius.
And now we have a plethora of tools to talk about it in real time when it happens. When Disney died, when Einstein died, people had to read about it in the paper the next day and then talk about it with maybe a dozen other people that they happened to run into in the subsequent days. It’s hard to establish broader global context that way.
Before that, it was hard to know the significance of a great person dying at all. Michelangelo was considered the greatest living artist of his time. But even if people in say, China, had learned of his death, would they have any idea who he was? Probably not.
I might argue that Jobs is the first truly transformative figure to die in an age of transformative technology. He’s someone who will be talked about a thousand years from now. And the fact that he was transformative in technology just compounds the reactions to his death right now.
In many ways, it’s perfect that the video below surfaced again just after Jobs’ passing. It’s the original Apple “Think Different” commercial. In it, images of transformative people throughout the 20th century are shown as a narrator toasts to them for changing the world. In the versions that aired on TV, the narrator is Richard Dreyfuss. But in the version below, the narrator is Steve Jobs.
The toast reads as follows:
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Perhaps he didn’t know it in 1997 when he recorded this, but that is absolutely Steve Jobs describing himself. He was crazy enough to think he could change the world. And he did.
[image: Jonathan Mak]NEW DELHI: If the skin whitening cream isn’t as phenomenal as advertised or the hair oil not producing a lush mop as promised, you may soon be able to claim compensation not only from the advertisers, but from the celebrities endorsing the product.The Central Consumer Protection Council (CCPC), under the chairmanship of minister K V Thomas, on Monday decided to set up a sub-committee to suggest strategies to deal with such advertisers. Among the concerns raised was peddling of products by celebrities.“About 50% of the daylong conference was spent addressing … the huge impact of misleading advertisements, particularly food items, hair oil and health products,” said a CCPC member who attended the meeting in Kochi. “Even the celebrities must pay compensation in case there is a complaint,” said Joseph Victor, a CCPC member.What seems to have moved the consumer affairs ministry is a direction from the MP high court to set up an ad monitoring panel as recommended by the Vibha Bhargava Commission. “An ad monitoring committee with proper budgetary support from the Centre may be set up to monitor the advertisements on regular basis… the committee will have the powers to (take) corrective actions and (
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his departure. The pass break-up came in the first quarter when he dropped a sure interception near the Bengals' goal line. With few Colts near him, Hall might have returned that interception 97 yards for a touchdown.Zoe Williams’ article (No more nukes? Why anti-nuclear protests need an urgent revival, 7 September) is a timely and thoughtful reminder of why civil society must respond to the present US-North Korea nuclear crisis if we are to avert catastrophe. Protesters clashed with police in Seoul on Thursday while demonstrating against the deployment and expansion of the US Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) missile-defence system. The South Korean protesters realise what many of our leaders don’t: deploying more weapons, conducting more military drills, and intensifying the war of words could soon tip the balance in favour of a real nuclear war that would kill millions. There will be no winners, whatever Donald Trump might imagine.
Last year, here in Britain, CND led a demonstration of over 60,000 against the replacement of Trident, our own nuclear weapons system. We were joined by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon, as well as trade unionists and representatives of faith groups and civil society organisations. That demonstration argued what should now be clear to all: nuclear weapons are no deterrent. Trident does nothing to protect us on the brink of nuclear war: on the contrary it will make us a target.
From the early CND demonstrations onwards, we called on our leaders to ban the bomb. This year, that demand has culminated in 122 countries negotiating a legally binding nuclear ban treaty at the United Nations. It opens for signature on the 20th of this month. Britain must join them, rule out joining military exercises on the Korean peninsula, and support calls for the resumption of the six-party talks. The demands of our demands movement are not naive, utopian slogans. They are urgent and necessary actions that our politicians must heed if our species is to survive. They are needed now more than ever, and the more of us that make that case to our leaders, the better chance we have of securing a future for ourselves and the generations to come.
Kate Hudson
General secretary, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
• While welcoming Zoe Williams’ article on Greenham and the 1980s, I am astonished that she failed to acknowledge the highly effective International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) that has brought over 450 organisations in 100 countries together to achieve the ground-breaking new treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons.
I was one of the “scruffbags”, living at the Greenham women’s peace camp from 1982 until we got the 1987 treaty, and I’ve been applying those lessons ever since. Empower women, youth and nuclear-free countries and we can stop militarism in its tracks. That’s how Ican came about. We found new ways appropriate to the 21st century, reawakened global awareness about the dangers of nuclear weapons and now have the ban treaty as the next step to accelerate their elimination.
Greenham women were ridiculed and dismissed until we were successful. So it will be for the nuclear ban treaty. Britain, France and America issued an immediate denunciation of course, sounding like sulky children faced with having their noisy bang-makers taken away by the grown-ups. But history indicates that it will narrow their nuclear options until they disarm and join.
So wake up, Britain – the rest of the world has banned nuclear weapons, Scotland wants rid, and the next prime minister (or the next) will probably join the 2017 nuclear prohibition treaty. So it would be sensible to cancel Trident now and put our taxes to better use, like education, health and preventing climate meltdown.
Dr Rebecca Johnson
Green party spokesperson on security, peace and defence
• Why is it that even such generally well-informed commentators as Polly Toynbee persist in propagating the fallacy that some states’ possession of nuclear weapons is somehow legitimate (Dad’s nuclear option? Death pills, 7 September)? The UN has never officially sanctioned the possession of nuclear weapons by anyone. In fact the very first resolution of the UN general assembly in 1946 called for a total ban on nuclear weapons, and that remains the aim. In 1968, when the non-proliferation treaty was drafted, it simply recognised the fact that five states already had nuclear weapons, and had to distinguish them, and their obligation under the treaty, from the rest of the non-nuclear signatories. That obligation was to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament”. It really is time – long past time – to fulfil that obligation.
Frank Jackson
Former co-chair, World Disarmament Campaign
• Following Zoe Williams’ article, we certainly also need press coverage of CND actions and events. This very week, Yorkshire CND, Greater Manchester CND, Trident Ploughshares and Quakers have been blockading DSEI, (euphemistically called Defence and Security Equipment International), the world’s biggest arms fair, focusing on the Trident nuclear armed submarines. The huge military manufacturers who will be displaying their goods at the fair include Lockheed Martin, heavily involved in the Trident project. Yet why so few articles in the mainstream media, including the Guardian?
Rae Street
Littleborough, Lancashire
• Zoe Williams misses a key reason behind the upsurge of the peace movement in the 1980s. The development of shorter range nuclear missiles allowed a fundamental change in nuclear strategic thinking: that a nuclear war might not result in the mutually assured destruction of the world’s leading powers, but could, instead, be limited to a geographical region. The region discussed for such a scenario was Europe. It was this change that led to the growth of EP Thompson’s European Nuclear Disarmament campaign and led to a focus on the bases in this country, such as Greenham, that would have been first-strike targets in any such limited nuclear war. This, too, provides the reason for the rather silly government decision to issue the “Protect and Survive” pamphlet to its citizens in 1980.
Peter Fowler
Macclesfield, Cheshire
• Join the debate – email [email protected]
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/lettersDemocratized Social Media with investFeed
investFeed Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 14, 2017
In our whitepaper, we outline our goal to democratize digital transacting. We want to integrate cryptocurrencies into the traditional financial world and create an access point — a cryptocurrency epicenter — that is open, transparent, and rewards-based for all our users and content contributors.
So, how do we at investFeed see democratized digital transacting extending into the social media environment?
There has undoubtedly been an extremely rapid shift by marketers into digital channels and increasing ad-dollars are being spent on Facebook campaigns, Google Adwords, YouTube and other key channels. Products and brand messaging are being integrated via platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest. That, of course, makes sense. There is no point in advertising where your consumers are not. And we know that Millennial consumers are not watching TV.
In PwC’s Strategy& January 2017 report on “Content democratization: How the Internet is fueling the growth of creative economies”, they note the following key highlights:
We are witnessing the rise of a consumer-creator model that has broken down the barriers to the creation and distribution of content.
Although demand for news in general has been on the rise, how people consume it is changing fast. Younger people typically don’t consume news in print or on TV, and are much more likely than people over 45 to get their news through mobile devices and social media. (Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2015: Tracking the Future of News, University of Oxford and Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2015)
Sales of digital content show that consumers, as they spend more time online, are willing to pay for content, especially if it provides variety, is of high quality, is affordable, and has the convenience of anytime, anywhere, anyhow consumption.
Perhaps the greatest beneficiaries of the content revolution brought about by the Internet are consumers themselves. And it isn’t just passive consumption — the Internet is enabling a whole new culture of remixing that allows consumers to co-create content and generate their own content.
It is clear from the report that “the internet” has allowed consumers to become creators of content, particularly as increasingly people consume that content online. In the new digital advertising ecosystem, corporates use their advertising and marketing budgets on digital channels. Facebook, Google, Twitter and the like benefit from that spend. But what about individuals who create amazing content?
Their “premium” content is contributing to the network value of the various digital channels, and the bigger and deeper the network, the more the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter can charge corporates for ad placement. But, individual content creators, while creating value and revenue for the social media platform, do not receive many tangible, “pay-the-rent” rewards in return for their contribution.
Yes, if you are a small consulting business, writing great, insightful material will likely gain you leads and customers through the same mechanisms that the corporates use, but what if you are an academic, an educator, a believer in spreading knowledge to the community?
Essentially great content providers who empower the community have to be satisfied with altruism and awareness as a benefit, despite increasing the value for the social media platform in a way that pulls directly on their revenue lever.
At investFeed, we don’t consider this to be a democratic process. A democratized social media will allow the community to reward content creators who are adding value to the network as a whole. We intend to allow for those rewards to be enabled by our FEED tokens.
Our FEED tokens are an obvious natural extension of our core cryptocurrency focus — it made sense for us to embrace the power and capabilities of a native Ethereum-based cryptographic token to drive our marketplace capabilities and offering. In so doing, we are putting the community back in the driving seat.
Our community members will have the opportunity to create rich profiles, including crypto-trader performance, direct message other members, post and apply to blockchain-related careers and comment, share, like and follow community generated content.
We are also generating a limited supply of FEED tokens in the investFeed Token Sale — no additional tokens will be available post-sale. The limited supply of tokens coupled with our anticipated community growth will see demand-supply economics at work to drive the value of FEED for the community. Thus, great content will attract a deep and loyal community and the providers of that great content will be rewarded and incentivized by the community for their efforts.
This is social media democracy in action at investFeed.Despite a dip in regular season stats, according to Brian Windhorst LeBron James proves he's the best when the games matter most. (0:59)
When Tiger Woods was in his prime, the focus of his year was the majors. He gave them highest priority, gearing his regimen to attempt to peak in those four weeks.
Who knows how many tournament wins Woods might have left on the table with this strategy. Sometimes he would use the few nonmajor events he played in during the summer to practice shots he knew he'd need to hit in the next major. At some point, he had enough money and accomplishments that winning the Western Open again had only limited appeal.
Last season, LeBron James finished outside the top three in MVP voting for the first time since 2008. The previous two years, he finished third. It now has been four seasons since he last added an MVP trophy to his case.
Of course, he has played in the NBA Finals all four of those years. Because at this stage in his career, about to start his 15th season, the postseason is all he cares about. He sets his entire year up around peaking in April, May and June.
That's why James, despite his slipping in the regular-season award voting, is No. 1 in ESPN's #NBArank for a seventh consecutive season. No one else has ever held the spot.
Over the past several years, James has dialed back his intensity in the regular season, especially in the early months. He has taken more games off to rest. This as his competitors for the league's highest honors, especially Russell Westbrook and James Harden, have been voracious in their pursuit of regular-season dominance.
It's an impressive form of pacing, he averaged career highs in rebounds (8.6) and assists (8.7) last season while averaging the most points (26.4) in three years. But it's pacing nonetheless.
Between the 2005-06 and 2012-13 season, his last MVP season, James won Player of the Month in November or December 11 times. He won the honor in February, March and April a total of eight times in that span.
Over the past four seasons, he has won the honor in the first two months of the season just twice. He has won it in the last three months of the season nine times. His methodical ramp-up is demonstrated by that transition alone.
Advanced stats tell the tale, as well. Between the 2008-09 season and the 2012-13 season -- James won four MVPs in that five-year span -- his player efficiency rating before the All-Star break averaged 30.3. After the break, it was 31.0, which is just astounding by the way. Over the past four seasons, James' PER before the All-Star break averaged 26.7. After the break, it has leapt to 29.1.
When he was younger, James was otherworldly from the start of the regular season to the finish. Over the past few seasons, the path has been gradual. The data shows what the eye test does, effectively: Over the past few years, James often conserves energy early in the season and then hits the gas late.
This plan has merit. James had maybe the greatest NBA Finals of his career in 2016, his fresh legs in the last three games of that seven-game saga perhaps helping him assemble what might go down as his career masterpiece. This past June, he averaged a triple-double and shot 56 percent against the juggernaut Golden State Warriors in the Finals. His 33-point, 12-rebound and 10-assist averages go down as one of the greatest statistical performances in a series in the modern era.
Still, his starts seem to have cost him with MVP voters, who notice his sagging defense and lower-activity games during the time in the NBA calendar when the MVP race is typically framed. His sliding MVP finishes might present as implying that he's getting passed by some younger players. (The MVP voting recently has irritated him, especially because he has taken on a leadership role in Cleveland that can't be captured on spreadsheets.)
But he knows what he's doing. His peers recognize it; last season he led everyone in the player voting for the All-Star Game. This summer, he was given the Global Impact Award in the Players' Voice Awards.
#NBArank does too, as James stands at No. 1.
Tom Haberstroh contributed to this story.After concluding their roster cutdowns on Saturday, the New England Patriots started signing players to their practice squad. Overall, the defending world champions announced that nine of a potential 10 players have been added as of yesterday. Among them was defensive tackle Darius Kilgo, who was released by the team on Saturday.
However, according to ESPN Boston's Mike Reiss, Kilgo's stint on the practice squad was a rather short one:
Patriots making some early-morning moves on practice squad. They informed DT Darius Kilgo of his release.
As a follow-up, the Patriots have filled Kilgo's spot by signing a wide receiver and kick returner: Demarcus Ayers (per the Houston Chronicle's Aaron Wilson):
Patriots signed former @UHCougarFB Steelers wide receiver DeMarcus Ayers to practice squad
Ayers originally entered the NFL in 2016 as a seventh round draft pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers. The 23-year old appeared in four games during his rookie campaign and finished with nine catches for 80 yards and one touchdown. While the Steelers dif not use the 5'10, 190 lbs receiver on special teams last year, he does bring some ability in this area to the table.
At Houston, Ayers returned 28 punts for 290 yards and a touchdown while also adding 1,613 yards on 71 yards and a score on kickoff returns. During his 2015 senior campaign, he was named to the All-AAC's first team as a kickoff returner. Furthermore, Ayers ran back two punts for 23 yards during the Steelers' preseason.
The player whose spot Ayers took, Darius Kilgo, spent the 2016 season with the Denver Broncos and later the Patriots, who claimed him off waivers in November and later put him on their practice squad. He signed a futures contract after the Super Bowl but was released on Saturday. Kilgo returned to New England through the team's practice squad but only one day later has been released once again.
After the moves, the Patriots still have one open spot on their 10-man practice squad.Greg Anthony attends the premiere of 'Winning Time: Reggie Miller VS The New York Knicks' at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Tuesday, March 2, 2010 in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)
WASHINGTON (WJLA/AP) - After it was first reported by ABC7 News, District of Columbia police confirmed that CBS basketball analyst and former NBA player Greg Anthony has been arrested and charged with soliciting a prostitute.
CBS announced Saturday morning that Anthony has been suspended indefinitely{} following his arrest on solicitation charges.
A CBS spokeswoman says "Greg Anthony will not be working again for CBS this season."
Turner Sports also suspended the TV commentator and says it "will have no further comment."
ABC7's D.C. Bureau chief Sam Ford broke the story Friday night and ABC7's Jennifer Donelan confirmed further details from her sources.
Anthony was arrested at 5:46 p.m. on Friday.
A police report shows that Anthony was arrested inside a room at a DoubleTree by Hilton hotel at 1515 Rhode Island NW in downtown Washington, less than a mile from the White House.
The police report says Anthony, 47, is suspected of using a computer as part of the crime.
Anthony issued a statement Saturday apologizing to his wife, family and colleagues.
"I made a mistake," he said. "With this lapse of judgment, I embarrassed many, including myself. I will work to regain the trust that I have lost, and the first step is saying that I am sorry."
Saturday, Lt. Kelvin Cusick told The Associated Press that Anthony faces a misdemeanor solicitation charge that's punishable by up to 180 days in jail.
Cusick says Anthony was released Friday evening. No further details were available.
According to the NCAA website, Anthony was scheduled to announce the Michigan State-Maryland men's basketball game Saturday in nearby College Park, Maryland.
In the NBA, Anthony played 11 seasons with six teams from 1991-92 to 2001-02, including the New York Knicks and Portland Trail Blazers. The guard and defensive specialist averaged 7.3 points per game.
In college he was on the UNLV team that won the 1990 NCAA tournament, with teammates Larry Johnson and Stacey Augmon.This fall, broadcast television will turn its attention to the battle of the straight white man to assert his masculinity in an increasingly alien world. And you won’t need to wait until the first presidential debate to see it.
The male protagonists of several new sitcoms are not as belligerent as the male protagonist of the election. (A possible exception: the one who wields a broadsword.) But they are besieged. At home and in the office, they find themselves struggling to prove that they matter in a world they no longer exclusively run.
For a while now, the energy in cable and streaming-TV comedy has been about diversity, inclusion and change: the female president of “Veep,” the transgender matriarch in “Transparent,” the melting pot of “Master of None.” Comedy built around women has been especially vibrant, including “Broad City,” “Lady Dynamite” and HBO’s coming “Insecure,” from Issa Rae of the “Awkward Black Girl” online series.
But on new fall sitcoms like CBS’s “Man With a Plan,” “The Great Indoors” and “Kevin Can Wait,” the male leads are adjusting to new roles or reduced circumstances. Fox’s “Son of Zorn” renders the idea of the throwback man as an actual cartoon.At long last, Australia has a government that is prepared to introduce real-time disclosure for political donations. The Queensland government – and independent Speaker Peter Wellington, who has been crucial in pushing for the change – deserve praise for this long-awaited reform.
The significance of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s promise to implement “an electronic real-time disclosure system” by the beginning of 2017 should not be underestimated.
I have spent many years researching and writing on public sector accountability matters and more recently on Australia’s mismatched nine sets of political donations laws. In my opinion, the introduction of real-time disclosure – already in place in New York and Ontario – is the most important reform in a suite of much-needed political funding reforms.
I say this because it allows the electorate to know, before casting a vote, who has made a donation, how much they have donated, and to whom. The introduction of real-time disclosure will mean that at least Queensland voters will soon be making an informed decision at the ballot box – an informed choice denied to Australian voters on July 2.
If other state and territory governments and the federal government can display the moral courage shown by the Queensland government, it would mark an important first step toward an open political donations system. It may also prove to be an important first step toward addressing the widening trust deficit between the community and those we entrust with the power to make decisions on behalf of us all.
But as welcome as it is, this reform does not go far enough. What is required – and quickly – is a national approach to how politics is funded in this country. This needs to be accompanied by changes to other key elements of what constitutes a political donations regime.
Read more on political finance in Australia, including an infographic of donations at glance.
These elements include (but are not limited to) the disputed issue of placing a ban on certain types of donors, setting a cap on all donations regardless of their source, and meaningful penalties for those who break the law. Without these reforms, many politicians and the parties to which they belong will continue to game the federated system and to adopt a minimalist approach to the democratic principles of transparency and accountability.
The issue of governments banning donations from particular donors has been widely contested, including in the High Court of Australia. There is a strong possibility that imposing bans could again end up in the High Court. Therefore, it might be prudent, in the short term at least, to settle for placing a cap on all donations.
Restricting donations to a maximum of say $500 or $1000 addresses the possibility of “policy capture”. When this occurs, inappropriate, unfit-for-purpose polices can be implemented. This in turn fuels the perception that those capable of donating considerable sums of money to a political party can, in return, exert inappropriate influence over public policy.
The penalties currently imposed for breaking political donations laws require urgent attention. To be frank, they are totally inadequate. If they are to have a preventive dimension, which is one of the primary reasons sanctions are imposed in the first place, they must be significantly increased.
The federal government should take the lead when it comes to reforming Australia’s political donations laws. Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that they will act to do so in the near future. Cabinet Secretary Arthur Sinodinos made it clear when interviewed by Michelle Grattan in May 2016 that he thought political donations should be disclosed in “continuous real time”. As he explained:
I think the time has come to do that because I think that will be a major step forward in transparency.
Sinodinos is correct in his assessment. He was also correct when he said that inconsistencies between federal and state laws needed to be examined.
Sinodinos is a senior member of the recently re-elected Coalition government. As such, he is in a position to put in place the mechanisms needed to turn his words into action, including plans to have a national approach to political donations placed on the next Council of Australian Governments agenda.
He must also act to have real-time disclosure laws introduced into the federal parliament. If the Queensland government is able to do so by January next year, there is no reason why the federal government cannot do the same. The technology already exists and has for some time to implement a real-time disclosure policy.
What has not existed is the desire to place the public interest before personal and party interests. The Palaszczuk government has just shown it is possible to do so. It will be interesting to see how long it takes the federal government and all other governments around Australia to come to the same decision.Online discount retailer Groupon reveals that Salt Lake City is the most pampered city in America. Based upon data gathered over the course of this past year, Groupon says that customers in Utah’s capital and most populous city bought more massages, haircuts, manicures, pedicures, facials, teeth whitening and tanning sessions, and other indulgent deals on a per user basis than any other place in the country.
“We’re seeing more and more people recognize the importance of taking care of themselves inside and out––and doing it for an amazing value,” said Silvija Martincevic, vice president and general manager of health, beauty and wellness, Groupon. “With more than 50,000 of the top salons and spas in our marketplace, Groupon has everything you need to pamper yourself from popular salon services to luxury spa treatments.”
Salt Lake City is tops among 25 ranked cities in this list compiled by Groupon. Is your city part of the pampered pack?Please enable Javascript to watch this video
MILWAUKEE -- Milwaukee police are investigating a fatal shooting that occurred late Tuesday night, December 27th. The deceased has been identified as 17-year-old Deonte Thomas. It happened in the area near 63rd and Euclid around 10:30 p.m.
Police say their preliminary investigation reveals Thomas was attempting to commit a robbery at the time of the shooting and was shot by the 36-year-old Milwaukee man who was being robbed -- who was out walking his dog on Tuesday night. That man is being questioned by investigators. He has not been arrested, and police say this case will be reviewed by the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office in the coming days.
The man has a concealed carry permit.
Officials also say Thomas' co-actor, an 18-year-old Milwaukee man, was also shot during the altercation. He apparently went to the neighborhood near 24th and Ruby after the incident -- and has since been taken into custody.
Police say he may have been involved in another shooting that occurred there Tuesday night.
Officials say one of the two suspects in this case had a firearm.
"Like I tell you, 13-14 years here and nothing like this has ever happened. It`s a shock to us. How do you explain things like this your kids? Things like this happen..." Gerardo de la Torre, a neighbor said.
"I am stunned. And you know what? Timing is everything. 10:30 is an unusual time on a secluded block and then who would've thought the person had concealed carry? They were looking for trouble and they clearly picked the wrong guy -- because he defended himself," Alderman Mark Borkowski said.
Investigators say the initial investigation has revealed the suspects in this incident may be responsible for an armed robbery that happened near Park Place and Maryland on Milwaukee's upper east side on Tuesday evening.
Milwaukee Alderman Mark Borkowski issued the following statement on this case:
"Last night at about 10 p.m. a man walking his dog near S. 65th St. and W. Euclid Ave. in the 11th District was approached by would-be armed robbers. The man – who has a concealed carry permit for a firearm – pulled out his weapon and shot two of the robbery suspects, killing one of them and wounding the other, who is now in police custody. "First, this unfortunate incident is a reminder that normally quiet, secluded areas in the city can suddenly turn into targeted crime locations at any time. The block where this occurred is very quiet and residential, and within shouting distance of St. Gregory the Great Parish. "Second, it is also a reminder that if you decide to go for a walk outside at night, please be sure to wear some sort of reflective clothing, bring a cell phone, and make sure a loved one or friend knows that you are headed out. Be aware of your surroundings, and if you are targeted for a robbery, police say it is usually always the right call to give the crooks what they want (because they will likely flee as soon as you hand it over)."
Monitor FOX6 News and FOX6Now.com for updates on this developing story.DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp posted a loss of nearly $31 billion on Thursday for 2008 and said its auditors were likely to cast doubt on its viability as it seeks an expanded federal bailout to stay afloat.
A flag flies in front of a broken sign at a General Motors dealership in Denver, February 26, 2009. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
GM burned through $5 billion in the fourth quarter and ended the year reliant on the first $4 billion in loans from the U.S. Treasury. Quarterly revenue plunged by more than a third to $30.8 billion.
The automaker, which asked for up to $30 billion of U.S. government aid, also warned that its pension plans were underfunded by about $12.4 billion as of the end of 2008.
GM’s loss for 2008 was the deepest among Detroit-based automakers as industry-wide auto sales dropped to 16-year lows. Ford lost $14.6 billion. Chrysler, controlled by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, lost $8 billion.
The grim results came as GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and other executives met with members of the autos task force headed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House economic adviser Larry Summers.
“They are in fact-gathering mode right now, and so we are here in order to respond to their questions,” GM Chief Financial Officer Ray Young told reporters on a conference call from Washington ahead of the meeting on GM’s aid request.
Shares of GM, which have lost almost 90 percent over the past year, were down 1.6 percent at $2.51 at midday.
GM said it could receive a “going concern” notice from auditors when it files its annual report for 2008 with U.S. securities regulators by the middle of March.
GM, which took $6 billion in charges to shut down North American plants as sales tumbled, posted a loss of $30.9 billion for 2008. That was the second-largest loss for the 100-year-old automaker behind the $38.7 billion loss for 2007.
Over the past four years, GM has lost $82 billion and cut 92,000 jobs. The combined loss is equivalent to about $56 million a day since the start of 2005.
GM’s auto operations burned $19 billion in 2008 and the company expects to burn through another $14 billion this year as it cuts output to run down inventories of unsold cars.
GM ended the year with $14 billion in cash, including the first $4 billion in taxpayer-backed loans.
S&P equity analyst Efraim Levy said GM’s cash burn forecast for this year could prove too low because of the drop in sales and pressure on the supply base.
“It reinforces for us the notion that GM will need multibillion government assistance to continue as a going concern,” Levy said in a note for clients.
The automaker has received $9.4 billion from the U.S. government this quarter and has said it needs additional funding as soon as next month to avoid bankruptcy.
‘CONTAGION’ EFFECT
GM’s fourth-quarter net loss widened to $9.6 billion from $722 million a year earlier.
Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group, said GM had a chance to restructure under federal oversight if the recession does not deepen beyond its forecast.
“If the economy does not further erode and if we do see a pickup in the second half of the year, GM could foreseeably correct the situation with government funding,” he said.
Analysts say the key to valuing GM’s shares and debt is the progress the company is making in restructuring talks with creditors, including the United Auto Workers union.
Existing shareholder equity could be sharply diluted as bondholders and the union are offered shares in a recapitalized company in an attempt to reduce GM’s cash drain from debt.
GM, like its smaller rival Chrysler, faces pressure to wrap up concession talks with the UAW on how to cut funding promised to a healthcare trust under the terms of the federal bailout.
GM has offered the UAW up to $10.2 billion in new equity in order to give up a cash claim on half of the $20.4 billion it is owed for the trust fund.
Ford reached a deal this week to restructure its own retiree healthcare debt to the union on similar terms.
Slideshow (3 Images)
But GM’s parallel negotiations with its bondholders have been more difficult. GM bondholders have been asked to take a payout equal to just $9 billion of the $27 billion that they are collectively owed.
Representatives of the debt holders have said GM’s plan does not go far enough to reduce debt and have asked for steps to safeguard their remaining investment in the company.
Young said GM could not comment on its negotiations with bondholders ahead of an end-March deadline to launch the debt exchange. “We are getting to a more sensitive stage in terms of the whole bond exchange process here,” he said.NPSL will combine the South Atlantic and Southeastern Conferences into one for the 2017 season. The Atlanta Silverbacks and Georgia Revolution will move to the East division of the Southeastern Conference, where they will be joined by the Knoxville Force, FC Carolina Discoveries, and expansion-side Asheville City SC.
The West division will comprise Chattanooga FC, Memphis City FC, the Birmingham Hammers, New Orleans Jesters, and expansion-club Inter Nashville FC.
Notable absences from this realignment are the Tobacco Road FC, Myrtle Beach Mutiny, and Carolina RailHawks U23. Tobacco Road and Myrtle Beach have already been announced as PDL clubs for the 2017 season. If the Carolina RailHawks rebrand as North Carolina FC and make the move to USL (to prepare for an MLS bid), their development squad will certainly move to PDL, which is owned by USL.
Despite the loss of Conference rivals, the realignment looks promising for Atlanta-area NPSL clubs. Travel within the East Division will be affordable, which will enable clubs spend more money on the club and less on buses. The change also brings new challenges with the addition of popular West Division clubs. Chattanooga FC regularly bring thousands of fans to their home games and will provide a great atmosphere for any road trips.
Now that the new conference alignment has been finalized, the league and owners can build the 2017 schedule. The Silverbacks confirmed to DSS that the schedule will be finalized in January.After heavy criticism of the new knock-out qualifying format used in Australia and Bahrain, F1 chiefs have agreed – following a unanimous request from teams – to revert to the 2015 qualifying format with immediate effect.
The furore and political fighting that surrounded the aborted attempt to run a new qualifying system, have, according to Claire Williams, been taken on board by teams and will hopefully prevent any potential repeat troubles in the future.
"I think that we have learned that we need to make more time to consider proposals that come to us – absolutely," said the Williams deputy team principal, during a media briefing to discuss her team's 2015 financial results.
"We don't want to play out scenarios like that in public. They should be done behind the scenes."
2015 relief
Williams was one of four teams that did not support a move by the FIA to tweak the elimination format ahead of the Bahrain GP, because it was not something the teams had asked for.
But now that the teams' request for reverting to the 2015 system have been accepted, she says there is a sense of relief.
This will not only prevent F1 facing fresh criticism in the short term, but will also allow F1 some breathing space to come up with a new qualifying format for 2017 that should work better.
"Williams is relieved that F1 is going back to 2015 [qualifying]," she said. "It is obviously what the fans want, I hope it is what the media wants, it is certainly what our partners want.
"I think it will give us a period of stability during which we can sit down with time to properly analyse what a potentially new 2017 qualifying system could look like. I think that is what we need – and what we need to do."
F1 teams have made the offer of trialling new ideas later this season in the event that the world championship battles are sewn up early.
But it is clear that there is a view that a shake-up of race weekend format should come for 2017.
"We have to look at race weekends, with the declining audience numbers both coming to watch us live but also turning on their televisions," added Williams.
"We have to look at the sport about what we are putting on on track and away from the track over a race weekend to make sure we are attracting and retaining the audience we have and engaging a new generation of fans to F1."by Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director
Two influential websites — The Hill.com’s Congress blog and the Huffington Post — have provided me with a platform to report on the contrasting impact of alcohol and cannabis on cancer.
If Pot Prevented Cancer You Would Have Read About It, Right?
via TheHill.com Two just published studies assessing adults’ risk of cancer have reported wildly divergent, and fairly extraordinary, outcomes. One study you may have read about. The other has been ignored entirely by the mainstream media. … First, the study you may have heard of. Writing August 3 in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, investigators at McGill University in Montreal reported that moderate alcohol consumption–defined as six drinks or less per week–by adults is positively associated with an elevated risk of various cancers including stomach cancer, rectal cancer, and bladder cancer. And now for the study you haven’t heard of. Writing in the August issue of the journal Cancer Prevention Research, investigators from Rhode Island’s Brown University along with researchers at Boston University, Louisiana State University, and the University of Minnesota reported that that lifetime marijuana use is associated with a “significantly reduced
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Heavy rains kill four people in Nairobi as floods cause havoc
At least four people lost their lives on Friday evening after a perimeter wall collapsed at 5pm along Lenana Road, Nairobi due to heavy rains. Kilimani OCPD Peter Katam who confirmed the incident said the deceased persons were taking shelter, before they met the untimely death. The four included one adult female and three men. "The four people were sheltering from the heavy rains which started at around the better part of Friday afternoon. We urge motorists and city residents to be cautious," said Kattam
SEE ALSO :Do African dead bodies pose a “clearer picture” of a horror attack?
Kattam said Bunyala Road was also among city roads that were affected by floods. He urged users of the affected roads to be cautious. As a result, Lenana Road at Department of Defense (DOD) and Russian embassy road was closed. This caused a major traffic jam especially for vehicles plying along the route. Nairobi Traffic boss Leonard Katana told The Standard that the roads that were impassable as a result of the heavy downpour that started at 4pm include Uhuru Highway, Ojijo Road, Bunyala Road, Jogoo Road, Jakaya Kikwete Road, Valley Road near DOD and Milimani Road. "The roads are flooded and fire engines cannot pass," said Katana. Motorists spend long hours in traffic jam, as others stayed in offices for long hours waiting for the rains to cease before they proceed to their homes.
SEE ALSO :Why Sonko delayed to pick deputy
This happened just a day after a heavy downpour on Thursday afternoon which left city dwellers stranded. The heavy rains caused mayhem and traffic jams in major city roads. This prompted city residents to adopt survival strategies in frantic efforts to avoid the storm waters. A video circulating on social media of a woman escaping from a matatu stuck in a flooded road in Industrial area caused a stir with social media users calling upon Nairobi County government to put in place measures to curb the situation. The woman is seen escaping through the window of a public service vehicle and assisted by cart pushers to cross the flooded road. The flash floods made it difficult for motorists to get around. Some of the motorists were forced to abandon their vehicles on the road in places where the floods were immense.
SEE ALSO :The Cellulant Six: Tribute to heroes who acted fast to save others
Haron Ochenge, a boda boda operator at Garden estate, in Kiambu road said the heavy rains caused great losses to motorists as their cars plunged into ditches beside the flooded road. "Two vehicles fell into a ditch last night and we had to remove it this morning after the floods subsided. Our work yesterday when the heavy rains started was to direct vehicles along the flooded road," said Ochenge. Stephen Kabure, who resides along Thika Road decried that the heavy rains caused mayhem in the city adding that if the rains continue to impound the city, more serious damages will be recorded. He called upon the county government to put measures in place to prevent such occurrences from happening. The heavy rains came with massive losses with rooftops of businesses in places like Eastlands being blown away and trees falling on roads and electric poles causing blackouts. At Kencom stage in Nairobi, a section of Kenyans made a kill from it as they charged Sh50 to carry people across the flooded road.
SEE ALSO :Nairobi to digitise hospital records and processes
Heavy rainstorms caused power interruption in most parts of Nairobi. The rains that started late in the afternoon have interrupted electricity supply and distribution systems in parts of the city. Customers affected include those residing in Eastlands, Umoja, Donholm, Komarock, the lower side of the CBD, Riverside drive and surrounding areas. David Njaaga, a photographer with The Standard Newspaper and lives in Donholm said he arrived at his home at 11pm after spending several hours in traffic jam. "The heavy downpour caused traffic jam with several personal vehicles abandoned at the road as a result of the floods," said Njaaga. Kenya power released a statement calling upon the affected customers to be patient. "Kenya Power highly regrets any inconvenience the interruptions have caused to the customers and requests for patience as the restoration exercise is underway. Kenya Power engineers are currently engaged in the restoration process and everything is being done to minimize the duration of the interruption," read a statement from Kenya Power.Play 01:51 Play 01:51 Watch - Kieran Powell's try for Major League Baseball
West Indies players missing international cricket to play T20 Leagues around the world is quite common. Now, the WICB is in danger of losing players to other sports. This time it's Major League Baseball in the USA catching the attention of one of its players.*
Kieran Powell, the opener who last played for West Indies in June 2014, is looking to get himself a place in an MLB franchise.
"An opportunity came about after a few discrepancies with the West Indies Cricket Board; I decided to take some time off from cricket and some footage of me playing cricket was seen by the LA Dodgers," Powell said. "I've had some training out here in the US for a few months."
Powell, who has three Test tons in 21 Tests, says baseball is his priority right now, even though cricket remains his first love. "[Baseball is] really fun, it's an interesting game, I've loved every minute of it so far, and I hope to continue doing it for the rest of my career.
"It's a unique opportunity, it's a once in a lifetime thing. This is what dreams are made of, as I said earlier. I'm just so excited about it."
Whether he makes it or not, we'll have to wait and watch. One thing is for sure though, Powell will not be joining the New York Yankees: a Yankees scout had a look at Powell in Florida this week, and was rather unimpressed.
What exactly did he think of his hitting skills? "He sucks. He's not worth any time," the scout told ESPN.com.
* 05.30GMT, January 15: This blog was updated after Kieran Powell was observed by a baseball scout
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.Wealthier, white voters and people from the Bay Area like Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Los Angeles residents tend to prefer their former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who also gets support from households of modest means and Latinos.
The two have settled into first and second place in the race to replace Gov. Jerry Brown, according to the latest California gubernatorial poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies.
Overall, Newsom leads, 26 percent to 17 percent for Villaraigosa, as they head toward a June primary that will advance the top two regardless of party to a November general election.
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But they clearly have different sources of support.
SHARE COPY LINK Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was a labor organizer, oversaw the state Assembly and now wants to be governor of California.
“It’s almost a classic profile because you have the white establishment candidate within the Democratic Party versus the ethnic candidate and the expanding demographic of ethnic voters,” said poll director Mark DiCamillo. “It’s socioeconomic. It’s ethnic. It’s regional. It’s like the old Democratic Party versus the new Democratic Party in California.”
Newsom enjoys a considerable advantage over his chief rival among voters from households earning more than $100,000 a year, 33 percent to 11 percent. Villaraigosa leads the former San Francisco mayor among families that make less than $40,000 annually, 29 percent to 22 percent.
Newsom, who formerly served as San Francisco mayor, gets his strongest backing from the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, where he is drubbing Villaraigosa, 55 percent to 6 percent. Newsom also does far better with white voters – 32 percent to Villaraigosa’s 9 percent – and those born in the U.S.
Villaraigosa leads by double digits in his native Los Angeles County. He more than doubles Newsom with immigrants and is ahead handily with Latinos, 39 percent to 16 percent.
Both Newsom and Villaraigosa backers expressed the belief that the next governor should continue policies set by Brown, although Villaraigosa’s supporters were a little less likely to do so. Undecided voters were more inclined to be interested in change, 62 to 28 percent.
Despite his standing, Villaraigosa was the only candidate in the poll viewed more unfavorably than favorably, 30 percent to 28 percent. Some 36 percent of likely voters had a favorable view of Newsom, compared with 21 percent unfavorable.
The Southern California-based Republicans in the race, Assemblyman Travis Allen of Orange County and John Cox, a wealthy businessman from San Diego County, were tied for third place at 9 percent each, despite the fact that Cox has spent considerably more money.
Thirty-six percent of Republicans were undecided.
Republican Doug Ose, a former three-term congressman from the Sacramento area, is being urged to run by Republicans who see him as having the best chance of advancing beyond the primary. That’s become an increasingly important task given the number of potentially endangered GOP House members running across the state who could use a Republican at the top-of-the-ticket to boost turnout.
“I am continuing to consider the challenge of running for governor,” Ose said Wednesday. “If I can find a path, I am going to run.”
Democrats John Chiang, the state treasurer, and Delaine Eastin, the former state superintendent of public instruction, trailed with 5 percent support.
The UC Berkeley poll also tested next year’s Senate race, where U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein leads Democratic rival Kevin de León by 14 points, 41 percent to 27 percent.
Feinstein, first elected in 1992, is infinitely better known, with 45 percent having a favorable view of her and 42 percent unfavorable. Nearly eight in 10 voters had no opinion of de León, suggesting they have never heard of the state Senate leader from Los Angeles.
Nearly a third of likely voters are undecided or say they would support another candidate in that contest. No Republican has yet emerged.An ancient tetrapod thought to be the first ever to walk on land couldn’t actually walk at all suggests new research.
The four-limbed creature probably hauled itself out of the primordial ooze with its two front limbs, and dragged the back limbs behind the body, using them for balance.
“These early tetrapods probably moved in a similar way to living mudskipper fishes in which the front fins, or arms, are used like crutches to haul the body up and forward,” said Dr Stephanie Pierce from the Royal Veterinary College and the University of Cambridge.
Researchers scanned dozens of fossil specimens belonging to the Ichthyostega – a tetrapod that lived around 360 million years ago – digitally separating the bones from the surrounding rock. They constructed a whole skeleton using animation software to create the first ever 3D computer model of the tetrapod’s skeleton.
They carefully manipulated the model to estimate each joint’s range of motion before comparing to similar models of other animals they had developed to verify mobility. The model revealed the creature wouldn’t have been able to move its hip and shoulder joints much, and that its limbs couldn’t rotate along their long axis – essential for locomotion in today’s land animals. This means it couldn’t push its body off the ground and move each of its limbs in turn.
“All this points to the idea that limbs may have evolved before the ability to actually walk,” said Pierce. “It also shows that just because you have limbs, it doesn’t mean you can walk.”
Professor Jennifer Clack said: “Our reconstruction demonstrates that the old idea, often seen in popular books and museum display, of Ichthyostega looking and walking like a large salamander, with four sturdy legs, is incorrect.”
“Remarkably, earlier fishes (called tetrapodomorphs) had the ability to rotate their fins, so it seems that just as vertebrate were experimenting with terrestrial movement, the limbs became confined to mainly back-and-forth and up-and-down motions,” said Professor John Hutchinson. “It wasn’t until tetrapods became more competent on land that they recovered the ability to rotate their limbs around their long axis.”
The findings – published in Nature – suggests that some of the 400 million-year-old footprints discovered in 2010 thought to have been made by similar tetrapods might be attributable to altogether different four-legged animals.The article was written by Motek Moyen Research Seeking Alpha’s #1 Writer on Long Ideas and #2 in Technology – Senior Analyst at I Know First.
Tesla Stock Predictions
The first budget-friendly EV of Tesla will be its road to profitability.
The 325K reservations for the Model 3 hints that Tesla’s promise of 500K car production is realistic.
The massive consumer interest in the Model 3 is requiring Tesla to seek more help from lithium suppliers.
The $35k price tag of the Model will help Tesla grow into a real mainstream car vendor.
The I Know First algorithm is currently bullish on Tesla Stock.
My buy recommendation for Tesla (TSLA) last February 10 was a blockbuster bet. The stock has soared more than 71% since I made that call. Tesla’s confirmation that its Model 3 received 325K reservations is inspiring bulls to push the stock back near its 52-week high (of $286.65).
(Source: Google Finance)
The massive consumer interest over the $35K Model 3 is in spite of General Motors’ (GM) Chevy Bolt announcement. This goes to show that majority of electric vehicle buyers (and investors) trust Tesla more than General Motors. Investors never rallied for GM’s stock after its entry to mass-market EVs.
General Motors is still perceived as a rookie when it comes to building and marketing electric vehicles. Tesla’s surge in the stock market confirms it is the Most Valuable Player (MVP) choice of Wall Street.
Barrons’ claim that GM will crack the electric market before Tesla is therefore just conjectured. Yes, Tesla has had difficulties when it comes to delivering its popular EVs. Tesla has learned from its past mistakes, the Model 3 will get its commercial launch late next year.
The 325K reservations for the Model 3 is a compelling reason for Tesla to rapidly increase production capacity. As far as I know, Gigafactory is still on schedule to start producing batteries next year. This should finally solve Tesla’s need to for economy-of-scale car manufacturing.
The Nevada Gigafactory was designed primarily to supply the lithium-ion batteries of the Model 3. Tesla is now actively seeking more partners to supply the lithium needs of Gigafactory. Tesla wants to protect its timetable for the Model 3. If Gigafactory starts operations next year, Tesla could hit its 500k car/year production target by 2020.
The Model 3, not the S or X cars, will guarantee Tesla’s eventual level-up as a mainstream car vendor.
The Tesla Brand Power
The implied $14 billion future sales from the Model 3 will encourage more third-party suppliers to prioritize Tesla. Suppliers also benefit a lot if they help Tesla ramp up the production (of the very popular) Model 3. The $37K Chevy Bolt simply does not exude the same brand power that Tesla has right now.
Hands-on tests of the prototype unit of the Model 3 revealed it is sporty, spacious, and high-performing. In spite of it being half the price of the Model S, Tesla is still giving the Model 3 a best-in-class treatment. The 325k reservations for the Model 3 is easy to explain. Just look at the image below, it is indeed a very beautiful car!
(Source: Tesla)
I won’t be surprised if the number of reservations reaches the 1 million count before the Model 3 arrives next year. On the other hand, even if the GM Chevy Bolt debuts on the market earlier, I doubt if it will sell 30K units (in its first year). I expect most first-time EV buyers to still wait for the Model 3.
Any manufacturing speed advantage of General Motors is useless if there’s weak demand for the Bolt.
Unlike Tesla, General Motors has yet to prove itself as a capable builder of trustworthy electric cars. This is the main reason why there’s little consumer interest in the Bolt. GM’s EV car is a first-generation experiment that cannot elicit much consumer interest.
Conclusion
The 325k reservations for the Model 3 requires a deposit. The Model 3 is therefore already helping improve Tesla’s cash flow. The Model 3’s production should, therefore, require little or no additional capital outlay from Tesla. The deposit money reservations would be enough.
People who did not heed my buy rating for TSLA last February should do so now. There’s still room for the stock to rise toward $290-$300. The momo valuation of Tesla is event-driven. The unveiling of the Model 3 last month and the 325k reservations are bull-run events.
Tesla’s stock already made significant gains since February. However, investors’ emotions are highly favorable for TSLA. Long-term technical indicators and moving averages also endorse going long on TSLA. The algorithmic forecasts for TSLA are also highly encouraging.
I Know First Predictive Algorithm gives Tesla’s stock a 1-month signal o 92.28 with the predictability of 0.27, a 3-month signal of +135.02 and predictability of 0.32 and a one-year signal of +775.07 with a predictability of 0.42. This stock is clearly trending for more upside.
I Know First’s Algorithm has predicted in the past the stock movement for TSLA. In this forecast from the 22nd of February 2016, you can see the 5.54 bullish signal and 0.26 predictability which together managed to bring an amazing return of 40.62% in just one month. The overall package had a great performance averaging a 17.625 return.Paul VI Audience Hall Location on a map of Vatican City
The Paul VI Audience Hall (Italian: Aula Paolo VI) also known as the Hall of the Pontifical Audiences is a building in Rome named for Pope Paul VI with a seating capacity of 6,300, designed in reinforced concrete by the Italian architect Pier Luigi Nervi and completed in 1971.[1] It was constructed on land donated by the Knights of Columbus.[2]
It lies partially in the Vatican City but mostly in Italy: the Italian part of the building is treated as an extraterritorial area of the Holy See and is used by the Pope as an alternative to Saint Peter's Square when conducting his Wednesday morning General Audience. It is dominated by an 800-quintal (8 metric ton) bronze/copper-alloy[3][dead link] sculpture by Pericle Fazzini entitled La Resurrezione (Italian for The Resurrection).[4][5] A smaller meeting hall, known as Synod Hall (Aula del Sinodo), is located in the building as well. This hall sits at the east end on a second floor.
Solar roof [ edit ]
The Paul VI Audience Hall, from the dome of St. Peter's, showing the photovoltaic panel roof (2011)
On 25 May 2007, it was revealed that the roof of the building was to be covered with 2,400 photovoltaic panels, generating sufficient electricity to supply all the heating, cooling and lighting needs of the building throughout the year.[6][7] The system was donated by SolarWorld, a German manufacturer, and valued at $1.5 million. It was officially placed into service on 26 November 2008, and was awarded the 2008 European Solar Prize[8] in the category for "Solar architecture and urban development".[9]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Coordinates:A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers has reintroduced legislation aimed at ending the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephone records across the country.
Four senior members of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee planned to reintroduce the USA Freedom Act late Tuesday. The House passed a watered-down version of similar legislation in last May, but the Senate failed to act on it before November's elections.
The new bill would end all bulk collection of telephone and other business records under the Patriot Act, the antiterrorism legislation passed in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing to amend and vote on the new bill this Thursday.
The bill would, however, create a new surveillance program focused on telephone call details if there is a "reasonable, articulable suspicion" that the search is associated with a "foreign power engaged in international terrorism."
The Patriot Act's business record collection provision is due to expire in June, unless Congress renews it. "As several intelligence-gathering programs are set to expire in a month, it is imperative that we reform these programs to protect Americans' privacy while at the same time protecting our national security," said a statement by the sponsors of the bill, Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican; Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican; John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat; and Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat.
The bill "enhances civil liberties protections, increases transparency for both American businesses and the government, ends the bulk collection of data, and provides national security officials targeted tools to keep America safe from foreign enemies," the statement added.
A Senate version of the 2014 USA Freedom Act won approval from former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, but some senators suggested that ending the NSA telephone records collection program would make the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorism.
The new version of the bill would prohibit large-scale collection of records from an entire state, city, or zip code. It would also allow businesses who get records requests from the FBI through its national security letter program to challenge orders requiring those businesses to keep quiet about those requests.
The bill would also create a new panel of experts at the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to advise judges about privacy and civil liberties, communications technology, and other technical or legal matters.
The Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group that has advocated for surveillance reforms following the leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, praised the lawmakers for reintroducing the bill.
"While the bill is neither a perfect nor complete reform of all the NSA's mass surveillance authorities, it significantly narrows the ability of the NSA to collect call records and offers greater transparency, which is essential for citizens in a free society," CCIA President and CEO Ed Black said by email.Files have been lost, computer searches monitored and e-mails "disappeared into the ether" at Guantanamo Bay since January, say lawyers for the five co-defendants in the 9/11 case.
One after another, defense lawyers stood before Judge James Pohl in a Guantanamo courtroom on Friday to claim the government-provided computer system has made modern-era legal practice impossible. They say they've had to hand-write complex legal documents, travel to send e-mails from their personal laptops over the Starbucks wifi system, and struggle to reconstruct lengthy legal briefs that disappeared without explanation from their computers.
Major Jason Wright, a military defense attorney for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, described how his defense team learned prosecutors had had access to their e-mails, and that once, a case-related computer search caused a Pentagon official to search that individual's computer system. As a result, the Chief Defense Counsel ordered them to stop using the government system for any case-related matters.
"We were basically put back in the 19th century," said Wright.
"We lost files," Cheryl Bormann, defense counsel for Walid bin Attash, told the court. "I can tell you we submitted a document requesting files be restored that contain approximately 50 - 55 investigative files. These are things that were compiled over the last several years that contained results of investigations we conducted on behalf of Mr. bin Attash. Those files are gone. We've received no explanation."
Bormann said that in February, her team requested the help of a computer consultant. She was told the problem would be solved by April, but now, in August, "the situation hasn't been solved. It's only gotten worse." Recently, e-mails sent by lawyers on her team were never received.
"It's mind boggling how difficult this job is," she said.
David Nevin, who represents Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, echoed that sentiment. "In this day and age you cannot practice law in this way in any case," he said. "Not a shoplifting case in Boise, Idaho" and not in this death penalty case, he said.
Prosecutors responded that the problem was being fixed, but insisted in the meantime, the case should go forward.
"The arguments they've made and power points they've been able to show belies the fact that they can't function," prosecutor Clay Trivett told the court. "We believe they can function within the privilege under the current existing infrastructure."
"It sounds like they have some legitimate inconveniences that they've suffered," said Trivett, "but without being able to articulate to the court what files they lost" there's no reason not to continue, he said.
That's not what the Chief Defense Counsel for the military commissions believes. Air Force Col. Karen Mayberry has maintained her order not to use the government's computer system for confidential communications until it's fixed. That's caused defense lawyers to have to take extraordinary measures to get anything done.
"It cannot continue in this direction and defense counsel be expected to defend these clients whose lives are on the line," said Lt. Col. Sterling Thomas, counsel for al-Baluchi.
James Harrington, representing Ramzi bin al-Shibh, pleaded with the court to "raise hell" with the officials in charge. "If this were a problem on the prosecution side it would be addressed immediately," he said.
Bormann said she was told on Tuesday that the problem was not likely to be resolved before 2014. Prosecutors couldn't confirm when it would be resolved, but urged the court to proceed with pre-trial motions anyway.
Nevin objected: "It's not just removing fat, it's muscle that has affected our ability to practice law," he said. "And this is a capital case."Books
For 12 years, Preeti Paul searched in vain for the ideal alphabet book for children but found they lacked an Indian flavour.
By Vishnu Makhijani
Here's a typical case of necessity being the mother of invention. For 12 years, Preeti Paul, who heads the 43,000-strong Apeejay Surendra Group, searched in vain for the ideal alphabet book for children but found they lacked an Indian flavour. So, she thought why not write one and illustrate it in the manner of billboard art?
"Over the course of the last 12 years, while I have been discovering and reading children's books to my boys, it became apparent to me that the books being used to teach Indian children English were the same as used by my generation and generations before.
"I questioned why Indian children are growing up learning English with an imagery that identifies with British India and post-colonial times," Paul told IANS in an interview.
"I thought, while we were living in a uniquely 'Make in India' moment and the English alphabet could reflect objects and experiences that Indian kids could identify with, I perceived the dearth of a beautifully illustrated children's book with an Indian background and cultural references that our children could relate to."
Image source: ABC Desi/Facebook
The upshot? "ABC Desi" (Apeejay Press/pp 60/Rs 5,999-hardcover; Rs 150 soft cover), a perfect medium to teach little Indian children the English alphabet using a uniquely Indian vocabulary and set of images and style of rendering.
The book caters to both the high-end coffee table segment and the mass market, a rare instance of this happening in India.
"ABC Desi has metamorphosed from my rooted Indian values to create a unique learning for children, and a whimsical yet precious object for the lover of all things Indian and beautiful," explained Paul, whose group has interests in the tea, hospitality, shipping, retail and real estate sectors and has also diversified into knowledge parks.
Image source: ABC Desi/Facebook
She said the billboard art form was chosen for the illustrations as it was a genre that all Indians could easily identify with, bridging the rural-urban and north-south divide.
"By using this form of painting, I hope to root the alphabets firmly in an Indian imagery. In addition, I hope to continue to support the work of the artists and to bring to a larger and global audience the drama, beauty and uniqueness of their work. I hope the book and this art form continues to resonate the Make in India stamp," said Paul, who schooled at Kolkata's Loreto House and then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her undergraduate studies in architecture and economics, followed by a Masters in Design Studies from Harvard. She also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Architecture from Britain's Architectural Association School of Architecture.
Image source: ABC Desi/Facebook
Noting that billboard artists skillfully recreate scenes, objects and portraiture from photographs and magazines, bringing the magic of Bollywood and the sycophancy of Indian politics to the masses on the street, Paul added: "Often, Western themes are given a unique cultural stamp, resulting in pieces that are a mix of humour and irony, among the rich visual chaos of the bustling Indian streetscape."
Thus, the book's "vibrant graphics and their boundless colour palettes also serve as a window to fantasy and escapist entertainment" said the author, who is also the owner of Oxford Book Store.
What of the future?
"I am working on the translation of an important book into Hindi and it will be ready in a couple of weeks and launched later in the year. We have 10 years of the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival coming up and 100 years of the Oxford Book Store. There's much to look forward to."
(Vishnu Makhijani can be contacted at [email protected])The NCAA declared the University of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux mascot "hostile and abusive" in 2005, and the state voted to remove it in 2012, which leaves the school without a nickname until 2015. Not to worry, though. A group of students has found a solution: Use the same mascot, but add a beer bong to the logo. There's no way this could possibly backfire.
"Siouxper Drunk" T-shirts featuring the beer-bonging Fighting Sioux character debuted over the weekend at Springfest, a popular party not sponsored by UND, leading to several complaints to Indian Student Services Monday morning. One student called the shirts "degrading and demeaning."
American Indian Student Services Director Leigh Jeanotte told the Grand Forks Herald he doesn't expect the school to take the complaints seriously.
"Until there is a statement, until there is action, true action, to say that this is wrong, hurtful and it shouldn't be continued, it's going to just keep going on and on and on," he said.
The timing of the shirts only added to the controversy. During Time Out Week, a Native American educational event in April, a sorority hung a banner referencing the Fighting Sioux nickname, which also drew several student complaints.
The shirts also got the attention of the blog Last Real Indians, which broke down the drunken Indian stereotypes and stats on Native deaths from alcohol that make "Siouxper Drunk" offensive.
The students behind the shirts apparently knew they would bring negative attention, but either didn't care or welcomed it. Last Real Indians posted a screengrab of a deleted tweet from April where a student bragged the shirts would "make the news."
[H/T ValleyNewsLive, Photo via Last Real Indians]Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A VOX poll shows that Americans are more afraid of clowns than climate change.
Americans are more afraid of clowns than climate change, terrorism, and … death
…
The poll, conducted October 15 to 17, comes amid the great clown scare of 2016: Since August, more than 100 “suspicious” clown sightings have been reported across the US, from Seattle to Bangor, Maine.
We get it: Clowns are creepy. Especially when lingering in empty parking lots at 3:30 in the morning, holding black balloons. But are they scarier than real threats, like climate change, economic hardship, or the death of loved ones?
According to Americans, yes. Yes, they are.
We compared the results of our poll with a poll recently conducted by Chapman University, which asked 1,511 Americans to identify their greatest fears from a list of topics. Clowns outranked every single fear, save for “government corruption.” (Note that the Chapman poll only included “very afraid” and “afraid” as voting options, while our poll had “very afraid,” “somewhat afraid,” and “a little afraid.”).
…While drought-plagued California is eager for rain, the forecast of a potentially Godzilla-like El Niño event has communities clearing out debris basins, urging residents to stock up on emergency supplies and even talking about how a deluge could affect the 50th Super Bowl.
Roofers, on the other hand, are reveling in the uptick in business as homeowners ready for the prospect of downpours after four years of dry weather.
In San Francisco, officials are discussing how to contend with possible street closures if there is extensive rain or street flooding during the Super Bowl in February.
“As we move forward with Super Bowl planning, this is one of the things we’ve put out to various departments and entities,” said Rob Dudgeon, deputy director of San Francisco’s department of emergency management. “What if it has been raining really hard? What if it has been raining three or four days?”
In a state known for striking mountain landscapes and dramatic seaside cliffs, Californians are used to preparing for natural disasters ranging from treacherous wildfires and earthquakes to devastating floods and landslides.
Often, the state’s residents must be ready for more than one potential calamity at a time. Right now, firefighters are battling blazes during the state’s wildfire season but also getting ready for the prospect of wet winter months ahead.
Federal meteorologists recently said the El Niño event is already the second strongest on record for this time of year. While the warming of Pacific Ocean waters tends to bring heavy winter rain to California and much of the southern and eastern U.S., California’s state climatologist noted only half the time when there have been big El Niños has there been meaningful, heavy rains.
California would need 1 1/2 times its normal rainfall to get out of the extended drought, which is unlikely, according to Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center.
Emergency planners said the prolonged dry conditions across the state could lead to more debris, fallen trees and flooding during early rains.
“The potential for flooding is a very definite possibility with strong storms after a drought,” said Tammy Dunbar, emergency planning coordinator for Santa Clara County.
In Los Angeles County, workers have been clearing basins and channels to prevent flooding and capture as much storm water as possible to replenish local water supplies, said Bob Spencer, a spokesman for the county’s public works department.
In Laguna Beach, officials are urging homeowners to clear terrace drains and install floodgates where needed. They will also have code enforcement officers personally visit flood-prone properties, said Ben Siegel, deputy city manager.
In some places, residents are heeding the call to get prepared. In Palm Springs, where it rarely rains, homeowners have been getting their roofs checked and gutters cleared, said Rob Winkle, operations manager at Western Pacific Roofing.
“They want someone to come out and tell them everything is going to be OK,” said Winkle, who said the company is fielding 20 percent more calls than usual from worried residents.
During California’s prolonged drought, Hull Brothers Roofing president Chuck Jewett said he shifted his business to focus on installing cooling roofs for consumers weary of the heat.
But since the media began reporting on the potential for an El Niño that a NASA oceanographer compared to Godzilla, Jewett said his Culver City-based company has seen a four-fold increase in calls and has a two week wait for evaluations.
“They are like a beehive that is all stirred up,” Jewett said. “This is the busiest we have ever been.”
Related:
Copyright 2019 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.A former top interrogator is responding forcefully to the case Dick Cheney made on Thursday in favor of torture (what the former VP and his allies refer to as "enhanced interrogation methods.")
Brave New Films released a short video Tuesday of Matthew Alexander taking apart Cheney's argument piece by piece. Alexander, who uses a pseudonym for security reasons, was a 14-year military interrogator who oversaw more than a thousand interrogations and conducted more than 300 in Iraq himself. He led the interrogation team that scored one of the United States' most high-profile captures, that of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and he did it using traditional methods.
Alexander easily takes down Cheney's arguments. The most immediate blow Alexander strikes is, of course, his obvious success, which undercuts Cheney's case for more brutal techniques. Alexander also engages on the level of principle. For Cheney, the suggestion that torture is a poor strategy because it aids terrorist recruitment is nothing more than old-fashioned blame-America-first cowardice.
"After a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do," said Cheney.
The president and others who have condemned torture don't say that it "excuses the violent." Rather, they say it makes a violent reaction more likely -- and Alexander backed them up.
"At the prison where I conducted interrogations," responded Alexander, "we heard day in and day out, foreign fighters who had been captured state that the number one reason that they had come to fight in Iraq was because of torture and abuse, what had happened at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib."
Alexander put the number making this claim at 90 percent.
Alexander, however, made a broader point at the end of his interview, one that would certainly evade Cheney's grasp, convinced as he is that Al Qaeda recruits "hate us for our freedoms."
Cheney, said Alexander, fundamentally misunderstands the way America is viewed around the world. The American principles of freedom and democracy are cherished in the Muslim world and the idea, at least, of America is still a seductive one. But it is the behavior of the Bush administration at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret prisons around the globe that undercuts that image, allowing Al Qaeda to make the argument that America isn't what it stands for.
"Remember," said Alexander, "one of Al
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Hayes son. Aids his father in the gun running business. Develops a relationship with Polly Zobelle.
Sean Casey: IRA member, works for Father Kellan, skilled in torture.
Michael Casey: Sean Casey's brother, IRA, works for Father Kellan.
Hugh: Former IRA who was excommunicated for selling guns without approval from the council. Works alongside Connor Malone.
Luke Moran: Jimmy O'Phelan's right hand man. Carries out O'Phelans biddings.
Declan: Roarke's enforcer.
Donny: IRA loyalist and Jimmy O'Phelans' grunt.
The Biz-Lats
Nero Padilla: Pimp at the Diosa, and former leader of the Biz-Lats, which is run by Gomes and Fiasco. Gemma's new love. Becomes a new ally to the Sons. Treats his girls with respect.
Fiasco: Gangbanger and Gomes's partner in Nero's old crew. Also Nero's connection to the crew.
Gomes: Biz-Lats gang leader and associate of SAMCRO. Former associate of Nero's.
Renaldo: Biz-Lat lieutenant who disapproves of Nero leaving Stockton.
Arcadio Nerona: Latino thug under Fiasco. His KG9 was used in a school shooting. Currently dating Darvany Jennings.
Lupe: Gangbanger under Renaldo's command.
First Appearing in Season 1
Gemma Teller: Maiden name Gemma Madock. Mother of Jax Teller. Widow of John Teller, now Clay Morrow's old lady. Tough as nails and very stern. A no-nonsense mother and grandmother. Very protective of her family. Not the type of person to be messed with.
Wayne Unser: Chief of Police on Clay's Payroll. Diagnosed with cancer. Owns a shipping company.
Tara Knowles: Jax's high school crush and a surgeon at St. Thomas. She hooks up with Jax after his divorce with Wendy. Loyal to the club. Tends to go in fisticuffs with Gemma. In Season 4, she gives birth to Thomas, in Season 5, she marries Jax.
Chuck Marstein: SAMCRO's bartender, cleaner, lapdog, etc. Spent time in prison with Otto. Got in trouble with Henry Lin. Has a disorder that causes him to masturbate frequently. Henry Lin cuts his fingers off to rid him of his disorder.
Wendy Teller: Jax's ex-wife. Recovering junkie after nearly killing Abel in childbirth because of her drug habits. She returns in Season 4 sober, relapses later in the show.
David Hale: Unser's deputy in the Charming PD. Intent on taking down the Sons. The Mayors brother.
Abel: Jax's First son. Birth mother Wendy. Born with a heart defect, nearly died. Jax protected him from the truth about his real mother. In Season 7, Jax tells Abel about his mother.
Candy Eglee: A member of the Charming PD.
Agent June Stahl: ATF agent called in by David Hale to help bring down the Sons. Tends to bend the rules a bit. Can be manipulative and rogue.
Luanne Delaney: Otto's old lady. Runs a porn studio in Charming. Friends with Gemma Teller. Develops a relationship with Bobby after Otto is arrested. Her business is threatened by Georgie Caruso.
Donna Lerner: Opie's old lady. Condemns Opie's actions in returning to SAMCRO after he was released.
Joshua Kohn: ATF Agent out of Chicago. Had a relationship with Tara Knowles that ended badly. Had a restraining order place on him by her.
Lowell Harland Jr.: Mechanic at the Teller-Morrow garage. Drug Addict. His father was a Son. He learns his father was a traitor to the club.
Elliot Oswald: Respected businessman in Charming. Intends to run for mayor. SAMCRO helps him out after his daughter was raped.
Agent Estevez: ATF agent under June Stahl.
Ellie Winston: Opie's daughter.
Kenny Winston: Opie's son.
Mary Winston: Opie's mother. Piney's ex-wife.
Cherry: A barmaid from Nevada, hooks up with Hack-Sack. Butts heads with Gemma after an altercation with Clay. Relocates to Ireland to lay low from the ATF. Dating Liam O'Neill in Season 3.
Floyd: Town Barber and friend to Unser.
Vic Trammel: Sheriff of Charming Heights on SAMCRO's payroll.
Eviqua Michaels: The young woman who witnessed Bobby kill Brenan. SAMCRO gave her the choice to flee California or die.
Agent Smith: Agent Stahl's partner in Season 1.
Brenan Hefner: The Oakland Port Commissioner who deals with the Sons and IRA.
Nate Meineke: Piney's war buddy. Buys guns from the Sons to stage a prison van assault.
Russell Meineke: Nate Meineke's son who was being transported in a prison van. Now a wanted escapee.
Officer Saunders: Trammels partner.
Rosen: SAMCRO's first lawyer in the show.
Tristin Oswald: Elliot Oswalds daughter. Sexually assaulted at the fair.
Skeeter: Runs the Funeral Home in Charming. SAMCRO's cleaner.
Jimmy Cacuzza: Heads the Cacuzza Crime Family. Buys guns from SAMCRO.
First Appearing in Season 2
Margaret Murphy: An administrator at St. Thomas Hospital, and Tara's boss. Has a dislike for Jax and the Sons and makes it known. Tends to cause problems for Tara when she tries to bend the rules to benefit club members. Her relationship with Tara improves in Season 3. Has a troubled past, which explains the tattoo on her back.
Lyla: Porn star who works for Luanne. Hooks up with Opie. Single mother. She runs the porn studio after Luanne is murdered. She marries Opie in Season 4.
Jacob Hale: Mayor of Charming and David Hale's brother. Partners himself with Zobelle. Known to be a bit corrupt.
Ima: One of Luanne's porn stars. Has a liking for Jax and Opie. Considered to be a bitch to some of the other girls.
Georgie Caruso: Luanne's Rival in the Porn Industry. Harasses Luanne's girls and faces consequences with SAMCRO.
Fiona Larkin: Chibs ex-wife. Now married to Jimmy O'Phelan. Has a daughter, Kerrianne.
First Appearing in Season 3
Maureen Ashby: Kellan Ashby's sister. Old lady to Keith McGee. Took Cherry under her wing when she fled the States.
Trinity Ashby: Maureen Ashby's daughter. Builds a connection with Jax.
Luisa: Hector Salazar's old lady.
Agent Amy Tyler: ATF agent who has an intimate connection with Agent Stahl.
Ally Lowen: SAMCRO's new lawyer. Replaced Rosen in Season 3.
Nate Madock: Gemma's father. Suffering from Alzheimer's and memory loss.
Kerrianne Telford: Chibs and Fiona's daughter.
Amelia Dominguez: Caretaker for Gemma's father. Soon discovers that Gemma is wanted and becomes a hostage.
Viktor Putlova: Russian mobster based in California.
Diana Alvarez: Marcus Alvarez's wife.
Lumpy Feldstein: Owns the Boxing Gym. Holocaust Survivor. Friend to SAMCRO.
First Appearing in Season 4
Eli Roosevelt: No-nonsense head of the San Joaquin county sheriffs department in Charming. Has a distaste for gangs. Refuses to take bribes. Declares that parolees cannot run around in gang cuts (clothing, gear, etc).
Deputy Cane: Deputy under Eli Roosevelt. Partnered with Deputy Martinez.
Rita Roosevelt: Wife of Eli Roosevelt.
Lincoln Potter: US Attorney brought in to bring down SAMCRO. Built a RICO case with the FBI and ATF. Tends to ride a motorcycle.
Agent Grad Nicholas: FBI agent on Lincoln's RICO case looking to take down the Sons and their collaborators.
Agent Ronald Zwersky: Undercover FBI agent who infiltrated the Russian Mafia.
Thomas Teller: Jax's newborn son, named after his late brother, born to Tara Knowles. Abel's brother.
Dawn Trager: Distant daughter of Tig's. Has a bad drug habit.
Charlie Horse: Chief of the Wahewa Tribe. Friend of SAMCRO. Makes ammo for the club.
Deputy Martinez: Deputy under Eli Roosevelt. Partnered with Deputy Cain.
Ivo Alexei: Russian thug in prison. Made enemies with the Sons during their incarceration.
Veronica Pope: Daughter of Damon Pope. Dating Laroy Wayne.
First Appearing in Season 5
Lee Toric: Ex-US Marshal. Ex-Spec Op. Declared War on the Sons and their loved ones after his sister was murdered.
Venus Van Dam: Transgender, once named Vincent Noore. Molested by her mother as a child just to end her feminacy. Develops a romantic relationship with Tig.
Carla: Nero's half-sister and partner in his escort service. Ruthless and wicked. Has a bit of a temper tantrum. Hates being stabbed in the back.
Emma Jean: Escort who works for Nero. A thorn in Carla side. Rumored to have hooked up with Clay, causing strife between her and Gemma.
Lucius Padilla: Nero's handicapped son.
Detective Goodman: Dirty cop on Pope's payroll.
Sergeant Macky: Dirty Prison Guard on Pope's payroll.
Nurse Pamela Toric: Prison nurse at Stockton Penitentiary. Lee Toric's sister.
Leo Pirelli: Italian crime boss. Known to help people disappear. Connected with SAMCRO. Hates being screwed with.
Fawn Trager: Tigs distant daughter. Currently dating a gangbanger.
First Appearing in Season 6
Tyne Patterson: DA in San Joaquin County. Tends to wear a whig.
Charles Barosky: Crime boss and racketeer, associated with SAMCRO. Owns a bakery as a front for his business. A very stern and to-the-point man.
Colette Jane: Madam and manager of the Diosa.
Brooke Putner: Troubled teenager in Charming. Vandalized SAMCRO's ice cream parlor.
Kiki: Hostess at the Diosa. Not too bright in the head.
Erin Byrne: Escort working for Nero.
Darvany Jennings: Mother of Matthew Jennings, the boy who shot up his school.
Matthew Jennings: Troubled boy who stole Arcadio's gun and shot up his school.
Alice Noone: Venus Van Dam's abusive mother. Claims to do what's best for her family.
Amir Ghaneezi: Iranian criminal who runs a torture porn studio with his brother, Kia.
Kia Ghaneezi: Iranian criminal who runs a torture porn studio with his brother, Amir.
Felipe: Grieving father who lost his son in the school shooting. Lashed out at Nero's old gang as retaliation.
First Appearing in Season 7
Althea Jarry: Sheriff of San Joaquin County. Brought in to investigate Tara and Eli's murder. Becomes acquainted with Chibs.
Milo: Truck driver Gemma hitches a ride with to Oregon.
Greensleeves: Real name is Adam Greenblatt. Pimp/Drug Addict. Very abusive to his ladies. Evasive of the Sons.
Gib O'Leary: Jury White estranged son. Ex-military. Aids SAMCRO in a job.
Renny: Gib's friend. Aids SAMCRO in a job.
Desmond Harnigan: Stockton cop and store owner who pays Barosky for protection. Timid and useless.
Pastor Haddem: Church Pastor who is known to be a bit of a sex addict. Known to film his pornos with prostitutes and other church members. A client of Venus Van Dams.
Loutreesha Haddem: Pastor Haddems estranged wife. Has a health conditions. Refuses to make a deal with August Marks.
Grant McQueen: Pastor Haddems son. Takes care of his mother.
Sandy Haas: Escort at the Diosa. Mistreated by her father.
Ken Haas: Sandy's abusive father. Reckless and ignorant.
Dulain: Leader of the East Dubs. Responsible for the attacks on the Grim Bastards. Edit (Coming Soon)BARRINGTON -- If any of your children go to the middle school, don’t look for their names in the local newspaper to see if they made the honor roll last semester.
Barrington Middle School has decided to end its long tradition of producing an honor roll in an effort to downplay the significance of letter grades and reduce student and parent anxiety. The change -- for students in seventh and eighth grades -- does not affect the high school.
“BMS has engaged in several years of learning around mindfulness and effective assessment strategies with leading experts in the field. We know that the middle school age student faces a number of social, academic, and emotional changes,” Principal Andrew Anderson wrote in letter to middle school families this week. “The traditional honor roll does not acknowledge the whole student and is not an effective measure or representation of success.”
Supt. Michael Messore said that Barrington schools have been reviewing their practices with an eye toward reducing stress. That has led to changes, for example, in how much homework students are assigned and when they are assigned it.
At the middle school, in particular, letter grades and honor rolls have no bearing on students’ future high school transcripts, which can determine acceptance into college, Messore said. Yet some middle school students and their parents get overly anxious about report cards and honor rolls.
“Students coming from elementary school into middle school all of a sudden start worrying about the grades,” he said. “Let’s not miss the point of why we are here and what we are learning about.”
Already, there is shift in Barrington away from letter grades at the middle school level. The sixth grade has begun assessing students not with letter grades, but on whether they are meeting standards. That, said Messore, could migrate to the upper middle school grades in future years, as has taken place at other Rhode Island schools, including Middletown and Coventry, many years ago.
In explaining the honor roll decision, Anderson wrote to families, “This decision came out of committee work, conversations around grading, and ultimately what is best for all students, not just some students. This decision is also supported by a body of research that emphasizes the learning process. A traditional honor roll is counter-intuitive to that core fundamental belief.
“BMS will continue to celebrate students who demonstrate academic, civic, and social expectations through frequent and year-end recognition ceremonies.”
He noted that BMS has been named a Blue Ribbon School and was a state education commissioner’s “commended school” in 2015 and 2016.
The following is the full text of Principal Anderson’s letter:
The following information is in reference to yesterday's Barrington Middle School's newsletter.
This year, Barrington Middle School (BMS) made the decision to not post traditional honor roll reports. This decision came out of committee work, conversations around grading, and ultimately what is best for all students, not just some students. This decision is also supported by a body of research that emphasizes the learning process. A traditional honor roll is counter-intuitive to that core fundamental belief. BMS will continue to celebrate students who demonstrate academic, civic, and social expectations through frequent and year-end recognition ceremonies.
BMS has engaged in several years of learning around mindfulness and effective assessment strategies with leading experts in the field. We know that the middle school age student faces a number of social, academic, and emotional changes. The traditional honor roll does not acknowledge the whole student and is not an effective measure or representation of success.
As you are aware, over the past couple of years, BMS has made a number of shifts with regards to its grading practices. These shifts included instituting a redo/retake protocol that gives students an opportunity to show what he/she has mastered, implementing a district-wide homework policy, transitioning to trimesters to provide extended opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery, emphasizing that zeros are not an option, and involving students in the reflective learning processes. As a reminder, next year, we will be shifting towards standards-based reporting beginning with the 6th grade. The new reporting will allow us to provide parents with information regarding both students’ content mastery and their ability to apply their learning.
Our focus has always been, and will always be, on the students’ learning experience. In fact, it is due to these beliefs that Barrington Middle School has been recognized as a Blue Ribbon School and a Commissioner of Education’s Commended School (2015 and 2016). As noted above, we will continue to recognize and celebrate the students who have demonstrated mastery, shown academic growth, and engage deeply with the learning process through school-wide celebrations and acknowledgments in ways that are more meaningful than averaged scores.
Sincerely,
Andrew AndersonI’m pleased to say that Caitlin and James have just finished giving our Open States project a lovely new design. Not only is the site now much more pleasing to look at, it’s much easier to see the great progress that’s being made by James, Mike and our volunteer contributors. In addition to the five states that are live (and supported by OpenGovernment), there are already another twelve states with “experimental” status. Don’t let the scare-quotes scare you, though: while we wouldn’t yet recommend building your air traffic control system or pacemaker firmware in such a way that it’s dependent on our API coverage of Alaska, the scrapers from the experimental states are well on their way to being declared complete. Developers should confident about building around this data — rest assured that it’ll be declared “ready” soon enough.
Of course, we hope that developers in our community will also consider becoming involved in the project directly — there’s plenty of work to be done.
And it’s genuinely important work. State legislatures are where vital decisions are made about civil rights, transportation, education, taxes, land use, gun regulation, and a host of other issues. Far too often, these issues don’t get the attention they deserve. It’s a simple question of scale: there are a lot more resources available at the federal level for both lawmakers and journalists. That means state governance both requires more transparency and tends to get less of it. We think technology can help make the situation better — that’s what Open States is all about.
There are some interesting opportunities for cross-state work, too. Polisci geeks will probably appreciate the comparative politics opportunities that a common data model and API will allow (Gabriel Florit’s already been creating some cool visualization experiments that build on our data). But there are also less academic applications for this information. Consider these two stories that NPR published last fall. They got a bit lost in the pre-election shuffle, but they made a big impression on me.
The gist of it is this: Arizona’s controversial immigration law didn’t happen by magic. One of the special interests fighting for it was the private prison lobby — as you might imagine, having more prisoners means more business for them, and they saw increased enforcement of immigration laws as a growth opportunity. So, via an intermediary organization that specializes in this sort of thing, they conducted a legislator “education” campaign, wining and dining lawmakers and sending them home with prewritten model legislation.
All of this is perfectly legal. And, depending on your opinion about immigration, you might even approve of the policy outcome it produced. But it’s hard to imagine anyone being okay with the shadowy role that commercial interests appear to have played in this legislative process. If we’d been able to spot the provenance of the legislation earlier, would journalists and organizers have been able to give the people of Arizona a more complete understanding of what was going on? I think so — I hope so. That’s the kind of use that Open States should make possible, and the one I’m most excited about.Rocker Ozzy Osbourne wants to donate his body to science, insisting it’s a “medical miracle” he’s still alive after years of partying hard.
The Black Sabbath star is baffled he has managed to survive to the age of 61 and is convinced doctors and scientists would benefit from dissecting and studying his body after he dies.
According to the U.K.’s Daily Star, he says, “By all accounts, I’m a medical miracle. When I die, I should donate my body to the Natural History Museum. It’s all very well going on a bender for a couple of days but mine went on for 40 years. At one point, I was knocking back four bottles of cognac a day, blacking out, coming to again and carrying on.”
The “Dreamer” hitmaker has struggled with an addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs, and was hospitalized with severe injuries after he was involved in a quad bike accident in 2003.
But he admits he has always had concerns about his health: “I happen to be the world’s worst hypochondriac. I will catch a disease off the telly (TV). Being ill is like a hobby. I’ve even started to diagnose my own diseases, thanks to Google.”Share Pin Share Email Shares 0
It seems nearly every financial publication released today has the term “bubble” in it somewhere. Many of us know it's a bad thing, but what does it really mean and how do they happen? Do they truly have an effect on the average consumer? Hopefully we can clear up the confusion of what an economic bubble is and determine if we can know when one is occurring.
What Is An Economic Bubble?
Economic bubbles happen when trade of a specific item (like a stock, asset, product, or service) is artificially inflated beyond normal standards of trade. On a graph, this looks much like a bubble! The price/trade of an item might be skyrocketing higher and higher with time, but then inevitably comes crashing down in the end.
Mania, Fear, And Hysteria
Many times, economic bubbles can result from mania surrounding a product or service. Values of an item are pushed beyond normality, and everyone tries to buy the product at one time so that they might make a profit. The stock market is prime real estate for such bubbles, as it can be difficult to accurately determine the value of a stock. Because it is difficult to know whether a stock is valued too high or low, many financial advisors suggest a diversification plan when it comes to investing, and not purchasing single stocks.
A classic example of economic mania (resulting in an economic bubble) is the Dutch Tulip Mania event. Tulip bulb prices between 1636 and 1637 shot up and crashed down within months. It's said that prices were artificially inflated because everyone was buying bulbs hoping to turn around and sell them to make a profit. This is an unsustainable business model, because eventually the buying of the product outweighs the selling and the whole system comes crashing down.
A Lesson To Be Learned?
There are two schools of thought within economics when it comes to economic bubbles. Some people say that bubbles are predictable with study. Entire books have been written on how to “time” the stock market or financial future. However, mainstream economics believes that economic bubbles are both inevitable and unpredictable.
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I lean towards the mainstream, and believe that bubbles can go unnoticed for a period of time before they inevitably burst and nearly everyone is surprised. The free market is a good thing and eventually equalizes the markets, but it's more of jerky roller coaster ride than smooth sailing. Not only is Wall Street affected, but Main Street as well.
The lesson to be learned? Diversify not only your investments, but also diversify your income streams. The recent recession left a countless number of people unemployed. Many only had one job before the recession hit, and now they are left with collecting unemployment.
It's All Psychological!
Contentment. It's key when you're wanting to handle your finances in a successful manner that leads to wealth. Too many get caught up in a mode of desperation and take part in the hype, mania, and overvaluing of products and services. It helps to have a calm spirit. Don't allow the media to influence your path. When everyone is saying “buy now, buy now,” it's probably not the best time to buy. Likewise, when everyone is selling, it may be unwise to sell.
Slow and steady! That's the ticket. Having a long term game plan is crucial to your success. Build a financial foundation, and slowly build wealth, one dollar at a time. Then, when the economic bubbles pop, you can sit back and relax – you've built a strong house that can weather the storm! Don't you agree?
Share Pin Share Email Shares 0This article is about the rock formation. For the nearby town with the same name, see Shiprock, New Mexico
Shiprock (Navajo: Tsé Bitʼaʼí, "rock with wings" or "winged rock"[4]) is a monadnock rising nearly 1,583 feet (482.5 m) above the high-desert plain of the Navajo Nation in San Juan County, New Mexico, United States. Its peak elevation is 7,177 feet (2,187.5 m) above sea level. It lies about 10.75 miles (17.30 km) southwest of the town of Shiprock, which is named for the peak.
Governed by the Navajo Nation, the formation is in the Four Corners region and plays a significant role in Navajo religion, myth, and tradition. It is located in the center of the area occupied by the Ancient Pueblo People, a prehistoric Native American culture of the Southwest United States often referred to as the Anasazi. Shiprock is a point of interest for rock climbers and photographers and has been featured in several film productions and novels. It is the most prominent landmark in northwestern New Mexico.
Name [ edit ]
The Navajo name for the peak, Tsé Bitʼaʼí, "rock with wings" or "winged rock", refers to the legend of the great bird that brought the Navajo from the north to their present lands.[5][6] The name "Shiprock" or Shiprock Peak or Ship Rock derives from the peak's resemblance to an enormous 19th-century clipper ship. Americans first called the peak "The Needle", a name given to the topmost pinnacle by Captain J. F. McComb in 1860.[6] United States Geological Survey maps indicate that the name "Ship Rock" dates from the 1870s.[5][6]
Geology [ edit ]
Shiprock is composed of fractured volcanic breccia and black dikes of igneous rock called minette, or lamprophyre. It is the erosional remnant of the throat of a volcano, and the volcanic breccia formed in a diatreme. The rock probably was originally formed 2,500–3,000 feet (750–1,000 meters) below the Earth's surface, but it was exposed after millions of years of erosion.[7] Wall-like sheets of minette, known as dikes, radiate away from the central formation. Radiometric age determinations of the minette establish that these volcanic rocks solidified about 27 million years ago. Shiprock is in the northeastern part of the Navajo Volcanic Field—a field that includes intrusions and flows of minette and other unusual igneous rocks that formed about 30 million years ago. Agathla (El Capitan) in Monument Valley is another prominent volcanic neck in this volcanic field.[8][9]
Map of Navajo Volcanic Field with Shiprock
Religious and cultural significance [ edit ]
Shiprock and the surrounding land have religious and historical significance to the Navajo people. It is mentioned in many of their myths and legends. Foremost is the peak's role as the agent that brought the Navajo to the southwest. According to one legend, after being transported from another place, the Navajos lived on the monolith, "coming down only to plant their fields and get water."[6] One day, the peak was struck by lightning, obliterating the trail and leaving only a sheer cliff, and stranding the women and children on top to starve. The presence of people on the peak is forbidden "for fear they might stir up the chį́įdii (ghosts), or rob their corpses."[6]
Navajo legend puts the peak in a larger geographic context. Shiprock is said to be either a medicine pouch or a bow carried by the "Goods of Value Mountain", a large mythic male figure comprising several mountain features throughout the region. The Chuska Mountains comprise the body, Chuska Peak is the head, the Carrizo Mountains are the legs, and Beautiful Mountain is the feet.[6]
Navajo legend has it that Bird Monsters (Tsé Ninájálééh) nested on the peak and fed on human flesh. After Monster Slayer, elder of the Warrior Twins, destroyed Déélééd at Red Mesa, he killed two adult Bird Monsters at Shiprock and changed two young ones into an eagle and an owl.[6][10] The peak is mentioned in stories from the Enemy Side Ceremony and the Navajo Mountain Chant, and is associated with the Bead Chant and the Naayee'ee Ceremony.[6] There are a number of other legends regarding what the Shiprock pinnacle might be. Some Navajo traditionalists argue that it is a geological anomaly that may have originated as a work of the'star people'.
Restrictions on the formation [ edit ]
An injury to a climber in late March 1970 (American Alpine Journal 1971 accident report) caused the Navajo Nation to ban rock climbing not only on Shiprock but all over the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation announced that the ban was "absolute, final and unconditional". Due to "the Navajo's traditional fear of death and its aftermath, such accidents and especially fatalities often render the area where they occur as taboo, and the location is sometimes henceforth regarded as contaminated by evil spirits and is considered a place to be avoided."[citation needed] The pinnacle is located on private property of Navajo grazing lease holders and is currently monitored and overseen by Shiprock tribal community advocates. Two Navajo chapter tribal government organizations claim jurisdiction over the formation. The Navajo tribal parks and recreation department does not have jurisdiction over the formation because it is not presently a tribal park. The formation is a highly sacred religious site to the Navajo people.
Due to recent deaths, littering, and vandalism, the pinnacle has been under strict evaluation and observation by local Shiprock Pinnacle Tribal Advocates and by two Navajo Chapter organizations since early 2016, who oversee the area and encourage the public to not drive around the formation as if it had open access. Hiking, filming, and driving are all prohibited to the public due to its sacred nature and its sacred space. According to the Navajo traditionalists, an ecosystem of living and non-living matter needs to be protected and unharmed. In the Navajo traditional way, people are to respect the ecosystem and not disrupt its processes. It is recommended that the public respect the Navajo people who visit daily for religious activities and other miscellaneous purposes as it is Navajo trust land. A core/protection and buffer zones will be established soon. Local Shiprock Pinnacle Tribal Advocates and the two Navajo Chapter organizations also encourage visitors to use common sense etiquette and remember that the Navajo Nation is a sovereign, self-governed nation with rules and laws that must be followed.
All areas near the formation are closed to non-Natives for the traditional religious purposes and for the safety of the formation and lava dike. It is recommended that the public stay at least three miles (4.8 km) away from the formation and 20 feet (6.1 m) from the lava dikes or wall when visiting. Navajo religious rights (the Fundamental Laws of the Dine' (Dine' Natural Law) from the Navajo Nation Title 1 Laws), Navajo grazing rights, boundaries, and private properties lines apply around and in the formation. The formation is a Navajo religious site. The restrictions were put in place in July 2016 by the delegated tribal authority (i.e., Navajo families and grazing holders who live around the formation, Shiprock Pinnacle Tribal Advocates, and members of the Navajo Chapters & Tribal Council). Visitors without any proper tribal authorization will be considered to be trespassing on Federal Indian Reservation land and are subject to legal sanctions. The tribal police at the formation monitor its use and visits.
Climate [ edit ]
Climate data for Shiprock, NM Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Record high °F (°C) 66
(19) 78
(26) 83
(28) 91
(33) 99
(37) 107
(42) 109
(43) 106
(41) 99
(37) 92
(33) 78
(26) 72
(22) 109
(43) Average high °F (°C) 43.0
(6.1) 50.6
(10.3) 59.9
(15.5) 70.0
(21.1) 79.8
(26.6) 90.1
(32.3) 94.6
(34.8) 91.9
(33.3) 85.1
(29.5) 72.4
(22.4) 56.2
(13.4) 44.1
(6.7) 69.8
(21.0) Average low °F (°C) 15.7
(−9.1) 21.5
(−5.8) 27.5
(−2.5) 34.9
(1.6) 43.8
(6.6) 51.2
(10.7) 58.8
(14.9) 57.3
(14.1) 48.0
(8.9) 36.0
(2.2) 25.1
(−3.8) 16.9
(−8.4) 36.4
(2.5) Record low °F (°C) −18
(−28) −14
(−26) 2
(−17) 9
(−13) 15
(−9) 28
(−2) 30
(−1) 33
(1) 21
(−6) 10
(−12) 0
(−18) −26
(−32) −26
(−32) Average precipitation inches (mm) 0.46
(12) 0.46
(12) 0.54
(14) 0.41
(10) 0.51
(13) 0.29
(7.4) 0.66
(17) 1.00
(25) 0.80
(20) 0.78
(20) 0.52
(13) 0.57
(14) 7
(177.4) Average snowfall inches (cm) 1.6
(4.1) 0.7
(1.8) 0.6
(1.5) 0
(0) 0
(0) 0
(0) 0
(0) 0
(0) 0
(0) 0
(0) 0.2
(0.51) 1.0
(2.5) 4.1
(10.41) Source: http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?nm8284
Images [ edit ]
Ship Rock and associated dikes, in a cropped, marked, and lower-resolution image from original by NASA Visible Earth. This image was acquired by an ASTER sensor and colors are not photo-like.
Aerial view of Shiprock
See also [ edit ]Rebellion's just announced a mini-campaign for Sniper Elite 4.
Deathstorm Part 1: Inception comes out on 21st March on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It's the opening chapter and mission in a three-part campaign, playable from start to finish for one or two players. It's set after the events of the main game, with the first chapter taking place in the colder terrain of northern Italy. There, a Nazi naval base was recently the target of a bombing run.
Here's the official blurb:
With imposing scaffolding, a German destroyer and myriad Kriegsmarine soldiers to negotiate, Karl Fairburne must help finish what the bombing run started. But his primary mission concerns the secret Manhattan Project: To retrieve a critical, mysterious package codenamed Deathstorm...
Part two of Inception is due out late April. Part three is out May or June.
Meanwhile, also out on 21st March is the Night Fighter Expansion Pack, which includes three new weapons, night-time camo rifle skins for eight weapons and new male and female character skins.
Multiplayer also gets a brand new Elimination mode for free. Here's the blurb:
This two-team mode for up to 12 players is all about trying to whittle down your opponent's numbers. If you kill an enemy player, they're forced to sit out on the sidelines. But if their team kills one of your teammates, they tag back in one of their sidelined comrades. In Elimination, all is not lost, even when you're 1v6.
And finally, there's a free multiplayer map called Night Woods. As Rebellion as said, all additional multiplayer maps and modes for Sniper Elite 4 are free.I am glad to welcome you to this modest site. I have tried to assemble here a small legacy of songs left from the Soviet era. All of them were at once widely known and popular in the cities and towns of our glorious Motherland.
Some of these songs, even now, are known to practically everyone who has been born and raised in the USSR and other socialistic countries. Others, on the contrary, have been long forgotten, during the course of time.
These songs are a monument to our not too distant past, during which USSR tried to build a new socialist society. It was
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the NCAA in rushing touchdowns with 31 this season. He ranked fourth in the FBS with 1,741 yards rushing.
Davante Adams, WR, Fresno State
Dec. 28: Adams decides to go pro
Adams, a redshirt sophomore, will enter the 2014 NFL Draft after leading the FBS with 131 receptions for 1,719 yards and 24 touchdowns. He has already signed an agent, eliminating the possibility he will return to Fresno State. NFL Media analyst Daniel Jeremiah has compared Adams (6-foot-2, 216 pounds) to San Diego Chargers rookie Keenan Allen.
Bruce Ellington, WR, South Carolina
Dec. 28: Ellington giving up hoops for NFL?
Ellington is the starting point guard for the Gamecocks basketball team but indicated he would give up basketball to prepare for the draft if he decides to declare. Ellington is waiting to see the results from his NFL Draft Advisory Board evaluation before making a decision on his future.
Ramik Wilson, LB, Georgia
Dec. 28: Wilson says he'll return for senior season
After considering declaring early for the NFL draft, Wilson has decided to return for another season with the Bulldogs. "It was just nice to think about. I'm blessed to have the opportunity," Wilson said, according to dawgs247.com. "I was just enjoying the moment, like 'The dream is coming true. I have a chance to get drafted and all that.' But school is more important. I need my degree at the end of the day."
George Atkinson III, RB, Notre Dame
Dec. 28: Atkinson suspended for Pinstripe Bowl
Did Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly make RB George Atkinson III's draft decision a bit easier? Atkinson, who has applied for feedback from the NFL Draft Advisory Board, tweeted that he was suspended from the Pinstripe Bowl for sending a text message during a team meal. Atkinson quickly deleted the tweet, but he clearly was frustrated with the decision.
Demarcus Lawrence, DE, Boise State
Dec. 28: Lawrence says he's entering 2014 draft
Lawrence announced his intentions for the 2014 NFL Draft on Facebook. "While Coach Peterson's decision to take the Washington job had some influence on my decision I felt it was in the best interests of my family and myself to pursue my lifelong dream to become an NFL player," Lawrence wrote in the social-media post. His 20.5 tackles for loss this season led the Mountain West Conference and ranked third in the NCAA.
Dec. 27: Seferian-Jenkins intends to enter draft
Seferian-Jenkins said after the Fight Hunger Bowl that he will enter the 2014 NFL Draft. The junior reportedly received a second-round grade from the NFL Draft Advisory Board. He's considered one of the top three draft-eligible tight ends in the nation, along with UNC's Eric Ebron and Texas Tech's Jace Amaro.
Colt Lyerla, TE, Oregon
Dec. 27: Lyerla pleads guilty to cocaine possession
Lyerla, a former Oregon tight end, pleaded guilty to cocaine possession. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and 40 of community service. He will also be on probation for the next 24 months. Lyerla will be required to attend drug treatment and submit to random testing, but he will be allowed to move to Las Vegas to train for the 2014 draft. Lyerla was arrested in October after leaving school to pursue the NFL.
Brett Smith, QB, Wyoming
Dec. 27: Smith announces draft decision
Smith, who threw for 3,375 yards and 29 TDs during the 2013 season, became the first underclassman quarterback to declare for the 2014 draft. "It was extremely tough, that's for sure. But I just felt like with the entire situation of things, I made a decision that being in the NFL was my absolute dream, and I just wanted to pursue it," Smith said.
Frank Clark, DE, Michigan
Dec. 27: Clark decides to return for senior season
Clark sought feedback from the NFL Draft Advisory Board and said he will stay in school for his senior season after receiving a draft grade that was in line with his expectations. Clark and the Wolverines will wrap up their season Saturday against Kansas State in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl.
Jake Murphy, TE, Utah
Dec. 27: Murphy intends to declare for 2014 draft
Murphy, the son of former Major League Baseball All-Star Dale Murphy, announced that he will forgo his senior season at Utah and enter the 2014 NFL Draft. He was limited to eight games this season because of a wrist injury and had 25 catches for 417 yards and five touchdowns.
Ifo Ekpre-Olomu, CB, Oregon
Dec. 27: Ekpre-Olomu denies he's made draft decision
Ekpre-Olomu refuted a report that he has decided to return to Oregon for his senior season, saying he would like to meet with his parents first before making a decision. One of the top cornerback prospects in the nation, Ekpre-Olomu has said he will not be influenced by the feedback he receives from the NFL Draft Advisory Board, saying he is more concerned with making sure he is physically and mentally ready to play in the pros.
Teddy Bridgewater, QB, Louisville
Dec. 27: AFC scout: Bridgewater 'a second-rounder'
Bridgewater is viewed by many as a potential No. 1 overall pick, but one AFC scouting director told Albert Breer that he thinks Bridgewater is "a second-rounder." Earlier this month NFL media draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah said he believes Bridgewater has been overhyped and "elevated above his ability," while Charles Davis believes he is more of a "top-10 guy." Bridgewater dropped a hint on Twitter last week that he may be leaning toward going pro, but later acknowledged he isn't certain he's ready for the NFL and wants to "evaluate everything" after Louisville plays Miami in Saturday's Russell Athletic Bowl.
Marcus Martin, C, USC
Dec. 27: Martin announces he will enter draft
Martin tweeted Friday that he will forgo his senior season at USC and enter the 2014 NFL Draft. A first-team Pac-12 selection this season, Martin started 33 games over the last three seasons, playing guard and center.
Storm Johnson, RB, Central Florida
Dec. 27: Johnson holding draft decision off until after Fiesta Bowl
Johnson, a junior who rushed for 1,015 yards and 11 touchdowns this season, said he would decide whether to turn pro after the Knights face Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 1. Teammate Blake Bortles is also considering early entry into the draft.
Denzel Perryman, LB, Miami (Fla.)
Dec. 26: Perryman waiting until after bowl game to make decision
Perryman, a first-team All-ACC pick, said he is going to wait until after Miami's appearance in the Dec. 28 Russell Athletic Bowl to make a decision about whether to enter the 2014 NFL Draft. Perryman leads the Hurricanes with 104 tackles.
Sean Hickey, OT, Syracuse
Dec. 26: Hickey undecided about future
Hickey has requested feedback from the NFL Draft Advisory Board, but he says his focus has been on the Dec. 27 Texas Bowl. He plans to make a decision on whether to turn pro after the game. Hickey replaced Justin Pugh, a 2013 first-round pick of the Giants, at left tackle for the Orange this season.
Kameron Jackson, CB, California
Dec. 24: Jackson announces intention to enter 2014 draft
Jackson announced on his Twitter account that he intends to bypass his senior season at California and enter the 2014 NFL Draft. A junior, Jackson had four interceptions in his Cal career, including three in his signature game against UCLA last year.
Kony Ealy, DE, Missouri
Dec. 23: Ealy seeks draft advice from NFL players
Ealy has been in touch with several NFL players, including the Jets' Sheldon Richardson and the 49ers' Aldon Smith, as he decides whether to turn pro or return to Missouri for his senior season. Tigers defensive line coach Craig Kuligowski also had some advice for Ealy: "If the guy is going to be a top-five pick or something like that, we want him to go. If he's not going to be a high-round draft pick, we don't advise him to go."
Dion Bailey, S, USC
Dec. 23: Bailey announces draft decision
Bailey, a redshirt junior, announced he will enter the 2014 NFL Draft. He played safety in 2013 after spending the previous two seasons at linebacker, and his versatility could intrigue NFL teams. "He would be a good candidate to play in sub packages as a nickel/dime linebacker," NFL Media analyst Daniel Jeremiah told College Football 24/7. "If he plays safety, he'll be an excellent underneath defender but I'd have concerns with him as the high safety."
Johnny Manziel, QB, Texas A&M
Dec. 22: Manziel not a lock for first round?
Johnny Manziel has said he might not enter the 2014 draft if projections indicate he won't be picked in the first round, and one NFL scout suggested that might be the situation the Texas A&M QB will find himself in. "... There will probably be three (QBs selected) in the first. Depends what people think of Johnny Manziel," the scout said.
Greg Robinson, OT, Auburn
Dec. 22: Scout: Robinson would be picked in first half of first round
Robinson, a third-year sophomore, has not yet declared his intentions for 2014. He has been generating plenty of buzz in NFL circles of late, though, and one scout described him as "a stud" to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. NFL Media analyst Daniel Jeremiah recently wrote that Robinson has ideal traits to play left tackle. "He's in the top 10, 15 easy if he comes out," a scout said.
Marqise Lee, WR, USC
Dec. 22: Scout says Lee a top-10 lock
It could be two weeks before Lee makes a decision about the 2014 NFL Draft, but one scout doesn't think he'll be available for long if he enters the draft. "Very good speed," the scout told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel of Lee. "He was injured a lot this year and didn't have quite the numbers you're looking for, but he's a top-10 pick."
Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham Jr., Ego Ferguson, Anthony Johnson and La'El Collins, LSU
Dec. 22: Five LSU juniors reportedly leaning toward early entry
Landry, Beckham,Ferguson, Johnson and Collins are all leaning toward declaring themselves eligible for the 2014 NFL Draft, according to a Yahoo Sports report. Where wide receivers Landry and Beckham are concerned, that's nothing new. But it is the first indication that the NFL is more than just a serious consideration for defensive tackles Johnson and Ferguson, and Collins, a left tackle who might merit a first-round evaluation, according to NFL Media analyst Bucky Brooks.
Carl Bradford, LB, Arizona State
Dec. 21: Bradford might go pro with second-round grade
Bradford has already graduated and said he would make his draft decision after the Sun Devils play in the Dec. 30 Holiday Bowl. Third in the Pac-12 with 18 tackles for loss, Bradford said he would consider leaving for the draft if he receives a draft grade in the first or second round.
Jerome Smith, RB, Syracuse
Dec. 21: Smith intends to enter 2014 draft
Smith has indicated his intentions to bypass his senior season and enter the 2014 draft, according to Orange coach Scott Shafer. He has rushed for 840 yards and 11 touchdowns this season after totaling 1,176 yards and three touchdowns in 2012. His final game for the Orange will come in next Friday's Texas Bowl against Minnesota.
Melvin Gordon, RB, Wisconsin
Dec. 20: Gordon announces he will return
Gordon, a third-year sophomore running back, had been advised by Badgers head coach Gary Andersen to return to school next year, and Friday he announced that he will be back for his junior season, when he is expected to be the feature back and a Heisman contender. Gordon and the Badgers play South Carolina in the Capital One Bowl on Jan. 1.
DeVante Parker, WR, Louisville
Dec. 20: Parker will turn pro with first-round grade
Parker said he will make his draft decision after Louisville plays Miami in the Russell Athletic Bowl on Dec. 28, but his grandfather indicated he would probably return for his senior season unless he receives a draft grade "near the first round." Parker had 46 receptions for 743 yards and 11 touchdowns this season.
South Carolina DE Jadeveon Clowney and Texas A&M QB Johnny Manziel
Dec. 19:Clowney, Manziel pass on draft-board feedback?
NFL Media reporter Albert Breer said Texas A&M QB Johnny Manziel and South Carolina DE Jadeveon Clowney were not among the 158 underclassmen that had filed for feedback from the NFL Draft Advisory Board as of the Dec. 14-15 weekend. If they don't file, it's possible they have decided they didn't need the feedback to make a draft decision.
Michael Bennett, DT, Ohio State
Dec. 19: Bennett expected to return for senior season
Bennett blossomed during the 2013 season, so much so that some expected him to declare his intention to enter the 2014 NFL Draft. However, Bennett told reporters that he did not seek input from the NFL Draft Advisory Board, which has observers believing he intends to return to Ohio State next season.
Cyrus Kouandjio, OT, and Jeoffrey Pagan, DE, Alabama
Dec. 19: Kouandjio, Pagan considering draft options
Pagan, who was Alabama's third-most productive defensive lineman in 2013, said he will make a decision regarding his future after the team's bowl game vs. Oklahoma. Kouandjio said he is totally focused on the bowl game and will consider the NFL draft option after facing the Sooners.
Marcus Mariota, QB, Oregon
Dec. 18: Would draft grade lead Mariota to reconsider decision?
Mariota announced that he will return to the Ducks next season on Dec. 3, but a CBSSports.com report says he has received feedback from the NFL Draft Advisory Board since then. Will the feedback lead him to reconsider his decision? The report says the advisory board likely gave him a top-15 designation.
Braxton Miller, QB, Ohio State
Dec. 18: Miller says he's ready for NFL
The Buckeyes' starting quarterback is waiting until after the Orange Bowl to make a decision about the 2014 draft, but he told reporters that he think he's ready to play at the next level.
Shilique Calhoun, DE, Michigan State
Dec. 18: Calhoun says he's committed to Spartans
Calhoun, a third-year sophomore who is tied for second in the Big Ten with 7.5 sacks, intends to return for his junior season. "I'm committed to coming back, definitely," Calhoun told reporters at Michigan State's Rose Bowl media day.
Za'Darius Smith, DE, Kentucky
Dec. 18: Smith returning for senior season
Smith put to rest speculation that he might enter the NFL after only one season in the SEC, announcing he would return for his senior season at Kentucky. A junior-college transfer, Smith was one of the most productive pass rushers in the league in 2013 and recorded six sacks.
Adam Muema, RB, San Diego State
Dec. 18: Muema tweets he's heading for draft, then deletes it
Just one of four San Diego State running backs to post back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons, Muema tweeted that he would enter the NFL draft. Then he deleted the tweet, leaving some question about his intentions.
Austin Franklin, WR, New Mexico State
Dec. 18: Franklin declares for NFL draft
After catching 126 passes in the past two seasons, Franklin has decided to skip his final season of eligibility and declare his intention to enter the 2014 NFL Draft.
Vic Hampton, CB, South Carolina
Dec. 17: Hampton will go pro with high draft grade
Hampton said last month that he intends to forgo his senior season and enter the 2014 NFL Draft, but Tuesday he indicated he would consider returning to school if he receives a draft grade outside of the first two rounds. He is one of three Gamecocks defensive players expected to turn pro, along with defensive end Jadeveon Clowney and defensive tackle Kelcy Quarles.
Aaron Lynch, DE, USF
Dec. 17: USF says Lynch has made draft decision
Lynch, a third-year sophomore, will enter the 2014 NFL Draft, school officials confirmed, after recording a team-high five sacks in 2013. It was his only season with the Bulls after transferring from Notre Dame. Given his rare athletic ability, Lynch figures to be a very intriguing NFL prospect.
Damian Swann, DB, Georgia
Dec. 17: Swann returning for senior season
Swann says that he did not play as well as he wanted in 2013, and will return to Georgia in 2014 for his senior season in an effort to improve his draft stock. He says he wants to be a first- or second-round pick eventually, and knows his performance as a junior would not have resulted in that.
Devin Gardner, QB, Michigan
Dec. 17: Hoke changes tune on Gardner
Earlier this month, head coach Brady Hoke said Devin Gardner would return for his senior season in 2014, but he wouldn't even say if Gardner had applied for feedback from the NFL Draft Advisory Board when asked about the topic Dec. 16.
Jonathan Dowling, S, Western Kentucky
Dec. 15: Dowling says he will enter draft
Dowling, a two-time first-team All-Sun Belt selection, has announced via Twitter that he will enter the NFL draft, and he should prove to be an intriguing prospect. Dowling (6-foot-3, 198 pounds) was a two-year starter for the Hilltoppers after transferring from Florida.
Kyshoen Jarrett, S, and Luther Maddy, DT, Virginia Tech
Dec. 15: Hokie duo exploring draft options
Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer said that Jarrett -- a junior strong safety -- has submitted paperwork to the NFL Draft Advisory Board and he believes Maddy -- a junior defensive tackle -- has done the same. Both were third-team All-ACC picks this season.
Brandon Coleman, WR, Rutgers
Dec. 14: Coleman to enter 2014 NFL Draft
Coleman, a redshirt junior, announced Saturday that he intends to enter the 2014 draft after a disappointing season in which his receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns all declined. Coleman had knee surgery in the offseason but said the injury wasn't to blame for his drop in production.
Bud Dupree, DE, Kentucky
Dec. 13: Dupree returning for senior season
Dupree announced via Twitter on Friday that he would return for his final season at Kentucky instead of leaving for the 2014 NFL Draft. Dupree was Kentucky's leader in sacks and tackles for loss in 2013.
A.J. Johnson, LB, Tennessee
Dec. 11: Vols fan poll: Johnson not ready for NFL
A poll at govolsextra.com seconded Vols defensive coordinator John Jancek's opinion that Johnson is not ready to make the jump to the NFL. On Wednesday morning, the poll results showed 75 percent of the fans saying Johnson, the SEC's leading tackler last season, would be better served returning for his senior year.
Xavier Grimble, TE, USC
Dec. 10: Grimble likely to return for senior season
Grimble said Monday that he is leaning toward bypassing the 2014 draft to return for his redshirt senior season at USC. Grimble was limited by a shoulder injury for most of this season and ranked third on the Trojans with 23 catches for 248 yards and two touchdowns.
Yawin Smallwood, LB, UConn
Dec. 7: Smallwood intends to enter draft
Smallwood, a junior who finished the season with 118 tackles, plans to enter the 2014 NFL Draft, UConn football announced on Twitter.
Louis Nix III, NT, Notre Dame
Dec. 7: Report: Notre Dame's Nix hires an agent
Notre Dame Louis Nix NT is expected take this game to the NFL, as he reportedly has hired an agent. Nix was hampered by some injury issues in 2013, which impacted his production when compared to a year ago, but he is still expected to be a hot commodity in the draft, likely coming off the board in the first round.
Antonio Richardson, OT, Tennessee
Dec. 6: Richardson opts to go pro in 2014
Richardson (6-foot-6, 327 pounds), the top performer on one of the SEC's best offensive lines, announced Friday that he will forgo his senior season at Tennessee and enter the 2014 NFL Draft. Last week, Tennessee offensive line coach Don Mahoney suggested Richardson might be ready to make the transition to the pros.
Danny Shelton, DT, Washington
Dec. 5: Report: Shelton will not enter 2014 draft
Shelton, the 6-foot-1, 327-pound mammoth who has anchored the Huskies' defense the past two seasons, will return to school for his senior season, RealDawg.com reported. Shelton has been described as a "prototypical nose tackle" by NFL Media analyst Charles Davis.
Bryce Petty, QB, Baylor
Dec. 2: Petty will return for senior season
Petty said he will "definitely be back" next year after a junior season in which he made a run at the Heisman Trophy and put Baylor in the discussion for the BCS championship game. He has passed for 3,557 yards with 28 touchdowns and two interceptions and also rushed for 11 touchdowns heading into the regular-season finale vs. Texas.
Loucheiz Purifoy, CB, Florida
Dec. 2: Muschamp supports Purifoy's draft decision
Gators head coach Will Muschamp said he is "100 percent supportive" of Purifoy's decision to pass on his senior season and enter the 2014 draft. Purifoy won't be leaving without questions, however, after a shaky season that saw his numbers dip and his status as a shutdown corner questioned during the Gators' 4-8 season.
Paul Richardson, WR, Colorado
Dec. 2: Richardon will declare for 2014 draft
Richardson is ready to announce that he will turn pro, according to an ESPN report, after a junior season in which he caught 79 passes for 1,289 yards and 10 touchdowns. He has the backing of Buffs head coach Mike MacIntyre, who has said he thinks Richardson is ready for the NFL.
Isaiah Crowell, RB, Alabama State
Nov. 28: Ex-Georgia RB leaving school early
Crowell will forego his final year of college eligibility to declare for the NFL draft, ASU coach Reggie Barlow said. "We've talked about it. Honestly, when he came here that was one of the things that we talked about when he arrived that he would be here two years and that would be his goal," said Barlow, a former Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver.
Chris Boyd, WR, Vanderbilt
Nov. 25: Boyd discusses early NFL draft entry
Boyd, who was dismissed from the team earlier this year for after-the-fact involvement in an alleged rape perpetrated by four other Commodores football players, told NFL.com that he has decided to make an early jump to the NFL rather than transferring to another school.
Eric Ebron, TE, North Carolina
Nov. 25: UNC coach says Ebron leaving for NFL draft
North Carolina coach Larry Fedora announced Monday that tight end Eric Ebron intends to enter the 2014 NFL Draft. With an "illegal" blend of size and speed, as Ebron described his physical attributes earlier this season, the junior has a shot to be the first tight end selected.
Bradley Roby, CB, Ohio State
Nov. 20: Roby will turn pro after season, Meyer says
Roby will be among the Buckeyes' Senior Day honorees this weekend, when Ohio States faces Indiana, according to head coach Urban Meyer, adding that the junior will turn enter the 2014 draft. Widely considered one of the nation's top cornerbacks before the season, Roby has struggled at times this year and has seen his draft stock fall. He has eight interceptions and 32 pass breakups in three seasons.
Paul Richardson, WR, Colorado
Nov. 20: Coach: Richardson has NFL ability
Colorado head coach Mike MacIntyre hinted that Saturday's game against USC could be Richardson's last home game, saying he thinks Richardson "definitely" has the skills to play at the next level. A redshirt junior, Richardson has bounced back nicely after missing all of 2012 with a torn ACL, ranking fourth in the FBS with 120 receiving yards per game, but his slight frame (6-1, 170 pounds) is a concern for many scouts.
Austin Hill, WR, Arizona
Nov. 13: Hill plans to return to school
Hill is already thinking about the 2014 college football season, stating his intention to return to school next year. "I'm not done with college yet," Hill told the Tucson Citizen.
Dominique Easley, DT, Florida
Nov. 10: Easley's rehab focused on preparation for draft
Easley will rehabilitate his surgically repaired right knee in Boca Raton, Fla., with a trainer referred to him by former UF teammate and Baltimore Ravens safety Matt Elam, according to FOXSports.com. Easley will work with trainer Tony Villano beginning Dec. 1 in preparation for the NFL draft next spring.by Nadia Sels
Mythology and Psychoanalysis: Uncanny Doubles
“It may perhaps seem to you as though our theories are a kind of mythology and, in the present case, not even an agreeable one. But does not every science come in the end to a kind of mythology?”[1] These words, addressed to Albert Einstein,[2] were written by Sigmund Freud in 1932, seven years before his death. In his New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, published in the same year, the comparison with mythology pops up once more: “The theory of the instincts is so to say our mythology. Instincts are mythical entities magnificent in their indefiniteness”.[3] These statements, made by Freud near the end of his life, seem to be his final word on a problem that had occupied him at several instances of his career: the relationship of psychoanalysis and mythology. Both fields have always shared a special connection and not only because the myths of Oedipus and Narcissus proved so useful to Freudian theory.[4] Like literature and art, mythology was one of the first cultural fields to be explored by applied psychoanalysis. But what sets mythology apart from other fields is the fact that it in many ways resembles psychoanalysis itself: both disciplines deal with the irrational, both work with stories, and both have to do with interpreting metaphorical language. When Lionel Trilling claimed that psychoanalysis was “a science of tropes, of metaphor and its variants,”[5] he was comparing psychoanalysis to the science of Giambattista Vico, the founding father of the modern study of myth.
It is because of these resemblances that psychoanalysis’s dialogue with mythology has often resulted in a kind of self-exploration, in psychoanalysis rethinking its own project. With this paper I aim to retrace their shared trajectory and to point out why and how psychoanalysis can still be of great use to the study of mythology. This, however, also implies a reflection on psychoanalysis’s status as a system of knowledge. Two models will present themselves: a) psychoanalytic theory as an allegorical interpretation of myth, functioning as a master discourse, and b) psychoanalysis as a discourse analogical to mythology, operating on the same level. In a time where Freud’s statement is so often echoed as a reproach, it may be worth reconsidering psychoanalysis’s relatedness to myth as something to embrace.
Just “Another Metaphorical Language”? Freud and Jung on Myth
First, the short history of Freud’s own dealings with mythology.[6] In a letter to Wilhelm Fliess, dated December 1897, Freud tries out a personal theory on the matter for the first time : “Can you imagine what “endopsychic myths” are? The latest product of my mental labor. The dim inner perception of one’s own psychic apparatus stimulates thought illusions, which of course are projected onto the outside and, characteristically, into the future and the beyond.”[7] Myths, in other words, are the psyche’s symbolic renderings of its own working and can be translated as such by the analyst. When in 1900 Freud gives his famous analysis of the Oedipus-myth in the Interpretation of Dreams, he specifies why this projection takes place: myth gives vent to the repressed longings and fears of humankind. We revel in Oedipus’s crimes, because they represent our own unconscious desires, and we feel relief when he is punished, because this alleviates our own feelings of guilt. In Creative Writers and Day-dreaming (1907) he once more describes myths as “the distorted vestiges of the wish fantasies of whole nations — the age-long dreams of young humanity.”[8]
It has to be said, of course, that it was not Freud’s main intention to develop a psychoanalytic theory of mythology. On the few occasions he really gives an elaborate interpretation of myth,[9] he is chiefly concerned with illustrating his theories.[10] For many of his followers (Abraham, Rank, Róheim,…), however, the interpretation of myths did become an end in itself. And they had been given a very clear example of how it had to be done: the mythic imagery, that was assumed to metaphorically represent psychological processes, had to be converted into the familiar language of Freudian theory. Some of these analyses — Rank’s Der Mythos von der Geburt des Helden (1922), for example — are still very much worth reading. But the Freudian analyses of myth that are mostly remembered nowadays are unfortunately the caricatures, in which flying is always a metaphor for sex, aggression is always oedipal, and trees or spears are bound to represent phalluses. The problem with these readings, though, is not the focus on sex: Greek myths often explicitly deal with “Freudian” themes such as castration, incest and parricide, and even many interpretations that may seem far-fetched at first can actually be underpinned with textual and archaeological evidence — Freud’s link between Medusa’s head and female genitalia, for instance. The real problem is the one-sidedness of these interpretations. Many of Freud’s epigones have followed his example in using myth merely as an excuse to once more illustrate the Freudian tenets. Basically, this meant that nothing new could be learned from mythology. This approach on the contrary consisted in transposing the exotic imagery of myth into the safe register of an already familiar truth.
The first person to notice this missed opportunity was Freud’s would-be heir Carl Gustav Jung, who soon developed a special interest in mythology. “It has become quite clear to me,” he writes to Freud in 1909, “that we shall not solve the secrets of neurosis and psychosis without mythology and the history of civilisation.”[11] As Kris Pint argues in this same issue, Jung’s divergent attitude towards mythology would finally drive both men apart. At first, Freud was happy to encourage Jung to dabble in mythology, as long as the final aim would be to “plant the flag of libido and repression in that field and return as a victorious conqueror to our medical motherland.” (The Freud/Jung Letters, 213) Jung, however, would become more and more inclined to reverse the manifest hierarchy that is implied by Freud’s exhortation. Instead of seeing psychoanalysis as the one and ultimate key to the question of mythology, Jung came to see psychoanalysis as the youngest branch of the old mythological tree, as just one more way of telling stories about the images that had occupied humanity. With his theory of the archetypes, he adopted Freud’s idea that mythical imagery should be approached as a kind of rebus: “An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors.”[12] But he explicitly distanced himself from the idea that psychoanalysis could provide a metalanguage for mythology, that the archetypal metaphors could be reduced to one true referent:
[T]here is no longer any question whether a myth refers to the sun or the moon, the father or the mother, sexuality or fire or water. All it does is to circumscribe and give an approximate description of an unconscious core of meaning. […] Not for a moment dare we to succumb to the illusion that an archetype can be finally explained and disposed of. Even the best attempts at explanation are only more or less successful translations into another metaphorical language (Indeed, language itself is only an image). The most we can do is to dream the myth onwards and to give it a modern dress. (Jung 90 and 94, italics in original)
Freud could not forgive this defection, which he saw as a betrayal of his theories of psychosexuality; he interpreted Jung’s attitude as yielding to repression.[13] For Jung, however, it was Freudian theory itself that was repressive in its unilateral approach. After they went their separate ways, the history of their controversy on myth would have an ironic ending. Freud, as we have seen, would in his later years become more and more sympathetic to the idea that psychoanalysis itself was on a par with mythology. This is not only made clear by the statements mentioned above, but also by the overtly mythic character of some of his (later) writings, such as Totem and Taboo (1913) and Moses and Monotheism (1937). Apparently, Freud gradually came to accept that at certain liminal points, the quest for knowledge could not but mitigate its demands, and that a self-conscious fiction, a myth, was sometimes as close as one could get to the truth. With the same resignation, Freud in 1937 accepted the concept of “construction”: the idea that when a psychoanalyst was not able to break down infantile amnesia, he was allowed to create a fiction, a mere hypothesis about the patient’s past that would hopefully be accepted as the truth.[14]
The Jungian school, on the other hand, has tended to evolve towards the kind of restrictive dogmatism for which Jung had originally reproached Freud. As Robert Segal has pointed out, Jung’s warnings about interpreting the archetypes were not only directed against the Freudian approach, but in the first place against would-be definitive Jungian interpretations of myth.[15] And indeed, Jungian psychoanalysis — Jung himself included— has not always escaped the seduction of the master discourse. Joseph Campbell’s Jungian inspired writings are a case in point. Following Jung’s example, he praises myth as a boundless matrix of signification: “It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.”[16] But what he actually does with his concept of the “monomyth”, quite literally contradicts this idea of myth as an inexhaustible source of new meanings: all myths can actually be reduced to one and the same story of individuation, a story told by Campbell himself. His exuberant praise of myth is thus conveniently reflected back to him.
An Entangled History: The Allegorical Approach
To further understand what was at stake in these first psychoanalytic approaches to myth, it is necessary to situate them in the history of myth study itself; it then becomes apparent how much Freud’s theory on myth was a child of its time. Although “mythology” is often mistakenly treated as a universal and timeless category, the concept as we use it today is actually, like psychoanalysis, a creation of the nineteenth century. In L’invention de la mythologie (1981), Marcel Detienne describes the ideological context that gave birth to this field of research.[17] For ages, the stories of the Greek gods and heroes had simply been called fabulae, “fables”, and did not arouse any special intellectual curiosity. The old term mythos only came to denote a special category when these same stories started to pose a problem.[18] In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Europe had for the first time come to systematically compare the roots of its own culture — more particularly, the legacy of Antiquity — to the so-called “savage” cultures. Due to the successes of comparative linguistics, it had suddenly become painfully apparent that the stories of the Greeks in many ways resembled the “barbaric”, “irrational” and “immoral” imagination of the “inferior” races. With the words of Max Müller, the Greek “would relate of their gods what would make the most savage of the Red Indians creep and shudder.”[19] Mythos became the opposite of logos, of the moral and intellectual standard the West identified itself with. Between 1850 and 1890, new academic chairs of mythology were established throughout Europe and the explicit purpose of this new field of research was to explain away this stain of irrationality (Detienne, 16). Andrew Lang, for example, defines mythology as “the quest for an historical condition of the human intellect to which the element in myths, regarded by us as irrational, shall seem rational enough.”[20]
So the study of mythology— not unlike psychoanalysis— was called into being by the emergence of the Other in the Self. And just as with psychoanalysis, its original project was to force back this unwelcome intrusion: from id to ego, from mythos to logos. Both disciplines are also alike in the fact that they have at some point left this path and, ironically, have led to theorisation of why the irrational can never fully be overcome. Nineteenth-century mythologists, however, still had high hopes that myth could be explained away as an aberration of the primitive mind. Various schools all claimed to have the one key by which all myths could be interpreted: for Max Müller, all myths were distorted forms of solar and lunar theories
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and Kidd had claimed.
Kidd and another officer who testified before a grand jury in the DuBose investigation are on administrative leave while the probe continues. Weibel didn't claim to witness the shooting, and the department hasn't announced any discipline against him.
Tensing, 25, pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of murder and voluntary manslaughter. He claims he fired his gun because he feared for his life.
In addition to Brinson and DuBose, two other black men have died in altercations with the university's police force since 1997.I made the video below 3 years ago. Since that time, and for many years prior, nothing has changed for me in how I collect and treat water in the backcountry for biological pathogens. And when I say collect, it is more than just dipping my bottle or pot in a creek, there is a thought process I use in reducing the variables that could hurt me as you will see in the video.
It is also worth noting I am blessed with the Chattahoochee National Forest in my ‘backyard,’ thus, manmade pollutants haven’t been a concern in the places I collect water due to their remote locations and topography. I understand many who read this will not have some of those benefits, so you must address your water needs specific to YOUR environment.
When you watch the video, I hope you get a chuckle too when I talk about what could be in the water as my dog Scout walks behind me… in the water. Couldn’t have timed it any better. In this video I am just sharing what I do. There are other considerations you may need to address specific to you and where you collect water. In addition, there are more water treatments than mentioned here.
More info…
Backpacker’s Field Manual by Rick Curtis
Equipped to Survive – see the section on Water Purification
Trash Bag Survival – our own article where we show how to boil water in a trash bag as well as use as a transpiration bag among a host of other things.
This is a very serious subject I do not take lightly, nor should you… as there is the potential of a variety of organisms and contaminants where we collect drinking water in the backcountry that could make us sick or even cause death.
I am sharing here WHAT I DO in my woods for collection and treatment of backcountry water — you should note I have a ‘day job’ and do not make my livelihood as a survival instructor. In this article I have listed additional sources of information and my bio (below). Always consider your source of information and understand your environment maybe different than mine! This is not a substitute for proper training and experience. If you have any questions about that, please see our ABOUT page.Washington outfielder Bryce Harper with two key pieces of his baseball equipment, including his outfielder’s glove. Harper gets his father to break in his new gloves by soaking them in water and then smashing them with a sledgehammer. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Throughout his baseball career, Bryce Harper has leaned on his personal equipment manager at home — his father, Ron — to break in his gloves. The day he was drafted by the Washington Nationals in 2010, he handed his outfielder’s glove to his father, who started on the three-day process.
Ron Harper stuffed three balls into the glove, tied it shut and dropped it in a bucket of water for a day. The former ironworker then pulled the glove out of the water and smashed it with a sledgehammer. He repeated the soaking treatment, letting it dry for a day before his son used it to play catch. Ron’s method of breaking in the glove shortens the amount of time Bryce said he needs to play catch with it to loosen the leather.
“It gets it exactly how I like it and what I use,” said Bryce, who also uses saddle oil on his glove.
Baseball is a sport of quirks, habits and routines, and there’s no more unique part of the game than a player’s relationship with his equipment. Each player has his own personal relationship with his glove, bat, cleats and uniform based on comfort and look.
Nationals reliever Drew Storen, who studied product design at Stanford and designs his own shoe patterns for fun, used 37 baseball caps last season, according to his former roommate Tyler Clippard, who only used one. Adam LaRoche uses a first baseman’s glove so old the manufacturer’s logo has changed and the model doesn’t exist anymore. Infielder Steve Lombardozzi doesn’t let his gloves get bent.
“Once you break it in, it’s like your baby,” catcher Kurt Suzuki said. Added shortstop Ian Desmond: “My glove is like a fine-tuned hammer for like a carpenter. It’s my tool. I feel comfortable with it.”
Most players break their gloves in the old-fashioned way: by playing catch with it. The old techniques, such as applying shaving cream or stuffing it under the mattress, aren’t as common because, players said, the modern gloves sent by manufacturers aren’t particularly stiff.
Suzuki uses only one set of catcher’s gear and glove per season, preferring the comfort of a custom fit. On a recent morning, he smashed his new mitt with a wooden hammer. But he mostly relies on catching games and bullpen sessions to get the feel he desires. By the end of the season, his hand may sting because the glove’s padding has worn down but he’s fine with that. “I like it soft,” he said.
Storen, a baseball equipment aficionado, cycled through seven gloves, blue or red, last season. He prefers them stiff because he likes resistance when he squeezes his left hand closed as he delivers the ball to home plate. He had his Twitter handle, @DrewStoren, engraved along the thumb on one glove but used it only once and had to black it out with a marker after league officials saw Storen use the glove during one of his rehab starts and sent him a warning letter.
“It was cool,” said Storen, who sends his father old jerseys, cleats and gloves. “It was something I wanted to do because I hadn’t seen it done.”
Some players are more particular with how they treat their glove. During long spring training road trips, Lombardozzi takes his 11 1 / 2 -inch Mizuno glove out of his equipment bag and sits it next to him. Also, only he can wear his gloves. “Sometimes someone will go start to put their hand in it and I’m, ‘No, hold on a second,’ ” he said.
LaRoche is the most laid-back when it comes to equipment. He will use anyone’s bat and lets any teammate use his bats. He has two gloves that are six or seven years old and doesn’t have any particular rules for their maintenance or care.
“They’ve been re-laced 15, 20 times,” he said. “They’ve had new webs put in them. There are new parts all over those gloves.”
Third baseman Ryan Zimmerman used a tan infielder’s glove in recent years until a rule change this season. He had to switch to a black glove because, based on the reasoning for the rule, the tan glove was too similar in color to the infield dirt and made it harder for umpires.
Zimmerman uses only one glove per season, plus a backup glove for fielding grounders during batting practice. He uses an 11 1 / 2 -inch glove, smaller than other third basemen, because he wants a quick transfer to his throwing hand. After the season ends, the glove manufacturer sends him a new one to start breaking in during offseason catch or while fiddling with it around the house. He applies a strong grade of oil to protect it.
“You spit in it so much and it cracks,” he said. “You got to take care of it. It’s like your baby.”
Outfielder Denard Span cycles through cleats more often than most. If his cleats get dirty over the course of a series, he will break in a new pair of black Nikes because he likes to keep them clean. Desmond is the same way but with his hats.
“Some people like that dirtball look,” Desmond said. “I like to get my uniform dirty but with a clean hat.”
No Nationals players would admit to any unusual superstitions with their equipment beyond using the same bat or undershirt during a hot streak. A young Harper used to sleep with his bats. As a child, Desmond used to sleep with his baseball uniform and cleats.
“Obviously, now, I’ve got a wife and kids,” Desmond said. “I don’t have time to be bringing bats home.”
Adam Kilgore contributed to this report.Press Release:
(Portland, OR) – Renowned Brewmaster, John Harris, has a date set for the opening of Ecliptic Brewing, his new North Portland brewery and brewpub: Oct. 21, 2013.
Harris will open his doors and begin serving three Ecliptic beers, all brewed on-site in Ecliptic’s 15-barrel (bbl) brewhouse, and one collaboration beer brewed with Gigantic Brewing. Harris and Executive Chef Michael Molitor will also be unveiling Ecliptic’s menu, which features local, seasonal fare and a heightened food experience.
Almost everything about Ecliptic Brewing pays homage to the brewery’s name, and Harris’s passion for astronomy. As Harris says, “Ecliptic Brewing is all about celebrating our journey around the sun.” The seasonal menu will change every six weeks based on the old world Wheel of the Year; we are entering into Samhain otherwise known as Halloween, the season that signifies the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The menu from Chef Molitor, formerly the sous chef at Pazzo Ristorante, will reflect the astronomical seasons and be further complemented by Harris’ beers.
The first beer brewed at Ecliptic’s facility was Procyon Pale Ale, named after the little dog star in Canis Minor. The other two Ecliptic beers available will be Arcturus IPA, named after the biggest star in the sky, and Capella Porter, named after the brightest star in the constellation Auriga. On opening day, Ecliptic will also be pouring Harris’s recent collaboration with Gigantic Brewing, called TICWITTIC, an American sour wit.
The brewery is located at 825 N. Cook St. in Portland, Ore., and the 3000 square foot pub space features many subtle nods to the name Ecliptic Brewing. The centerpiece is a massive light fixture in the shape of the Analemma, or the shape of the curve representing the apparent motion of the sun in the sky, symbolizing the Earth’s yearly journey around the sun.
“After many months of planning and building, I am very excited to see this project come to opening,” says Harris. “I have been involved in this industry for many years and strive to bring the two hottest things in Portland right now together in a creative firestorm – beer and food. We want Ecliptic to be known for both, and will strive to bring them together like no one has.”
Ecliptic’s layout will accommodate families on one side and adults looking to relax in a bar environment on the other. The same menu will be offered throughout the restaurant.
Follow Ecliptic Brewing on Facebook for the latest brewery news and happenings, and www.eclipticbrewing.com will soon be live for more information on menu, beer, and hours of operation.
About Ecliptic Brewing
Ecliptic Brewing is a venture from John Harris, an Oregon craft brewing pioneer. The name Ecliptic symbolizes our yearly path around the sun on planet Earth. This happens to be a connection between Harris’s two passions – brewing and astronomy – as well as his philosophy on experimentation. Much like the seasons change as the earth makes its way around the sun, the beer and food menus at Ecliptic will be in constant change and rotation throughout the year. The goal is to push the limits of creativity in the brewhouse, and create a sense of place in both the restaurant and the beer he builds. Harris’s background is one steeped in Oregon’s rich history in craft brewing. He spent his first two years, from 1986-1988, as a brewer at McMenamins’ breweries; his next four were at Deschutes, where he created the recipes for Mirror Pond, Black Butte Porter, Jubelale and Obsidian Stout; and Harris spent the next 20 years of his illustrious career as a brewmaster at Full Sail in charge of creating the Brewmaster Reserve line of Beers.. He is now starting the next chapter with the creation of Ecliptic Brewing.The Starz drama “Outlander” has reinvented itself in its second season. Gone are the windswept Highlands of Scotland and the rough-hewn castles and cottages that Claire Randall Fraser and Jamie Fraser took refuge in during the show’s 16-episode first season.
For this year’s 13-episode season, the couple is in Paris; silky gowns and candlelit dinners have replaced woolen garments and crusts of bread next to a campfire. Yet “Outlander’s” appeal endures, despite the changes: The undeniable chemistry between time-traveler Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) anchors the show’s personal and political agendas, and Claire’s quest to find her place in history — or to simply change it — gives the lush saga of “Outlander” a jolt of unpredictable energy. In love with both Jamie and Frank (Tobias Menzies), the husband she left behind when she traveled to the 18th Century, Claire is one of the most believably complex heroines on TV, and her journey has only gotten more challenging this year.
In the first part of an extensive interview, executive producer and showrunner Ronald D. Moore talks about casting Balfe, the new season of “Outlander,” what he’s learned about making this show and what drives him as a storyteller.
Related Sky Lands Andy McNab Action Thriller ‘SAS: Red Notice,’ Altitude Boards Sales ‘Outlander’ Boss Says the Fraser Family is Still a ‘Work in Progress’ After Season 4 Finale
This interview has been edited and condensed.
The first episode of season two was very wrenching.
It’s very emotional.
Your show makes me cry a lot.
I guess that’s a good thing.
That’s a good thing. It seems like you’re really going for emotional intensity and I think you’re successful at doing that. For you as a storyteller, is that what you want to do — drive toward these very difficult and sometimes wonderful emotional connections?
It’s a very emotional story, and I think it’s important that we move the viewer. That’s part of the job on TV, to move the viewer, to touch them, to elicit an emotional response. Sometimes it’s horror, sometimes it’s laughter, sometimes it’s making you cry. I think it’s part of our basic job.
I was thinking about “Outlander” in terms of your past work, and if I had to craft a slogan — maybe a hackneyed one — for “Outlander,” it would be, “The personal is political.” They’re obviously not the same, but there are similar threads that run through this and your previous show, “Battlestar Galactica,” in that they’re often about how people relate to power in a relationship, or how they relate to power in a society and in a community. There’s a lot about free will.
Yeah, I think that’s part of it. Not too overtly. As I approach the story, I think more about character — “What would Claire do? Am I justified [regarding] why she’s making that choice? Let’s make sure that I’m following Jamie’s [through] line,” or, “This doesn’t feel right for Jamie.” And then usually that leads you to those interesting things, and in this show in particular, because it does have a heavy political aspect to it. The Jacobites, the French, the Scots, the Restoration, the Stuarts and all that. That’s the canvas in which these characters are moving about and telling the story, so you kind of are constantly touching into that world.
But for you as a storyteller what activates it? When you look back at the first season, are the things that make you say, “This is why I’m telling the story”?
It’s mostly about surprise, to me. I’m always looking for surprise in a story, surprise in an ongoing series, taking the audience off-stride, making them feel like I’m telling them one story and then, “Oh my God, I didn’t even realize this is where you were going with that.” Or coming into a scene and feeling like you know exactly how it’s going to run, and then changing it up at the end. That’s always what I’m looking for in stories — to keep me interested.
It’s one of the things I liked about the book — it was a page-turner in the sense of, “Jesus, did that really just happen? What the hell is going to happen next?” That sense of anything can happen, it’s anybody’s game and the characters are all vulnerable. And it can go in directions you’re not expecting — like, to suddenly return to the 20th Century in this season. Going to France and the surprise of that — I love that.
Like Claire being surprised that she actually falls in love with Jamie.
Yes. That’s not what she expected. You don’t expect it when she sits down with Jack Randall in “The Garrison Commander” in season one — that he’s going to start telling her the story of flogging Jamie and revealing his inner emotional landscape to her. It’s a surprise, but then the deeper you get to know the character, the way you portray them, you go, “Well, that makes sense, given who Jack Randall actually is.”
The end of season one is very difficult to watch. One of the things that made it challenging, in some ways, was that for Jack Randall, it wasn’t about exploitation and abuse. For him, it was a different dynamic. And that is what kept the unfolding of those scenes from being rote, if that makes any sense. It was awful and wrong, obviously, but we saw what was going on in his head as well. That kept the drama of it alive.
It kept him as a real person and not a monster or somebody that’s easy to write off, because you can’t identify with what they’re expressing, what they’re feeling. You can look at Jack, I think, and say, “Well, I kind of get it. I sort of see where he’s coming from. As repellent as it is on the outside, I can kind of see that his emotional landscape runs like this.” We’re all the hero of our own stories, and he is the hero in his. In his mind, he’s been victimized by the Scots. He was posted to this land of barbarians who did all these horrible things to him and his men, and they’ve turned him into this creature. He embraces the darkness and hates himself for doing it all at the same time.
Something just popped into my head that only 20 other people reading this interview will get — but Black Jack Randall is kind of like Gol Dukat from “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”
Oh, Dukat, yeah. That’s not a bad analogy, really. That’s pretty good.
Casting this must have been stressful, because your story is about taking characters to surprising and sometimes really challenging emotional and psychological places. You’ve got to have an actor who can do the comedy and the adventure, the wit and the boldness, but also the crises and the intimate moments.
The casting is a very tricky thing. It’s not my strong suit. It’s not my best element, to be honest. There are people on the show that do it better than I do. [Executive producers] Ira Behr and Maril [Davis] do a lot of the casting for the show, and they weigh in far more heavily than I do. I weigh in and I look at things and I make approvals and I give my thoughts, but there is a talent to that — to see something in a read is different than seeing it on film. You have to extrapolate from one to the other, because there are definitely actors who are not good at [casting] reads that are fantastic in front of the camera, and vice versa.
So [the skills are] weeding that out, not getting involved in their nervousness or their eagerness to please and seeing what they bring to it, looking at their body of work, seeing what they’ve done in the past. It takes an immersion into actors and understanding the casting landscape, who’s available, who’s not, who’s a fresh face, but who’s too green. But you see potential or you see natural instincts. That’s a skill, and I’m happy to delegate some of those things. The vast majority of the casting on the show is not done by me. I trust the people that work for me to do that.
With Caitrona, you hired an actress who did not have a ton of experience.
Yeah, with the major roles with Cat and Sam, it’s different. Then I’m intimately involved with that, because they are foundational to what we’re doing. It took us a very long time to cast Cat. She was the last one of the main cast that was put in place because the role was so critical. If she didn’t work, the show was not going to work. It was that cut and dried, because it was a first-person narrative. You’re going to be listening to her throughout. You’re going to be just watching her think. You’re going to be so intimately involved with that particular actress, since she was in every scene every day. So just stamina and the physical chops to do it day in and day out on the set, plus the innate acting ability. She didn’t have a huge resume, but you just saw it. It was just something all of us when we finally saw that tape, we went, “Could it be? Let’s make sure. Let’s give her a screen test and make sure that we’re not insane.” But it certainly seemed like it was all there, and it just was.
So everyone gravitated toward her?
We all did. But, you know, she self-taped and just sent it in and we had seen literally hundreds of actresses at that point. Some in person, some on tape, and we just couldn’t find her. [When we got] her tape, we all just got really excited. [We] put her in a room with Sam [Heughan], to see what the chemistry was like. Certainly that had to work. And it just worked perfectly, and it was beautiful, and it was really just, “Thank God,” because we were days away from shooting and everyone was starting to get nervous. We really had to have the actress.
What did you learn about making this show during the course of season one?
The lesson we should have learned, but never have learned is that we always write too much. The scripts are always too long and too big, but that was my curse on “Battlestar” too. I just tend to have too much on the page. We always have too much to shoot. We’re constantly pruning back. And then in the editing bay, [the first version is] 10 minutes long and I’m always cutting back. But I’ve accepted at this point, that’s just my process, and I like having too much.
Once you have it all, you can narrow it down.
Narrow it down to what matters and then tighten. If you don’t have enough, there’s only stretching, and stretching is the worst. There’s nothing worse than stretching the scene that’s not meant to be that long.
In terms of lessons specifically to this show, there were a lot of lessons just in terms of the physical production of the show. There was a big learning curve shooting the show in Scotland. There are difficulties to shooting a show that does not have a bunch of standing sets associated with it. That was a huge challenge. Much more difficult than I anticipated at the get-go. There’s a tremendous amount of just logistical production things I learned.
But in terms of the story and the script and all that, we cut back on the voiceovers as time went on. We slowly started opening the show up beyond Claire and [doing more with] Jamie, and it broadened out so we could get out of the first-person narrative exclusively.
This season you’ve jettisoned a lot of supporting characters from season one, and now you’re building up a new world. Is it going to be that kind of a show, where characters float in and float out of the overall narrative? When you were on “Battlestar,” you were on that ship. Everyone was stuck there, people didn’t go away and come back six months later.
Yeah, this is very different. Characters will come and go. Going into the third season, very few of the characters even from the second season continue into the third. You’re constantly picking up and dropping things by the wayside, which is a very different style of storytelling.
It is. I have to confess that’s one of the things that I often like about a show — the world of that family, that group. But this is a show where people float in and out tangentially to the rest of the show. I guess, at times, I find it hard to latch onto that stuff.
There’s a risk. The positive of it is, well, there’s always something new. Next week’s episode is not going to be like [every other episode.] It’s evolving. Who knows what’s over the next horizon? The risk is you don’t form connections with enough people, and it starts feeling like you’re just kind of floating along. And I don’t know that we’ll know the answer to that question until we’re pretty far down the line, because the story does do that. It will establish characters, meet them for a certain amount of the journey and then move on.
For more “Outlander” features and interviews, look here. Part two of Variety’s interview with Ron Moore will post next week.The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on Tuesday morning on behalf of three former U.S. detainees against the psychologists responsible for conceiving and supervising the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation program that used systematic torture.
From 2001 to 2010, James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen, along with their employees, netted almost $85 million dollars in contracted fees from the CIA for executing a pseudoscientific plan to extract information from alleged terrorists.
The plaintiffs in the case, Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, and Gul Rahman, are just three of 119 detainees who were tortured through means developed by Mitchell and Jessen. Rahman died in a CIA black site due to his treatment, and the ACLU is suing on behalf of his estate.
Salim and Soud were never formally charged by the U.S. with a crime and are now free, but still suffer severe physical and psychological impairments as a result of their treatment in various CIA “black sites.”
The plaintiffs were subject to being waterboarded repeatedly, crammed into tiny coffin-like boxes, stripped naked and then slapped and beaten, and left alone in the dark with nonstop loud music, among other torture techniques.
The plaintiffs argue that Mitchell and Jessen, charged professionally as psychologists with promoting mental health, are guilty of commissioning “torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; non-consensual human experimentation; and war crimes, all of which violate well-established norms of customary international law.”
“These psychologists devised and supervised an experiment to degrade human beings and break their bodies and minds,” said Dror Ladin, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “It was cruel and unethical, and it violated a prohibition against human experimentation that has been in place since World War II.”
The CIA contacted Mitchell and Jessen in 2001 after police found materials in an alleged al Qaeda supporter’s apartment in England that explained how someone might resist interrogation.
The CIA asked the psychologists, neither of whom had experience with interrogation, to come up with ways to combat these resistance techniques. Mitchell and Jessen took inspiration from a psychologist named Martin Seligman, who determined that dogs would be completely submissive if subjected to repeated physical and mental suffering. This state of “learned helplessness” would force a confession out of detainees, surmised Mitchell and Jessen.
However, there is still no evidence that the torture techniques actually helped obtain important information. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s executive summary of its report on the CIA program found that it resulted in “faulty intelligence” or no intelligence at all.
Nevertheless, multiple levels of the government signed off on the techniques at various steps of the program. Mitchell and Jessen’s contract continued until 2009, when President Obama issued an executive order officially ending the enhanced interrogation program.
The ACLU’s case is the first lawsuit brought against major players in the Senate’s so-called torture report since it was published last December.
The material facts of the case, says ACLU attorney Steven Watt, are all established in extensive publicly available material: the declassified executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation, an independent investigation into the American Psychological Association’s involvement in the torture program, Mitchell’s own public statements, and several other studies.
“We are able to bring this lawsuit because all the details are in government reports that substantiate it,” he told The Intercept.
For Watt, who was the first person to tell Gul Rahman’s family he had died — they have never received official notification — the case is about achieving justice for his clients, and drawing attention to the real purpose of Mitchell and Jessen’s work with the CIA.
“There’s much talk about interrogation” when it comes to Mitchell and Jessen, he says. “But it wasn’t about gathering information for them. It was about breaking [the inmates] down, it was about torturing them. That was their true intent.”For the second year in a row, the College Football Playoff is nothing but Nike schools. The apparel giant has responded to the bracket reveal by announcing some clothes, which you can look at on this webpage.
What's different about them? Well, let Nike tell you:
[Each features] a fractal diamond Swoosh on the front of the jersey and pant. Players will also debut new Nike Football Vapor Jet 4.0 gloves, which were tested extensively at all levels and help maximize catching ability, fit and breathability.
A cool swoosh (like the ones in last year's Playoff) and some new gloves! That's fine and good.
SIGN UP TO GET THIS IN YOUR INBOX! Get one roundup of college football stories, rumors, game breakdowns, and Jim Harbaugh oddity in your inbox every morning. Email:
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SB Nation presents: College football's best new uniforms for 2015Cape Town - Exciting young backs Warrick Gelant and Lukhanyo Am, as well as Dan du Preez and Louis Schreuder are the four uncapped players in the Springbok squad of 34 players announced on Sunday for the 2017 Outgoing Tour to Europe.
Furthermore, experienced prop Coenie Oosthuizen has been recalled to the squad having successfully completed his rehabilitation from an arm injury, which meant he missed the Springboks’ recent home Tests against Australia and New Zealand.
Also included in the squad are loose forward Uzair Cassiem, who has recovered from the rib injury he sustained against the Wallabies in Bloemfontein, and the experienced Tendai Mtawarira, who missed the encounter against the All Blacks in Cape Town because of family reasons.
There are also recalls to the squad for the Free State Cheetahs duo of Francois Venter (centre) and Oupa Mohoje (loose forward).
Gelant, who played for the Junior Springboks and Springbok Sevens teams, will accompany the Boks on tour for the first time following impressive performances this year.
Am is back in the Springbok fold after his initial squad selection in June, which was thwarted by injury, while Du Preez and Schreuder were both part of the Springboks’ recent Rugby Championship squad.
With the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan in mind, the forthcoming tour will give Springbok coach Allister Coetzee the ideal opportunity to broaden his player base and expose more young talent to the Bok environment and the rigorous pressures of Test match rugby.
“This squad reflects consistency and continuity, while we also rewarded players who have constantly shown good form this season,” explained Coetzee.
“Warrick and Lukhanyo are two examples of players who have excelled in the season so far. It’s great to have them in the squad and I look forward to working with them, but at the same time I feel sorry for Sbu Nkosi in particular – he had an impressive debut senior season and it is unfortunate that he will miss the tour because of his elbow injury.
Flanker Jean-Luc du Preez, who sustained an ankle injury sustained in the Currie Cup final on Saturday, will undergo an MRI scan and Monday and his inclusion in the squad is subject to the results of the scan and the orthopaedic opinion. The decision to call for a possible replacement, if needed, will depend on the outcome of the scan and orthopaedic opinion.
“With the World Cup now less than two years away, this demanding tour gives us another very good opportunity to keep on building depth and experience.
“Eight new players were capped so far this season and a total of 19 new international players made their Springbok debuts since the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and we’ve also had a number of new Springbok captains since then. Our process to rebuild the Bok team and steadily working towards the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan is continuing at a good and satisfying pace.
Coetzee said he would also like to see continuous improvement and progress, building on the foundations laid so far this year.
“So far this season, this group has shown a genuine willingness to evolve and they continuously strive to be better players within our environment,” said Coetzee.
“Ireland, France, Italy and Wales will each be a huge contest, however, we are looking forward to the challenge in different conditions.”
Eben Etzebeth will continue to lead the side in the injury-absence of Warren Whiteley, but the squad will be without Jan Serfontein, who asked not to be considered for the tour as he wants to settle in at French club Montpellier, who he has joined recently.
Coetzee also announced that Siya Kolisi will return to Cape Town after the Test against France in Paris on 18 November as his wife, Rachel, is due to give birth the following week. He will not be available for the Test against Italy on 25 November in Padova, but will re-join the group for the final tour match in Cardiff against Wales.
Players who are contracted to overseas clubs – Franco Mostert, Francois Louw and Elton Jantjies – will not be considered for selection for the 2 December encounter against Wales, as this Test falls outside the international window.
Other players not considered for selection for the four-week tour because of injury or other reasons include amongst other: Warren Whiteley (No 8), Jaco Kriel (flank), Frans Malherbe (prop), Sbu Nkosi (wing), Ruan Combrinck (wing) and Jan Serfontein (centre).
The Springboks’ tour fixtures are:
11 November vs Ireland in Dublin
18 November vs France in Paris
25 November vs Italy in Padova
2 December vs Wales in Cardiff
The Springbok tour squad for the 2017 Castle Lager Outgoing Tour to Europe
Forwards (in alphabetical order)
Uzair Cassiem (flank, 26 years, Cheetahs), 6 caps, 5 points (1 try)
Lood de Jager (lock, 25 years, Blue Bulls), 32 caps, 20 points (4 tries)
Ruan Dreyer (prop, 26 years, Golden Lions), 4 caps, 5 points (1 try)
Dan du Preez (No 8, 22 years, Sharks), 0 caps, 0 points
**Jean-Luc du Preez (loose forward, 22 years, Sharks), 10 caps, 10 points (2 tries)
Pieter-Steph du Toit (lock/flank, 25 years, Western Province), 29 caps, 20 points (4 tries)
Eben Etzebeth (lock, 26 years, Western Province), 63 caps, 15 points (3 tries)
Steven Kitshoff (prop 25 years, Western Province), 19 caps, 0 points
Siya Kolisi (flank, 26 years, Western Province), 25 caps, 20 points (4 tries)
Francois Louw (loose forward, 32 years, Bath, England), 54 caps, 40 points (8 tries)
Wilco Louw (prop, 23 years, Western Province), 1 cap, 0 points
Malcolm Marx (hooker, 23 years, Golden Lions), 11 caps, 15 points (3 tries)
Bongi Mbonambi (hooker, 27 years, Western Province), 11 caps, 0 points
Oupa Mohojé (flank, 27 years, Free State Cheetahs), 17 caps, 0 points
Franco Mostert (lock, 26 years, Lions/Ricoh Black Rams, Japan), 15 caps, 0 points
Tendai Mtawarira (prop, 32 years, Sharks), 95 caps, 10 points (2 tries)
Trevor Nyakane (prop, 28 years, Blue Bulls), 34 caps, 5 points (1 try)
Coenie Oosthuizen (prop, 28 years, Sharks), 29 caps, 20 points (4 tries)
Chiliboy Ralepelle (hooker, 31 years, Sharks), 22 caps, 5 points (1 try)
Backs
Lukhanyo Am (centre, 23 years, Sharks), 0 caps, o points
Curwin Bosch (flyhalf, 20 years, Sharks), 1 cap, 0 points
Andries Coetzee (fullback, 26 years, Golden Lions), 9 caps, 0 points
Ross Cronjé (scrumhalf, 27 years, Golden Lions), 6 caps, 10 points (2 tries)
Damian de Allende (centre, 27 years, Western Province), 27 caps, 15 points (3 tries)
Warrick Gelant (fullback, 22 years, Blue Bulls), 0 caps, 0 points
Elton Jantjies (flyhalf, 27 years, Lions/
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The Senate vote involved a Democratic challenge to a Republican amendment that would repeal the health care law.
Because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the health care reform law will lower the deficit, Democrats argued that repealing it would increase the deficit.
The Democrats therefore invoked a point of order against the Republican amendment under budget rules that limit the ability of Congress to increase the deficit. That forced Republicans to try to waive the budget rules in this case, with the motion requiring 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate to pass.
The threshold proved out of reach for the Republicans, who hold 47 seats.
Using the budget argument was a way for Democrats to say they voted for fiscal responsibility. Senator Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, said before the vote that supporting the Republican amendment would be "irresponsible" and "reckless."
"The amendment will significantly worsen the deficit," Conrad said, noting that senators from both parties are calling for getting deficits and debt under control.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, the amendment's sponsor, responded that the public will understand that the vote was really against the repeal of health care reform.
"Only in Washington could you argue with a straight face that starting a new trillion-dollar entitlement program" was a way to save money, McConnell said.
While a repeal of the entire health care law won't move forward, Senate Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the elimination of a rule, scheduled to take effect in 2012, that would require businesses to issue Form 1099s to any individual or corporation from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services in a year. Most liberals and conservatives view the rule as an unnecessary burden on private-sector employers.
Wednesday's vote amounted to a push by Republicans to get Democratic opposition to a full repeal on the record in the form of votes against the amendment.
Democrats concede the health care overhaul can be improved, but they oppose rolling back benefits for consumers.
"We're not going to go back and fight the battles of the last two years," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday. "We're not going to go backward. We're going to move forward."
Overall, the Republicans oppose the increased government role in regulating health care, claiming it will impinge on individuals' right to choose care options. Democrats say the law will better control skyrocketing health care costs and expand coverage to millions of people currently lacking health insurance.
The push for an outright repeal is one of several strategies currently being pursued by the GOP leadership in order to undermine support for the law. Senate Republicans also introduced legislation Tuesday that would allow states to opt out of key provisions of the new health care law.
Specifically, the bill would allow state governments to opt out of the so-called "individual mandate" requiring everyone to obtain health care coverage by 2014 or face penalties. It would also allow states to ignore new mandates regarding employer-based coverage, insurance benefits and an expansion of Medicaid.
The motion was introduced one day after a federal judge in Florida issued a sweeping ruling against the law, siding with 26 states that had challenged the measure and setting up a likely Supreme Court challenge in the months ahead.
A federal judge in eastern Virginia has also found the health care law unconstitutional, while two other federal judges, one in western Virginia and one in Michigan, have ruled the opposite. Twelve other federal judges have dismissed challenges to the law, according to the White House.
CNN's Alan Silverleib, Ted Barrett, Dana Bash and Tom Cohen contributed to this reportBrú na Bóinne ( Irish: [ˈbˠɾˠuː n̪ˠə ˈbˠoːn̪ʲə], Palace of the Boyne or Mansion of the Boyne) or Boyne valley tombs, is an area in County Meath, Ireland, located in a bend of the River Boyne. It contains one of the world's most important prehistoric landscapes dating from the Neolithic period, including the large Megalithic passage graves of Knowth, Newgrange and Dowth as well as some 90 additional monuments. The archaeological culture associated with these sites is called the "Boyne culture".
Since 1993 the site has been a World Heritage Site designated by UNESCO, known since 2013 as "Brú na Bóinne - Archaeological Ensemble of the Bend of the Boyne".[1]
Location [ edit ]
The area is located eight kilometers west of Drogheda in County Meath, Ireland, in a bend of the River Boyne. It is around 40 kilometers north of Dublin.[2]
Brú na Bóinne is surrounded on its southern, western and eastern sides by the Boyne; additionally, a small tributary of the Boyne, the river Mattock, runs along the northern edge, almost completely surrounding Brú na Bóinne with water. All but two of the prehistoric sites are on this river peninsula.
Description of the site [ edit ]
The area has been a centre of human settlement for at least 6,000 years, but the major structures date to around 5,000 years ago, from the Neolithic period.[2]
The site is a complex of Neolithic mounds, chamber tombs, standing stones, henges and other prehistoric enclosures, some from as early as 35th century BC - 32nd century BC. The site thus predates the Egyptian pyramids and was built with sophistication and a knowledge of science and astronomy, which is most evident in the passage grave of Newgrange. The site is often referred to as the "Bend of the Boyne" and this is often (incorrectly) taken to be a translation of Brú na Bóinne (Palace or Mansion of the Boyne).[2] The associated archaeological culture is often called the Boyne culture.[3]
The site covers 780 ha (1,927 acres) and contains around 40 passage graves,[2] as well as other prehistoric sites and later features. The majority of the monuments are concentrated on the north side of the river. The most well-known sites within Brú na Bóinne are the passage graves of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, all known for their collections of megalithic art.[4] Each stands on a ridge within the river bend and two of the tombs, Knowth and Newgrange, appear to contain stones re-used from an earlier monument at the site. Newgrange is the central mound of the Boyne Valley passage grave cemetery, the circular cairn in which the cruciform burial chamber is sited having a diameter of over 100 metres. Knowth and Dowth are of comparable size. There is no in situ evidence for earlier activity at the site, save for the spotfinds of flint tools left by Mesolithic hunters.
The passage tombs were constructed beginning in around 3,300 BC and work stopped around 2,900 BC. The three largest tombs of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth may have been constructed to be visible from each other and from northern and southern approaches along the River Boyne, as part of a scheme to "bind the previously disparate elements of the extended passage tomb cemetery into a more clearly defined prehistoric numinous precinct".[5] The area continued to be used for habitation and ritual purposes until the early Bronze Age, during which a number of embanked, pit and wooden post circles (collectively referred to as "henges") were built. Artefacts from the later Bronze Age are comparatively inconspicuous: some cist and ring ditch burials and burnt mounds. For the Iron Age there is only evidence of sporadic activity, such as burials near Knowth and at Rosnaree. Valuable items from the Roman period such as coins and jewelry were found as votive offerings near Newgrange.[2]
Numerous other enclosure and megalith sites have been identified within the river bend and have been given simple letter designations, such as the M Enclosures. In addition to the three large tombs, several other ceremonial sites constitute the complex including:[6]
Astronomical alignments [ edit ]
Each of the three main megalith sites have significant archaeoastronomical significance. Newgrange and Dowth have Winter solstice solar alignments, while Knowth is oriented towards the spring and autumn Equinox. In addition, the immediate environs of the main sites have been investigated for other possible alignments. The layout and design of the Brú na Bóinne complex across the valley has also been studied for astronomical significance.
Brú na Bóinne visitor centre [ edit ]
All access to Newgrange and Knowth is by guided tour only, with tours beginning at the Visitor Centre, opened in 1997 in Donore, County Meath.[2] The tourist visitor centre is located on the south side of the river Boyne, and the historical site is located on the north side of the river and is accessed via a shuttle with a tour guide.
Public transport access [ edit ]
Bus Éireann route 163 operates between Drogheda and the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre via Donore.[7] The nearest railway station is Drogheda railway station approximately 9 kilometres distant.
See also [ edit ]
Gallery [ edit ]
Brú na Bóinne aerial view
Interior of Knowth
Newgrange grave
Newgrange
References [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]
Lewis-Williams, D. and Pearce, D., Inside the Neolithic Mind, Thames and Hudson, London, 2005, ISBN 0-500-05138-0
, Thames and Hudson, London, 2005, ISBN 0-500-05138-0 O'Kelly, M. J., Newgrange: archaeology, art, and legend, London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd., 1982.
Further reading [ edit ]The TLC already requires the touch screens in cabs to give passengers the option to tip 20 percent or manually enter a different amount. So far, it has yet to extend the mandate to ride-sharing companies. However, services like Lyft and others do offer a tipping option in NYC even though they aren't required to do so. The commission has to respond to rule petitions within 60 days with with either proposed changes to existing rules or a denial of the request. There's no guarantee of a change in regulations, but the TLC has to at least consider the matter following the guild's petition.
Issues with Uber's tipping policies aren't anything new. The company has already been slapped with lawsuits for misleading passengers and missing tips from food deliveries. "On Uber, tips are not included, nor are they expected or required," the company explained when the guild began its tipping campaign in July. "Riders tell us that one of the things they like most about Uber is that it's hassle-free. Riders are free to offer tips and drivers are welcome to accept them, as has always been our policy." Of course, since there's currently no in-app tip option, those "welcome" tips have to be cash.(Ethan Miller/Getty)
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is Jonah Goldberg’s weekly “news”letter, the G-File. Subscribe here to get the G-File delivered to your inbox on Fridays.
Dear Reader (including Crom, who cares not what I write),
When my daughter was little more than a toddler, she wrote all over the wall with a pen in my wife’s home office. We confronted her about it. She listened intently, trying hard to be surprised by the news of this defilement of our domicile. “What happened, Lucy?” we asked.
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#ad#After a long and nervous pause, she replied, “I know what happened.” Excited by her own duplicitous inventiveness and restrained by her desire to sell it, she said very seriously, “A bad girl must have come into the house and did this.” She tsk-tsked, “What a bad girl,” shaking her head while looking at the wall.
I need not dwell on the implausibility of roving bands of ninja-like naughty toddlers — or lone-wolf munchkins — breaking into nice homes to scribble on the upstairs walls and then depart leaving no other trace of their schemes. I simply bring this up to say that my daughter’s “a bad girl did it” gambit is a wildly more powerful and resolute claim of innocence than “you have no smoking gun.”
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RELATED: The Dirty Business of the Billary Machine, Again
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My column from yesterday is on this very point. So I won’t recycle it here. I will, however, recycle from an infinitely better “news”letter I penned a couple months ago. I wrote, “If you want to know what Hillary Clinton would be like as president, you’re seeing it right now. There is no other Hillary. This is her.” It’s Hillary all the way down.
And I wrote that before the Peter Schweizer book came out. I wrote that before Sidney Blumenthal was awakened from his slumber by a congressional subpoena (rumor has it he sleeps upside down in a basement at the Clinton Foundation wrapped in his own mothwings).
My point isn’t that I am prescient. My point is that Hillary is predictable. I could have written that in 2000 when she went on her last “listening tour” in a Scooby van, or at almost any other moment of the last 30 years.
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RELATED: Do the Clintons Even Care about How Their Myriad Scandals Affect Their Public Image?
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There are no “new” Hillarys. There are, on occasion, new strategies to dupe people into thinking there is a new Hillary. But these Potemkin do-overs are usually as pale, thin, and see-through as the skin of an agoraphobic Goth computer programmer. The simple fact is: This is her. There is no other her. There is no other Bill, either, by the way. They are Clintons and they are eternal, Aesopian, unchanging. The tackiness and the lying, the parsing and corner-cutting, the entitlement and fakery: This is what they do. Scandals swirl around the Clintons like the cloud of dirt surrounding Pigpen not because the Clintons are the victims of their enemies, but because the Clintons are their own worst enemies. They do this to themselves. They create these problems. They are the authors of their own torment because this is who they are.
Don’t Get Fooled Again
Scandals swirl around the Clintons like the cloud of dirt surrounding Pigpen not because the Clintons are the victims of their enemies, but because the Clintons are their own worst enemies.
This is an important political point because the Clinton strategists and spinners are invested in a theory that electing a woman will be transformative. It will be like that scene in Excalibur where King Arthur, rejuvenated by the Holy Grail, revives the brown and wasted crops and forests simply by riding by. We already had one experiment in this kind of magical thinking. It worked for Barack Obama. I don’t think it will work for Hillary. Obama was new and fresh. Hillary... isn’t.
RELATED: Does the Media Hold Anyone to a Lower Ethical Standard than the Clintons?
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I think this offers insight into why Hillary is betting it all on reviving the Obama coalition. I’ve written many times that I don’t think she can succeed. But maybe I’m wrong (“It’s happened before” — The Couch). And, more to the point, I’ve come to realize it’s the only strategy open to her. She can’t run to win moderates, independents, and swing voters (save for a subset of women who will vote strictly on identity-politics lines), because these voters can’t be Jedi-mind-tricked into ignoring all of her baggage. Only the hyper-partisan, the extremely uninformed, the incurably gullible, and, of course, the heavily bribed can get really excited about Hillary Clinton.
How to Listen to a Clinton, Cont’d
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I’m thinking, the phrase “eats like a bird” is really bogus. I mean, they eat nuts and bugs all day long; that’s a lot of protein, particularly given their size. But that’s not really important right now (Sorry, I’m writing this in my backyard watching my birdfeeder — which my cats consider to be a poorly-constructed and frustrating cat feeder — as I write this).
Where was I? Oh, right, I’m thinking “How to Listen to a Clinton” should be an occasional feature of this “news”letter (see the last entry here). Why? Well, first of all it’s kind of in my wheelhouse. Second, I’m always looking for copy on Friday mornings and, well, if there’s a more renewable resource than Clinton lies, I’m hard pressed to think what it might be.
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RELATED: With Hillary, the Buck Stops Anywhere but Here
As I said last week, the Clintons’ favorite way to lie is by telling the truth selectively. There are a lot of benefits to this oh-so-lawyerly technique. It sounds more plausible. It frustrates journalists. It comes in handy when your lies are exposed or you’re asked about them under oath. The downside is that when you use the truth to tell lies, you embed implied confessions in the silences. “There’s no smoking gun” isn’t a denial, it’s a passive-aggressive way of saying, “You’ll never catch me!”
Over at Discriminations, John Rosenberg compiled some good examples of similar rhetorical techniques by the Clintons and their sock puppets.
In 2002, being open about her presidential ambitions would be politically inadvisable, so Hillary denied it, Clinton-style:
Responding to reports and comments from anonymous friends and advisers that she plans to run for president in 2008, Hillary Clinton told the Associated Press that “I don’t know who those people are or where they’re getting their information from because they’ve never had a conversation with me they can quote.”
“Never had a conversation with me they can quote” is not the same as “these conversations never took place.” In fairness, lots of politicians lie about their presidential ambitions. My point here is to illustrate the style of Clintonian lies, not the magnitude of them.
When asked by Diane Rehm if Webb Hubbell’s silence had been bought, Hillary Clinton replied, “There’s no evidence of that. There will not be any evidence of that.”
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That is not a denial either. This is the kind of thing Tony Soprano says when he knows all the bodies have been disposed of at Satriale’s.
Here’s Bill in 1997 in response to his fundraising tactics.
I don’t believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I had changed government policy solely because of a contribution.
If one parses this with Clintonian precision, this is actually closer to a confession. He says it is a “fact” that he changed policy. But also note the weasel word “solely.” Were contributions a factor in his decisions?
Consider all of the skid-greasing money sluicing into the Clinton Foundation from arms manufacturers, uranium moguls, and the like (not to mention children’s charities!). No doubt there are arguments one can make on the merits for the decisions donors were lobbying for. Every lobbyist I’ve ever met — and I’ve met hundreds — can make good, or good-sounding, arguments for their position, just as every country lobbying FIFA for a World Cup billet can make its case on the merits. It’s just that sometimes a little baksheesh helps officials see those merits more clearly.
And finally, here’s Lanny Davis on Fox News last month:
There’s no evidence that President Clinton, that I’ve seen yet, tried to influence any decision by any governmental agency.
Yes, and there was no evidence that a bad girl didn’t break into my house to draw on the wall, either.
Vote Smod!
Yesterday, the great Kevin Williamson and I debated perhaps the most pressing issue in American politics today: Who should conservatives support in the Planetary Extinction Primary, Cthulhu or Smod?
For those who don’t know who either of these candidates are, you should probably count yourself lucky and stop reading. Save the surprise for when all life on this planet is snuffed out in a blinding flash by Smod or wait until hordes of Cthulhu cultists in clown costumes force you to eat your own entrails.
But if you’re not the type to delay gratification, let me quickly catch you up. Cthulhu is one of the Old Ones, a god-demon who predates time and who ravages worlds and souls for his own amusement. His face is a multi-tentacle horror, a mere glimpse of which could send even the strongest mortal into madness.
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Smod is the nickname/acronym for the Sweet Meteor of Death, whose planet-killing arrival many sane people pray for whenever they contemplate a Hillary Clinton presidency or listen to Sally Kohn talk.
Anyway, Kevin noted the other day that his preferred candidate in 2016 is Cthulhu (“Why Vote for a Lesser Evil?”). This surprised me because Kevin is a minarchist with strong anarcho-capitalist tendencies. Sure, Cthulhu is a ravager of worlds, but he is also a ruler prone to dirigiste economics., Smod is far more laissez faire. As I wrote yesterday:
Smod describes himself as a “pre-cambrian conservative.” He has no cultists looking to rule in his name. He doesn’t endorse evil, merely the sweet release of planetary destruction. While Cthulhu can be a bit of windbag, Smod makes no speeches, he makes no sounds at all as he glides through the cosmic ether. Calvin Coolidge looks loquacious by comparison. Meanwhile, Cthulhu’s will is unpredictable, he vows chaos and anarchy here on earth. Smod provides what the market demands: certainty, predictability, and simple rules for a complex society. Who knows what Cthulhu will do tomorrow? With Smod there is no tomorrow. He has the single-minded focus only a cold and soulless inanimate object can provide.
Burke, Hayek, & Smod
Kevin makes several excellent points in his rejoinder. And I especially appreciate his perspicacity on the question of our philosophical differences. He is right that I am more of a Burkean. But, sadly, he perpetuates the false division between Burkean traditionalism and Hayekian libertarianism. Burke subscribed to his own conception of spontaneous order and recognized the knowledge problem (“the individual is foolish... but the species is wise”) long before Hayek was born. Indeed, Hayek greatly admired Burke, which is why he rejected the label “libertarian” in favor of “Old Whig” — a deliberate pronouncement of solidarity with the Sage of Beaconsfield.
I don’t want to force Kevin into a label he does not accept — that would be Cthulhian of me — but I’d like to suggest he’s an Old Whig without knowing it. If there is a single moral principle that united the Old Whigs — from Burke to Hayek — it is the evil and folly of “arbitrary power.” Kevin’s book, The End Is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome, is not a jeremiad for moral anarchy and rule by the cruel or the strongest. Rather it is an argument for the morally restorative powers of anarchy — i.e., liberty rightly understood.
If Cthulhu stands for anything, it is for himself. His motives are beyond our ken. His blood-soaked actions are grounded in nothing but his own whimsy. Is this not the very definition of arbitrary power? Obviously, in a world where Al Sharpton can blame Texas floods on “climate control” [sic], all rational men wish for the sweet release of total destruction. But is a mercurial ancient being of indecipherable evil the kind of being you want to pin your hopes on? Just for giggles, he could make Al Sharpton his Warden of Terra for a thousand centuries. That’s a blink of the eye for one who stands outside the currents and eddies of time as we know it. If such a delay amuses him, what does he care about the timetable of those eager to leap in the cosmic bologna grinder?
Meanwhile, Smod is beholden to the rule of law — in this case, the law of physics. As an inanimate object — “a chunk of space-rock,” Kevin dismissively spits — Smod could no more change his mind, or his schedule, than 4 could choose not to be the sum of 2+2. Sure, he lacks Cthulhu’s experience, but he has knowable and reliable convictions. If experience is all that matters, then in the human presidential contest (“a feckless battle of impotent meat-sacks,” in Cthulhu’s colorful phrase) Kevin should be pulling for Rick Santorum, George Pataki, or Hillary Clinton. All I need to know about Smod is he is committed to Newton’s First Law of Motion. And, to paraphrase another Old Whig, Margaret Thatcher, the meteor’s not for turning.
For all we mortals know, Cthulhu could proclaim that ducks must crap plutonium while crows eat our eyeballs every morning. He could raise Helen Thomas from the stygian depths and force us to mate with her. Cop Rock could be broadcast 24/7 on every channel, just to make sure the living envy the dead. Sure, sure, we’d all die eventually, but that’s true now. Smod promises Walmart-level efficiency for his deliverables.
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Speaking of unwavering principle, I’m reminded of Frank Meyer’s famous argument for using nuclear weapons if required to defend liberty. The first “conservatarian” wrote that:
Even granted the most horrendous estimates of the effects of their use, the preservation of human life as a biological phenomenon is an end far lower than the defense of freedom and right and truth. These the victory of Communism would destroy. These it is our duty to defend at all costs.
Extinction Punditry
Kevin’s more mundane argument is about electability. He writes:
And we have to keep in mind electoral realities as well. Conservatives have for a generation been effectively locked out of most of New England and much of the rest of the Northeast; given Cthulhu’s long association with Miskatonic University in Massachusetts, we’d finally have a shot at opening up Dukakis country. What’s Smod’s natural constituency? The geology faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder?
Oh please. For starters, Cthulhu will never get the Evangelical vote. As a demonic beast who claims, if not sovereignty over, then at least co-equal status with the Almighty, Biblical conservatives will never pull a lever for some squid-faced Baal-wannabe. I can see Ralph Reed’s attack ads now.
Cthulhu will never get the Evangelical vote. As a demonic beast who claims, if not sovereignty over, then at least co-equal status with the Almighty, Biblical conservatives will never pull a lever for some squid-faced Baal-wannabe.
Smod, meanwhile, has no such hubris. He respects the very same “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” invoked in the Declaration of Independence. When Smod arrives he will do so in accordance with Divine Will. But he will also do so in accordance with the precepts of “sound science.” Smod could even get crossover votes from the buffoons who’ve elevated Neil deGrasse Tyson into a kind of secular saint. (Alas, given his perch at the Hayden Planetarium, one could also expect a lot of punditry from Tyson, which I will concede is a drawback.)
And if we are going to talk about political realities, let’s deal with the elephant in the room. Cthulhu is ugly. Really, really, ugly. He’s got a nasty disposition. In the great test of “Who would you like to have a beer with?” Cthulhu loses every time. Meanwhile, Smod’s first name is “sweet” — which is great for the women’s vote. He’s the strong silent type.
So I say again, to all principled conservatives and libertarians seeking a great cataclysmic do-over, there’s only one choice in 2016: Sweet Meteor of Death. Give me liberty and death.
Various & Sundry
Well, for those of you who doubted me when I said I write this thing for my own amusement, I refer you to the above.
My first column this week was on Mike Huckabee’s progressivism. It invited a number of interesting responses, including this fairly ridiculous one by Jamelle Bouie. “This is a pretty classic example of ‘everything I do not like is X,’ where X is in this case is ‘progressivism.’” Bouie seems to think he’s exposing an inconsistency on my part, when in fact all he’s doing is acknowledging my consistency. It’s true, I do not like intrusive, nannying, government by Democrats and I don’t like intrusive, nannying, government by Republicans. As someone with socially conservative views on many issues, it shouldn’t be a surprise that if forced to choose between right-wing progressivism and left-wing progressivism, I will mostly — but certainly not always — prefer the former. But my preferred arrangement would be to have limited government, particularly at the federal level. Anyway, my objection to Bouie’s subtweeted derision prompted a rather silly Twitter spat in which he took great exception to my claim that he’s as ideologically liberal as I am ideologically conservative, with the key difference that I acknowledge my biases while he denies his. As I’ve written at great, great, length, this is a common malady of contemporary liberalism.
My column today was inspired by a rant of mine on the latest Ricochet podcast, which can be found here.
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Zoë Update: The dingo’s metamorphosis into a good dog continues apace. The one place where she’s still lagging — though still vastly improved — is her desire to scrap with other dogs, particularly golden retrievers it seems. Oh, one last thing, lots of people seem to think I’m joking when I call her a dingo. But that is what she is (or mostly is). If you google “American Dingo” all of the results are for “Carolina Dogs” who not only strongly resemble Zoë, but, according to all of the breed descriptions, share many of her quirks (from snout-hole digging in our backyard, to strange vocalizations, to poop burying when in sandy locales). Though I’ve yet to read that other Carolina dogs bend their arm out the car window the way she does. We’ll never know for sure what she is, of course. She may have some other bloodlines in her (Yay mongrel vigor!), but she was found near Spartanburg, South Carolina. And she is so, so dingo-y.
Speaking of South Carolina, my belated birthday present from the Fair Jessica is a week off by myself to work on my book. I’ll be holed up in an undisclosed location in the vicinity of Charleston, S.C. No meet-ups scheduled, alas, I’ve got lots of work to do. But restaurant recommendations would be appreciated!
The least mystifying mystery of all time? “Why the Oldest Person in the World Keeps Dying”
For the great divorce-letters file
For those not suffering from Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, here’s a list of the final words at yesterday’s spelling bee.
Gummy legos
Man named Bacon arrested in fight over sausage
Walrus cam
Monkey gets a makeover
Cat meowing along to “If you’re happy and you know it”
The most unusual causes of death by state
Debby’s links!Former bowling center in Costa Mesa, California
Kona Lanes was a bowling center in Costa Mesa, California, that opened in 1958 and closed in 2003 after 45 years in business. Known for its futuristic design, it featured 40 wood-floor bowling lanes, a game room, a lounge, and a coffee shop that eventually became a Mexican diner. Built during the advent of Googie architecture, its Polynesian Tiki-themed styling extended from the large roadside sign to the building's neon lights and exaggerated rooflines.
When Kona Lanes was demolished in 2003, it was one of the last remaining examples of the Googie style in the region; its sister center, Java Lanes in Long Beach, was razed in 2004. Much of Kona's equipment was sold prior to the demolition; the distinctive sign was saved and sent to Cincinnati, where a portion is on permanent display in the American Sign Museum.
Costa Mesa's planning commission approved a proposal to build a department store on the site; following public outcry, those plans were scrapped. In 2010, the still-vacant land was rezoned for senior citizens' apartments and commercial development. Construction on the apartments began ten years after Kona Lanes was demolished.
History [ edit ]
Early years [ edit ]
Los Angeles Times) Kona Lanes before (top) and after a remodel taming its "ostentatious rooflines" (Scott Martelle,
Kona Lanes opened in 1958, featuring the Tiki-inspired signage and architecture that became popular following World War II,[1][a] including what the Los Angeles Times called its "flamboyant neon lights and ostentatious rooflines meant to attract motorists like moths".[4] The building on Harbor Boulevard near Adams Avenue was one of three in the Googie style that architects Powers, Daly, & DeRosa designed at around the same time; Kona Lanes and its sister center, Java Lanes,[6] used names that suggested South Pacific island locales. Author Andrew Hurley called them "expensive and attractive buildings that screamed, 'Have fun here'", and Kona retained much of that atmosphere over the years. Its massive neon-lit street sign remained for the life of the building,[8] and Kona was the only bowling establishment in the area to reject automatic scoring equipment throughout its existence.[9]
Kona Lanes hosted the Southern California PBA Open twice in 1964; Billy Hardwick won in April and Jerry Hale in December.[10][11] Longtime general manager Dick Stoeffler,[b] known at the time as the producer and host of TV Bowling Tournament on KTLA,[12][13] finished third during the televised finals in his own building in December, behind Hale and Hardwick.[11] When Stoeffler rolled back-to-back 300 games in one league session at Kona in 1968, he was one of only four men in the United States to have managed the feat.[14][c]
Peak years [ edit ]
Champions who bowled at Kona Lanes during its 45-year history include three-time Professional Bowlers Association Tour winner Jack Biondolillo;[11] six-time male Bowling Writers Association of America Bowler of the Year and future PBA Hall of Famer Don Carter;[10] John Haveles, an Orange County Bowling Hall of Fame inductee who began a stint as Kona's manager in 1974;[18] future Michigan Women's Bowling Association Hall of Famer Cora Fiebig; two-time female BWAA Bowler of the Year Aleta Sill;[19] and Barry Asher, the multiple PBA Tour champion and Hall of Fame inductee who later ran the pro shop at Fountain Bowl in nearby Fountain Valley.[20] Kona Lanes and Tustin Lanes hosted nearly 10,000 teams of five players each taking part in the United States Bowling Congress Women's Championships in 1986.
Under Dick Stoeffler's management, Kona Lanes kept busy 24 hours a day, which made him one of the most successful proprietors in the country. Stoeffler met his future wife there,[13] and other couples had similar experiences.[4][22][23][d] Kona was often so busy that customers had to make reservations to get a lane during open (non-league) bowling hours.[25] At its peak, Kona Lanes averaged more than 80 lines on each of its 40 lanes.[12][e]
Bowling as a participation sport flourished in the early 1960s,[27] but its popularity was diluted due to overbuilding; the number of bowling alleys sanctioned by the then-American Bowling Congress peaked at about 11,000 by mid-decade,[28] and Kona was one of more than 30 in southern California alone. A decline in league bowling starting in the 1980s was also blamed for the downturn,[27] but an AMF Bowling official argued that the customer base remained steady because an increase in open bowling made up for fewer league bowlers.[30]
Kona Lanes in 1960 (top) and in 2002
Jack Mann bought Kona Lanes in 1980 and re-branded it New Kona Lanes the following year.[27][31] Mann's family owned several bowling centers in the region; he was behind the creation of Fountain Bowl in 1973 and the short-lived Regal Lanes in Orange in 1974.[9] He also owned Tustin Lanes before selling it to his youngest son, Alex.[f] Mann bought Kona not because he loved bowling, but because it would continue to pay dividends if he was no longer able to work.[g] He later sold Kona to his son Jack Jr.[27]
Music [ edit ]
The center's lounge, known as the Outrigger Room, hosted many local artists over the years. Jazz quintet The Redd Foxx Bbq released four songs recorded there, and Roscoe Holland recorded a set of eight live performances for his album Beyond the Reef.[33]
In later years, much of the bowlers' area was taped off for rock concerts and weekend promotions like Club Crush, which proved popular among teenagers and also led to album recordings.[34] A planned event featuring a local punk rock group was shut down by the Costa Mesa Police Department, leading to negative publicity.[h]
Decline and demolition [ edit ]
Kona Lanes continued to lose business to newer centers,[9] despite efforts to appeal to a more diverse customer base by hosting local music acts, supporting a Polynesian-themed restaurant called Kona Korral,[4] and promoting gimmicks like "nude bowling".[36] Eventually, the property became more valuable than the business.[37] The landowners, C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, gave Jack Mann Jr. a choice: spend $10–20 million to update the center, or give it up. Mann chose the latter rather than spend such a sum on a site without a long-term lease.[4][38][i]
Plans to build a Kohl's department store on the site occupied by Kona Lanes and the already-closed Edwards Cinema Center and Ice Capades Chalet were approved by the city's planning commissioners, but they were met with resistance by neighbors who did not
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Still, a middle-of-the-pack possession team with great goaltending should be higher in the standings (that’s pretty much what Anaheim has been at times in the past couple of seasons, and what St. Louis was before Elliott's injury).
MUST READ: Rob Vollman writes about the Kings' puck possession issues for ESPN.com.
11. Vancouver Canucks (18-9-2)
The six worst teams in even strength save percentage include the Oilers, the Dallas Stars, the Carolina Hurricanes and Arizona Coyotes. Their placement in the standings reflects that. Another is the Wild, and their goaltending issues were just documented. The sixth though (fourth worst, at.907) is the Canucks.
Three straight losses might have the Canucks inching back to where their analytics profile would suggest they should settle (a slightly-above-average team but not a great one). The schedule sets up well though. Vancouver doesn’t leave the time zone for a month, with nine of the 11 games at home.
MUST READ: Jim Jamieson of the Vancouver Province writes about some likes and dislikes with the Canucks to this point.
12. Montreal Canadiens (18-10-2)
The Canadiens were like the Ducks, Islanders and Canucks a couple weeks ago, and then they lost four games by one goal in a span of eight days. They didn't stop "knowing how to win," even if they lost six of seven games overall. Montreal is still a solid playoff team, but one that might still need a tweak or two to be considered a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.
MUST READ: Arpon Basu of NHL.com writes about the first recognized empty seat in the Bell Centre in nearly 11 years.
13. San Jose Sharks (15-11-4)
So losing four games in a row, including three where they heavily outshot the opponent, wasn't the end for this Sharks team and was actually just a precursor to a stretch of success. There is no question it was a really weird summer, but the Sharks are playing well and might be back near the top of the Western Conference before too long.
MUST READ: Kevin Kurz of CSN Bay Area writes there are some positive signs starting to show up in this time of transition for the Sharks.
14. Boston Bruins (15-12-1)
The Bruins weren't the first team to go 0-for-California on a three-game swing through the state and won't be the last. Zdeno Chara returned from a knee injury Thursday, and David Krejci is practicing, which is some of the best news the Bruins have had in a while.
MUST READ: Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe writes that the numbers don't lie about this edition of the Bruins.
15. Winnipeg Jets (15-9-5)
The Jets have climbed into the top 10 in both puck possession metrics, and Michael Hutchinson is pushing Ondrej Pavelec, who is also playing better than he has in years, for more playing time. Key injuries on the blue line could be a concern moving forward, though Dustin Byfuglien can help (and maybe this leads to him staying back for good).
MUST READ: Garret Hohl of Arctic Ice Hockey writes about Evander Kane's lack of production.
16. Calgary Flames (17-10-2)
Further to the point about Monahan having a great sophomore season, he is second among all first- or second-year players in the NHL with 76 shots on goal. The only player ahead of him is Nathan MacKinnon with 84. That's pretty good company.
MUST READ: Ryan Pike of Flames Nation writes about Calgary's chances of making the playoffs if the Flames do start to regress.We had lots of delicious entries in the Edibles Category at the 2016 Medical Cannabis Cup. Here’s which ones made it into our Top 10.
HIGH TIMES would like to thank our partner lab—CannaSafe Analytics in Murrieta, CA—for providing excellent lab testing and data for our Cannabis Cup competition, as well as our premier sponsors—Powered by Kush, Higher Vision, FlavRx, Atomik,Advanced Nutrients, Cali Connection, Downtown Patients Collective, Nameless, Mally Elite, Greenwolf and New Amsterdam Naturals.
1 – Spiced Apple Cider from Ganja Grindz & The Clear
2 – Tea Pot Sencha Green Tea from Honey Pot
3 – Habit Sparkling Kiwi from Habit Sparkling Beverage
4 – High CBD/THC Medicated Honey Artisan Edition from Baked Bees Honey with GoldDrop Co.
5 – Habit Sparkling Strawberry from Habit Sparkling Beverage
6 – Homemade Peanut Butter Cups with Raspberry Jam from Soul Sugar Kitchen
7 – Lord Jones Dark Chocolate Covered Sea Salt Caramels from Lord Jones
8 – Original Maxx Power Sugar Free Chocolate Bar from Maxx Power Edibles
9 – Kushy Punch Sativa from Kushy Punch
10 – Chicken Empanadas from Goodies by MaGoochMedia Matters' Eric Boehlert: "You have neo-Nazis celebrating the Trump presidency" The extreme right is excited about its future, thinking the Trump administration will let it run free
To Media Matters' senior fellow Eric Boehlert, President Donald Trump's administration is the best thing that could have happened to racist Americans.
"This is a White House that is determined to gin up hysteria, really, about immigrants, Muslims and terror," Boehlert told Salon Talks. We haven't seen anything like this in a decade.
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"You have neo-Nazis celebrating the Trump presidency because he might take the focus away from them, let them run wild and not have government oversight."
The man at the center of the controversies, Steve Bannon, deserves some of the blame, Boehlert noted. "He helped shepherd an outright white nationalist site" in Breitbart.com. "This is an anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-black site."
Bannon's efforts are causing chaos in the White House and in American politics in general.
"The main way that they've disrupted everything is they've taken this very fringe, radical, sort of dark view of American politics.They've been welcomed into kind of mainstream of the Republican Party and the White House," Boehlert said.
But, in a way, Trump is the result of what happens when conservative media ends up running policy.
"Fox News and Breitbart have always been furious that the government tracks right-wing homegrown terrorists, white terrorists. They want terror in America only to be about Islam," he continued. "So there's a report that the Trump White House is going to take this terror program, eliminate white nationalists and make it only for terror in Islam."
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What about fake news? It's the Trump administration's best friend.
Said Boehlert: "The Trump White House from Day One has decided that we are going to run on fear and we're gonna use fake news to do it."For a number of years now, I’ve been pointing out that the unbounded growth of population in Africa is one of the great menaces facing civilization in the 21st Century. The business press has mostly focused instead upon the economic promise of Africa’s “good demographics.” Lately, however, publications like the Wall Street Journal and now The Economist have started to wake up.
From The Economist:
African demography
The young continent With fertility rates falling more slowly than anywhere else, Africa faces a population explosion Dec 12th 2015 | MERTULE MARIAM, ETHIOPIA ON A trolley in a government clinic in rural Ethiopia lies Debalke Jemberu. As a medic and a nurse winkle the sperm-carrying tubes out of his testicles, he explains why he decided to have a vasectomy. He is a farmer, growing wheat, sorghum and a local staple grain called teff. But his plot is barely a quarter of a hectare. He already has four children, and has often struggled to provide for them. “I couldn’t feed more children,” he says. … His parents had seven children, but they had eight hectares to farm. That plot has been shared among his siblings, and diminished by sales and land reforms. At the same time, he complains, the cost of living has gone up. Seven children would be far too big a family these days. Mr Jemberu’s daughter, who is 25, is still single (he married at 19). He is happy for her to concentrate on her studies for a few more years before starting a family. And when she does, he thinks two children would be plenty.
It’s important to keep in mind the phenomenon of “population momentum:” Say that all of Mr. Jemberu’s children just have the replacement rate of two children apiece. Problem solved, right? Ethiopia’s population immediately stabilizes.
No, it keeps going up for another generation because of the number of children his generation had. Notice that if his children each have the replacement rate of two children, Mr. Jemberu will have eight grandchildren, twice the replacement rate — and that’s what will drive Ethiopia’s total population through 2050 or so.
… Alarmingly, population growth in Africa is not slowing as quickly as demographers had expected. In 2004 the UN predicted that the continent’s population would grow from a little over 900m at the time, to about 2.3 billion in 2100. At the same time it put the world’s total population in 2100 at 9.1 billion, up from 7.3 billion today. But the UN’s latest estimates, published earlier this year, have global population in 2100 at 11.2 billion—and Africa is where almost all the newly added people will be. The UN now thinks that by 2100 the continent will be home to 4.4 billion people, an increase of more than 2 billion compared with its previous estimate. If the new projections are right, geopolitics will be turned upside-down. By the end of this century, Africa will be home to 39% of the world’s population, almost as much as Asia, and four times the share of North America and Europe put together. At present only one of the world’s ten most populous countries is in Africa: Nigeria. In 2100, the UN believes, five will be: Nigeria, Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Niger. Although much could change in the next 85 years, none of those countries is a byword for stability or prosperity. A quadrupling of their population is unlikely to improve matters. If nothing else, the number of Africans seeking a better life in Europe and other richer places is likely to increase several times over. … But even relative to their levels of income, health and education, the countries of sub-Saharan Africa have high fertility rates. That has prompted some scholars to posit cultural explanations. One theory is that African men want big families to enhance their status; another that communal land-holding makes them economically beneficial, since resources are shared according to family size. Without dismissing these arguments, John Bongaarts of the Population Council, an international non-profit group, suggests a third: relatively low use of modern contraception. In many places, after all, vigorous campaigns to disseminate contraceptives and discourage big families have contributed to sudden and deep falls in fertility. Such a drive in the 1970s in Matlab, a district in Bangladesh, saw the share of women using contraceptives increase six-fold in 18 months.
I blogged about Bongaarts’ article last month.
The African countries that have seen big falls in fertility are those, such as Burundi, Ethiopia and Senegal, with similar campaigns. In Ethiopia the fertility rate has fallen by about 0.15 a year for the past decade—blisteringly fast by demographic standards. That is probably thanks in large part to the nationwide network of 38,000 “health-extension workers”—one for every 2,500 people. Their job is to pay regular visits to each household within their locality and provide coaching on public health, from immunisations to hygiene. One of the 16 subjects in which they drill every Ethiopian is family planning. … For the prevalence rate to keep rising, however, contraceptives must be omnipresent and cheap. Western donors have offered support here, too. At a conference in London in 2012, a group of them agreed to devote $2.6 billion to it. The Gates Foundation, the world’s biggest philanthropic organisation, promised to spend $140m a year. Since then, it claims, 24m women have gained access to contraceptives in the countries the group is targeting. It has also helped several African governments to build strong supply chains so that clinics in remote areas never run out and brought together a consortium of aid agencies that has promised to buy contraceptives in large quantities if their manufacturers lower the price. That has helped reduce the cost of contraceptive implants from about $24 a dose to about $8, says Lester Coutinho, who runs the charity’s family-planning efforts. Alas, there is lots more to do. The UN estimates that there are still 216m married women in the world who would like access to modern methods of contraception, but do not have it. The Copenhagen Consensus, a group of academics which rates development policies, reckons it would cost $3.6 billion a year to provide what they need. The benefits, in terms of the diminished need for infrastructure and social spending, reduced pollution and so on, would be $432 billion a year—120 times more. That is the second-most productive investment the project has identified, after liberalising trade, out of a welter of different development goals. Better yet, it helps with all the others.
So, subsidizing contraception for Africans would be extremely cheap compared to the size of the bullet dodged.- A pro-life group says its St. Paul office building was vandalized overnight with anti-Trump and anti-Christian messages and a spray-painted, upside-down cross. Pro-Life Action Ministries executive director Brian Gibson said the messages included: “Another f---ing mouth to feed and “F--- Trump.”
The vandalism at the Payne Avenue office was discovered Monday morning. Gibson said Pro-Life Action Ministries has never endorsed Donald Trump.
St. Paul police confirmed the incident was reported, but a formal report had not yet been filed.
Pro-Life Action Ministries held a demonstration outside the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul on Sunday afternoon to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. Gibson said he also received a harassing phone call Sunday afternoon.
"What I find most disturbing is the hate speech indicated by the upside-down cross, reminiscent of the KKK,” Gibson said in a statement. “Clearly, there are those among pro-abortion advocates who seek to threaten, harass and intimidate those who peacefully seek to protect innocent life. But let me make this even clearer, we are not intimidated. Our work to return protection to the defenseless will continue unabated.”
An abortion protest organized by Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life was held Sunday at the Minnesota State Capitol. An estimated 5,000 people attended the protest, which called for Minnesota lawmakers to defund Planned Parenthood.Have you redeemed butterfly credits to help a shelter puppy or kitten? If so, then you’ve been supporting Austin Pets Alive! by providing a bottle-fed meal for kittens and puppies in desperate need of love.
This great shelter just achieved an amazing goal. After three years of hard work, they helped make Austin a no-kill city.
Sarah Weinstein, from Austin Pets Alive! says, “Three years ago, Austin Pets Alive! set a goal of making Austin a no-kill city and we never once doubted that, of all cities, Austin would be able to do it. Yesterday, TLAC announced that in the month of February their Live Outcome rate was 92%. The No-Kill goal is 90% so not only did Austin reach No-Kill, we passed it!”
By donating meals to animals in need, you made it easier for Austin to support all of their shelter animals. This support is essential to being a no-kill city.
Sarah continues, “Congratulations are owed to everyone. Every volunteer, foster, donor, every other rescue group and anyone who simply supported the No-Kill goal. All of you made this happen!”
This is a great step for the shelters in Austin. Thank you for your donations through Care2′s butterfly rewards program!
Want to do more to help animals in your community? Vote for your favorite animal shelter and help your local rescue win up to $15,000 during an America’s Favorite Animal Shelter contest sponsored by Care2, ASPCA and Adopt-a-Pet.com. The contest runs from May 16th to July 10th so vote for your favorite shelter today.
Vote for your favorite animal shelter in Care2′s animal shelter contest.
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Photo Credit: istock.comThe Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance alerted state colleges Thursday that it was suspending TOPS scholarship payments immediately due to the state’s historic budget crisis.TOPS eligible institutions received an email Thursday, alerting schools that payments would be suspended.The office said the notice was a precautionary measure until more is learned about the implications of budget cuts.TOPS is the state’s popular scholarship program that covers tuition for Louisiana students who meet certain academic standards. It’s provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to students in Louisiana for the past two decades.
The Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance alerted state colleges Thursday that it was suspending TOPS scholarship payments immediately due to the state’s historic budget crisis.
TOPS eligible institutions received an email Thursday, alerting schools that payments would be suspended.
The office said the notice was a precautionary measure until more is learned about the implications of budget cuts.
TOPS is the state’s popular scholarship program that covers tuition for Louisiana students who meet certain academic standards. It’s provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to students in Louisiana for the past two decades.
AlertMeSDSM leader Zoran Zaev [left] and Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov [right]. Photo: MIA
After several months of refusing to do so, Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov on Wednesday finally awarded the mandate for forming a government to the Social Democrat leader, Zoran Zaev, removing all remaining obstacles for a peaceful transfer of power.
Ivanov, who came under international pressure after withholding the offer of a mandate to Zaev since March, said at a short ceremony in his office: “The obstacles for awarding the mandate for a new Macedonian government have been removed.”
Zaev reiterated the guarantees he had previously given to the President that he would ensure the preservation of the unitary character and territorial integrity of Macedonia.
In the name of the new majority in parliament, “We guarantee protection of unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity [of Macedonia],” Zaev said.
The prolonged political power struggle had left Macedonia without new government since the December 11 early general election.
President Ivanov has been withholding the mandate for new government to Zaev since early March, despite Zaev having by then mustered a majority in parliament with the support of the main ethnic Albanian parties.
Like the former ruling VMRO DPMNE party, Ivanov insisted that should Zaev come to power, he would endanger the country’s sovereignty due to his acceptance of various demands set by the ethnic Albanian parties.
These focused on greater language and economic rights for the Albanian community who make up about a quarter of the country’s population.
Zaev insisted this was just an excuse – and that VMRO DPMNE, which has led the government since 2006, was only clinging to power to avoid criminal investigations.
The election of an ethnic Albanian, Talat Xhaferi, as new speaker of parliament in April 27 was seen as the turning point in the Macedonian crisis.
That day, the new majority in the chamber, led by the Social Democrats, elected Xhaferi as speaker, overcoming a more than month-long blockade of the constitutive session imposed by VMRO DPMNE.
Minutes later, however, supporters of the VMRO DPMNE party stormed the parliament, injuring some 100 people, including 10 MPs from the new majority.
The violence was seen as a staged prelude to greater violence that would then justify declaring martial law and suspending the transfer of power. However, this did not happen.
Under international pressure, VMRO DPMNE was forced to condemn the rampage and President Gjorge Ivanov also softened his opposition to Zaev.
The new parliamentary majority has the support of 67 of the 120 MPs. Zaev has anounced that he will try to form the new government by the end of this month at the latest.It seems to me that one of our besetting problems these days is that there's a shortage of utopias on offer.
Utopia — a fictional country with a perfect socio-political and legal system — is, of course, fiction. It's a polemical tool that is best used as a lens for examining our ideas about how we would like to live. A road map showing how to get there from here is optional; nor does utopian speculation generally provide a guide to the vexatious question of relations between utopia and the outside realm of the imperfect (should such a thing still have the bad grace to exist).
As a vehicle for fiction, utopias are piss-poor: they don't lend themselves to dramatic tension because they're perfect, and they're also annoyingly persistent — it's not utopia if it comes and goes in a couple of decades. (Indeed, what makes the SF of Iain Banks so interesting is that he does have a utopia, in the shape of the Culture — which, unfortunately, only works due to it being, well, science fiction.)
Anyway: it seems to me that the post-cold war neoliberal dominated political consensus (which is a consensus of the Right, insofar as the flagship of the Left hit an iceberg and started to sink in 1917, finally hitting the sea floor in 1989) is intrinsically inimical to the consideration of utopian ideals. Burkean conservativism tends to be skeptical of change, always asking first, "will it make things worse?" This isn't a bad question to ask in and of itself, but we're immured a period of change unprecedented in human history (it kicked off around the 1650s; its end is not yet in sight) and basing your policies on what you can see in your rear-view mirror leaves you open to driving over unforseen pot-holes. To a conservative, the first priority is not to lose track of what's good about the past, lest the future be worse. But this viewpoint brings with it a cognitive bias towards the simplistic outlook that innovation is always bad.
Which is why I think we badly need more utopian speculation. The consensus future we read about in the media and that we're driving towards is a roiling, turbulent fogbank beset by half-glimpsed demons: climate change, resource depletion, peak oil, mass extinction, collapse of the oceanic food chain, overpopulation, terrorism, foreigners who want to come here and steal our women jobs. It's not a nice place to be; if the past is another country, the consensus view of the future currently looks like a favela with raw sewage running in the streets. Conservativism — standing on the brake pedal — is a natural reaction to this vision; but it's a maladaptive one, because it makes it harder to respond effectively to new and unprecedented problems. We can't stop, we can only go forward; so it is up to us to choose a direction.
Having said that, we should be able to create a new golden age of utopian visions. A global civilization appears to be emerging for the first time. It's unstable, unevenly distributed, and blindly fumbling its way forward. But we have unprecedented tools for sharing information; slowly developing theories of behavioural economics, cognitive bias, and communications that move beyond the crudely simplistic (and wrong) 19th century models of perfectly rational market actors: even models of development that seem to be generating sporadic progress in those countries that were hammered down and ruthlessly exploited as colonial assets by the ancien regime and its inheritors.
We need — quite urgently, I think — plausible visions of where we might be fifty or a hundred or a thousand years hence: a hot, densely populated, predominantly urban planetary culture that nevertheless manages to feed everybody, house everybody, and give everybody room to pursue their own happiness without destroying our resource base.
Because historically, when a civilization collapsed, it collapsed in isolation: but if our newly global civilization collapses, what then...?A couple years ago, I started receiving Christian magazines in my mailbox. (I guess anonymous Christians felt if I read them, I’d get converted or something. Who knows how they found my address…)
My favorite in the bunch was Charisma because I *facepalmed* through every issue. It was free entertainment. It would have been more fun if I didn’t know that actual subscribers actually agreed with what was in it. That was (and still is) frightening.
For example, their most recent issue is all about Heaven and Hell… they’re dedicating an issue to a subject no one can possibly know anything about because you would only know about it after you die and you wouldn’t be in a position to tell anyone ab—oh, forget it. You all know what I’m saying.
But that’s not going to stop them. They have “experts” weighing in on what goes on in Heaven.
(Spoiler: You’ll have a job after you die!)
I have a lot of problems with Christianity.
One of them is that Christians act like they “know” things when, really, they have no clue about them.
Does anything happen when we die?
Accurate answer: If you’re buried, your body will soon rot.
Christian answer: If you were faithful and accepted Jesus into your heart, you will go to Heaven. If you rejected Jesus, you’ll burn in hell for all eternity.
How did the universe begin?
Accurate answer: Evidence suggests there was a “Big Bang“… what happened before that? We may never know.
Christian answer: God created it.
Does God exist?
Accurate answer: Is it possible that a god exists? Perhaps — even many atheists will refrain from saying “God absolutely does not exist.” But there’s never been any verifiable evidence that a god exists.
Christian answer: I know God exists and I know what he wants for my life and he listens to my prayers and we have conversations.
…
I prefer the truth, even if that means I don’t have all the answers to the “big questions.” That’s why I’m an atheist.
What Charisma is doing? That’s pure dishonesty. And you’ll never see their readers calling them out on it.The nature of computing in hyperdimensions is a strange and wonderful place. I have only started to scratch the surface by reading a paper by Kanerva. Not only is it interesting from a computer science standpoint, it’s also interesting from a cognitive science point of view. In fact, it could hold the key to better model AI and general reasoning. This blog is a casual stroll through some of the main points of Kanerva’s paper along with examples in Clojure to make it tangible. First things first, what is a hyperdimension?
What is a Hyperdimension and Where Are My Socks?
When we are talking about hyperdimensions, we are really talking about lots of dimensions. A vector has dimensions. A regular vector could have three dimensions [0 1 1], but a hyperdimensional vector has tons more, like 10,000 or 100,000. We call these big vectors hypervectors for short, which makes them sound really cool. Although the vectors could be made up of anything, we are going to use vectors made up of zeros and ones. To handle big computing with big vectors in a reasonable amount of time, we are also going to use sparse vectors. What makes them sparse is that most of the space is empty, (zeros). In fact, Clojure has a nice library to handle these sparse vectors. The core.matrix project from Mike Anderson is what we will use in our examples. Let’s go ahead and make some random hypervectors.
First we import the core.matrix libraries and set the implementation to vectorz which provides fast double precision vector math.
1 2 3 4 5 ( ns hyperdimensional-playground.core ( :require [ clojure.core.matrix :as m ] [ clojure.core.matrix.linear :as ml ])) ( m/set-current-implementation :vectorz )
Next we set the sz of our hypervectors to be 100,000. We also create a function to generate a random sparse hypervector by choosing to put ones in about 10% of the space.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ( def sz 100000 ) ( defn rand-hv [] ( let [ hv ( m/new-sparse-array [ sz ]) n ( * 0.1 sz )] ( dotimes [ i n ] ( m/mset! hv ( rand-int sz ) 1 )) hv ))
Now we can generate some.
1 2 3 4 5 6 ( def a ( rand-hv )) ( def b ( rand-hv )) ( def c ( rand-hv )) ( def d ( rand-hv )) a ;=> #vectorz/vector Large vector with shape: [100000]
You can think of each of this hypervectors as random hyperdimensional sock, or hypersock, because that sounds cooler. These hypersocks, have curious properties. One of which is that they will ~never match.
Hypersocks never match
Because we are dealing with huge amount of dimensions, a mathematically peculiar probability distribution occurs. We can take a random hypervector to represent something, then take another one and they will different from each by about 100 STD. We can take another one and it too, will be 100 STD from the other ones. For practical purposes, we will run out of time before we will run of vectors that are unrelated. Because of this, any two hypersocks will never match each other.
How can we tell how similar two hypersocks are? The cosine to tell the similarity between two vectors. This is determined by the dot product. We can construct a cosine similarity function to give us a value from -1 to 1 to measure how alike they are with 1 being the same and -1 being the complete opposite.
1 2 3 ( defn cosine-sim [ v1 v2 ] ( / ( m/dot v1 v2 ) ( * ( ml/norm v1 ) ( ml/norm v2 ))))
If we look at the similarity of a hypervector with itself, the result is ~1. With the other random hypervectors, it is ~0.
1 2 3 4 5 6 ( cosine-sim a a ) ;=> 1.0 ( cosine-sim d d ) ;=> 1.0 ( cosine-sim a b ) ;=> 0.0859992468320239 ( cosine-sim b c ) ;=> 0.09329186588790261 ( cosine-sim a c ) ;=> 0.08782018973001954
There are other cool things we can do with hypervectors, like do math with them.
The Hamming Distance of Two Hypersocks
We can add hypervectors together with a sum mean vector. We add the vector of 1s and 0s together then we divide the resulting vector by the number of total vectors. Finally, to get back to our 1s and 0s, we round the result.
1 2 3 ( defn mean-add [ & hvs ] ( m/emap # ( Math/round ( double % )) ( m/div ( apply m/add hvs ) ( count hvs ))))
The interesting thing about addition is that the result is similar to all the vectors in it. For example, if we add a and b together to make x, x = a + b, then x will be similar to a and similar to b.
1 2 3 4 ;; x = a + b ( def x ( mean-add a b )) ( cosine-sim x a ) ;=> 0.7234734658023224 ( cosine-sim x b ) ;=> 0.7252586504505658
You can also do a very simple form of multiplication on vectors with 1s and 0s with using XOR. We can do this by add the two vectors together and then mapping mod 2 on each of the elements.
1 2 3 ( defn xor-mul [ v1 v2 ] ( ->> ( m/add v1 v2 ) ( m/emap # ( mod % 2 ))))
We can actually use this xor-mul to calculate the Hamming distance, which is an important measure of error detection. The Hamming distance is simply the sum of all of the xor multiplied elements.
1 2 3 4 5 6 ( defn hamming-dist [ v1 v2 ] ( m/esum ( xor-mul v1 v2 ))) ( hamming-dist [ 1 0 1 ] [ 1 0 1 ]) ;=> 0 ( hamming-dist [ 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 ] [ 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 ]) ;=> 2 ( hamming-dist a a ) ;=> 0
This illustrates a point that xor multiplication randomizes the hypervector, but preserves the distance. In the following example, we xor multiply two random hypervectors by another and the hamming distance stays the same.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ; xa = x * a ; ya = y * a ; hamming distance of xa is the same as ya ;; multiplication randomizes but preserves the distance ( def x ( rand-hv )) ( def y ( rand-hv )) ( def xa ( xor-mul x a )) ( def ya ( xor-mul y a )) ( hamming-dist xa ya ) ;=> 1740.0 ( hamming-dist x y ) ;=> 1740.0
So you can xor multiply your two hypersocks and move them to a different point in hyperspace, but they will still be the same distance apart.
Another great party trick in hyperspace, is the ability to bind and unbind hypervectors for use as map like pairs.
Using Hypervectors to Represent Maps
A map of pairs is a very important data structure. It gives the ability to bind symbols to values and then retrieve those values. We can do this with hypervectors too. Consider the following structure:
1 2 3 { :name "Gigasquid" :cute-animal "duck" :favorite-sock "red plaid" }
We can now create hypervectors to represent each of these values. Then we can xor the hypervector symbol to the hypervector value and sum them up.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ;; data records with bound pairs ( def x ( rand-hv )) ;; favorite-sock ( def y ( rand-hv )) ;; cute-animal ( def z ( rand-hv )) ;; name ( def a ( rand-hv )) ;; red-plaid ( def b ( rand-hv )) ;; duck ( def c ( rand-hv )) ;; gigasquid ;H = X * A + Y * B + Z * C ( def h ( mean-add ( xor-mul x a ) ( xor-mul y b ) ( xor-mul z c )))
Now, we have a sum of all these things and we want to find the value of the favorite sock. We can unbind it from the sum by xor multiplying the favorite-sock hypervector x. Because of the property that xor multiplication both distributes and cancels itself out.
1 ( hamming-dist ( xor-mul x ( xor-mul x a )) a ) ;=> 0
We can compare the result with the known values and find the closest match.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ( hamming-dist a ( xor-mul x h )) ;=> 1462.0 ;; closest to "red-plaid" ( hamming-dist b ( xor-mul x h )) ;=> 1721.0 ( hamming-dist c ( xor-mul x h )) ;=> 1736.0 ( cosine-sim a ( xor-mul x h )) ;=> 0.3195059768353112 ;; closest to "red-plaid" ( cosine-sim b ( xor-mul x h )) ;=> 0.1989075567830733 ( cosine-sim c ( xor-mul x h )) ;=> 0.18705233578983288
Conclusion
We have seen that the nature of higher dimensional representation leads to some very interesting properties with both representing data and computing with it. These properties and others form the foundation of exciting advancements in Cognitive Computing like word vectors. Future posts will delve further into these interesting areas. In the meantime, I encourage you to read Kanerva’s paper on your own and to find comfort in that when you can’t find one of your socks, it’s not your fault. It most likely has something to do with the curious nature of hyperspace.
Thanks to Ross Gayler for bringing the paper to my attention and to Joe Smith for the great conversations on SDMWelcome to the roundup of the best new Android games that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.
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code by abstraction from low to high. The structure also allows the compiler to make more assumptions about your code thus allowing you to start at the end of a project to get a high-level overview of the project and work your way up to the details.
Don’t Repeat Yourself
One of my biggest pet peeves in software development is duplicated code. I once worked on a project where a single file had the same 200 (yes, 200) lines of code duplicated three times. Naturally, I refactored the monstrosity shortly after I discovered it but the code should never have been duplicated in the first place. F# wouldn’t have prevented this duplication but, just as it encourages small functions, F#’s syntax would have promoted composing the duplicated code into a function from many small ones.
Similarly, one of the things that has bothered me for years when working in C# is how many times we need to tell the compiler something it already knows. I hate repeating myself (something my wife would certainly confirm) so imagine what I think about writing even simple code like this:
public class MyClass { private readonly int _intValue; private readonly string _stringValue; private readonly DateTime _dateValue; public MyClass(int intValue, string stringValue, DateTime dateValue) { _intValue = intValue; _stringValue = stringValue; _dateValue = dateValue; } public int IntValue { get { return _intValue; } } public string StringValue { get { return _stringValue; } } public DateTime DateValue { get { return _dateValue; } } }
Here we’ve told the C# compiler about the values and the associated data types three times: once for the backing fields, once for the property definitions, and yet again in the constructor definition. (Yes, I could have used auto-implemented properties with private setters but then the class would still be internally mutable – more on that later.) How can we possibly avoid repeating ourselves when the compiler itself requires us to do it? This is one of the primary reasons that I was quick to adopt the var keyword when it was introduced to C# – I no longer needed to again tell the compiler something I’d already told it multiple times.
Now consider an equivalent class in F#:
type MyClass(intValue : int, stringValue : string, dateValue : DateTime) = member x.IntValue = intValue member x.StringValue = stringValue member x.DateValue = dateValue
In this version we had to tell the compiler about the values twice and, thanks to F#’s amazing type inference capabilities, we needed only tell the compiler about the corresponding data types once (as annotations in the primary constructor)! Even as it stands, there’s still too much repetition with this because we’ve defined the individual values twice. We can further reduce the duplication by using an F# record type instead.
type MyClass = { IntValue : int; StringValue : string; DateValue : DateTime }
Notice how we’ve progressed from 17 lines of code in the C# version to 4 lines in the F# class, then to a single line in the F# record type version. The end result is no duplication and 85% less code. What’s not apparent from this example is that the record type also has structural equality without us having to explicitly define it. Which version would you rather maintain?
Functions Should Accept No More Than Three Parameters
The rationale behind this guideline is simple: more parameters means more things to mentally process when reading a function and more permutations to test. F# enforces this guideline by treating functions differently than C#.
In C#, all arguments are applied simultaneously, regardless of how many there are. From this we get additional complexity. For example, to represent an arbitrary function in C# as delegate we typically select from one of the 9 generic overloads of Action (for void functions) or the 9 generic overloads of Func (for functions that return a value). In some cases we might even need to define a custom delegate type to represent the function. Naturally, these typically aren’t compatible which makes treating C# functions as data cumbersome at best.
Contrast that with F# which follows a very simple rule: every function has exactly one input and exactly one output. Functions that don’t have any particular input (parameterless functions in C#) accept a value called unit which indicates that no particular input is required. Functions that don’t have any particular output (void functions in C#) return unit. The one input rule applies even in cross-language scenarios where the F# compiler treats multiple arguments as a tuple and void functions as functions that return unit.
How, then, was I able to write the encodeFileContents function a bit earlier with two parameters (encoding and filename)? Accepting multiple parameters is an illusion created by function currying. If you were to inspect the signature of the function you’d see that it is actually:
Encoding -> string -> byte[]
What this is saying is that encodeFileContents is a function that accepts an Encoding and returns another function that accepts a String and returns a byte array.
What does currying have to do with Clean Code? For one, it avoids the complexity associated with multiple function types. More importantly, it enables partial application which allows you to easily compose new functions by specifying values for the first n parameters. This can have a profound impact on the cleanliness of your code because, by carefully selecting the order of your parameters, you can easily include your functions in pipelining and composition chains.
We can see how parameter order for curried functions affects code cleanliness by examining how we might consume the encodeFileContents function. We’ll start with accepting the file name first.
let fileName = "foo.txt" let encodedContents = encodeFileContents fileName Encoding.UTF8
This isn’t too bad as far as readability goes but it’s a prime example of treating F# like C#. By specifying the file name before the encoding we’ve made it impossible to pipe in the file name because it’s not the final parameter. (Ok, not quite impossible, but piping values as a tuple is ugly.) We’ve also made it more difficult to compose new encoding functions using encodeFileContents. For instance, what if we recognize that we’ll frequently use UTF8 and want to compose a new function? Without changing the parameter order, such a function might look like this:
let encodeFileContentsUTF8 fileName = encodeFileContents fileName Encoding.UTF8
Consuming this function would then look like this:
let encodedContents = "foo.txt" |> encodeFileContentsUTF8
Now the code is a bit cleaner – we have a specialized function for UTF8 encodings and we can pipe the file name into the function. Notice the duplication in the encodeFileContentsUTF8 function though. We needed to include the fileName parameter and explicitly pass it to encodeFileContents. Now let’s look at the impact of switching the parameter order to accept the encoding first.
let encodedContents = "foo.txt" |> encodeFileContents Encoding.UTF8
Even without redefining the encodeFileContentsUTF8 function, we can pipe the file name to the encodeFileContents function because we’re partially applying it with the UTF8 encoding.
The encodeFileContentsUTF8 definition is greatly simplified, too.
let encodeFileContentsUTF8 = encodeFileContents Encoding.UTF8
Notice here how we didn’t need to specify the fileName parameter. Because partially applying encodeFileContents with the UTF8 encoding results in a function with a signature string -> byte[], the argument is implicit as evidenced by invoking the function.
let encodedContents = "foo.txt" |> encodeFileContentsUTF8
The end result may be the same but by taking advantage of currying and partial application, we were able to simplify the code and watch how data flows and transforms through the process.
Do One Thing/Avoid Side Effects
A colleague and I were recently trying to determine why a discount was being applied to only part of an order. Eventually we traced execution to function named “GetOrderItems” or something like that. This function accepted an order ID and returned a list of order items. Given the title of this section, it shouldn’t surprise you that this function did more than its name and signature implied. In addition to retrieving the order items, this function also deleted certain items from the database before calculating the discount.
Examples like this show why the Clean Code guidelines regarding meaningful names and small functions are so important. Equally important is to ensure that functions do only one thing. When functions do more than one thing, those other things are considered side effects.
This example is a rather extreme case of what can happen when a function has a side effect. Unfortunately, it can be quite easy to get into this situation with just about any language but what about more subtle side effects such as changing the contents of a reference type or modifying a shared value? In languages that don’t offer any safeguards against these types of changes, often the only valid answer to “what does this function do?” is “I don’t know.”
F# actively protects you from these types of side effects in a number of ways.
Default Immutability
F# doesn’t have the concept of variables, per se. Instead, it has bindings. Bindings simply associate a name to a value. The reason that bindings aren’t truly variables is that they’re immutable by default. In fact, nearly everything defined within the F# sandbox is immutable by default (no such guarantees exist when using types from other CLR languages). This characteristic alone virtually eliminates the possibility of a function unexpectedly changing some piece of shared data.
It is possible to override the default behavior by defining a binding as mutable but this is only advisable when the scope is limited and it benefits the overall solution. The beauty of this approach is that because everything is immutable by default, declaring a mutable binding doubles as an explicit warning to the reader that the associated value may change. It also means that code written in F# is more naturally suited to asynchronous and parallel tasks because there’s a reduced need to lock the shared resources.
Output Parameters
Output parameters are ugly. First, they violate the implicit contract that parameters should represent inputs to the function. Second, like void functions, their very presence indicates that the function will have at least one side-effect.
Consider the commonly used TryParse methods such as Int32.TryParse or Double.TryParse which accept two parameters and return a Boolean. The first parameter is the string to parse and the second is an output parameter that will contains the parsed value if parsing is successful. Although these functions are great for avoiding exceptions thrown when parsing the string, using them in C# is clunky as shown:
int parsedValue; var success = Int32.TryParse("42", out parsedValue);
We need to define a variable to receive the parsed value, then invoke the TryParse function. Only upon inspecting the function’s return value can we be certain that the variable contains something useful.
F# doesn’t allow output parameters so they’re a non-issue when working solely with F# code. For those (hopefully) rare times when you’re working across language boundaries and need to invoke a function that uses an out parameter, the language designers devised a clever workaround – the compiler wraps the call within a generated class that hides the out parameter by including it in a tuple containing the return value and parsed value. The impact on code cleanliness is significant:
let success, parsedValue = Int32.TryParse "42"
This approach keeps you firmly planted in F#’s immutable garden and doesn’t pollute your code with extraneous declarations. As an added benefit, this tupled form plays nicely with F#’s pattern matching capabilities so branching on parsing success and failure is simple.
Return Values
In C#, void functions are functions that have no return value. Void functions are executed solely to have some effect on the system be it writing to a log file, updating a database, or something else altogether. F# is different in that is has no concept of a void function.
Just as every F# function accepts only one input, F# functions always have exactly one output. When a function has no particular return value, the return value is unit. This may seem like a subtle difference since they serve the same basic purpose but it has a significant impact on your code. For one, the single input/single output rule greatly simplifies using F# functions as data because there’s only one generic function type to pass around. Perhaps more important is how it allows the compiler to make different assumptions about your code such as implicitly returning the result of the last evaluated expression. Next, it forces you to be explicit about ignoring non-unit return values when invoking a function for a side effect by passing the result to the ignore function. Finally, it forces you to think more critically about whether unit is the correct return value or if the function should actually return something else.
Avoid Null
This section is actually a simplification of two guidelines: don’t pass null and don’t return null. It’s reasonable to argue that these are distinctly different than a blanket “avoid null” guideline but given how much code is devoted to accounting for null and how many defects arise because of null, avoiding it altogether seems more pragmatic.
Seldom does a day pass where I don’t hear of at least one instance of a problem caused by a null reference. Usually it’s me or another developer tracking down a NullReferenceException. It’s annoying enough in development but even more so when a customer support ticket includes the phrase “object reference not set to an instance of an object.”
NullReferenceExceptions are virtually a non-issue in F# because, unless interacting with code from other CLR languages, F# doesn’t use null. When working solely with F# code there are but two ways to make null a legal value and both require a conscious effort. Instead, F# uses a more explicit model with options.
Options are a built-in type (Option<‘T>) that have two possible values, Some<‘T> and None. None is similar to null in that it indicates that the data item contains no specific value but None is a value in and of itself. Some<‘T> is a container that wraps a specific value.
Although None serves a similar purpose to null, F#’s lack of null and inclusion of options offer several distinct advantages. First, options force you to consider whether something truly doesn’t have a value. Next, options are type safe; you can pass around Option<‘T> like any other value without having to worry about NullReferenceException. Finally, they explicitly tell you that a data item may not have an associated value so you know to handle None accordingly rather than being forced into always checking for a value or taking your chances that a value will always be present.
Data/Object Anti-Symmetry
Chapter 6 describes the difference between objects and data structures. Objects are defined as those types that hide their data behind abstractions and expose functions which operate upon their data whereas data structures are those types that expose their data and have no meaningful functions.
The distinction is important because they’re essentially opposite ways to look at the same problem. It’s easy to add objects to the system without affecting existing objects but it’s difficult to add new functions because every object must change. Conversely, data structures make it easy to add new functions without affecting existing functions but adding data structures requires changing existing functions.
Languages like C# make it easy to fall into the trap of intermixing the approaches because virtually everything is a class. When this happens, it’s difficult to add both functions and objects.
F# actively steers you away from the hybrid trap by providing distinct types for both objects and data structures. Given F#’s immutable nature, you’ll often find yourself favoring data structures and representing them as tuples, records, and discriminated unions. For those times where you truly want an object, you can define a class.
Summary
As much as we developers like to think we spend most of our time writing new code, the truth is that we spend far more time reading existing code. Everything we can do today to make the code easier for our future selves to read and maintain will pay off over time. This is why the guidelines described in Clean Code continue to be so relevant.
Unfortunately, while we acknowledge that many of the guidelines address deficiencies in our tools, namely the languages we work in from day to day, we simply accept the problems as the way of the world rather than adapt. Languages such as F# evolve the guidelines described by Clean Code by incorporating many of them directly into the language, making them difficult if not impossible to break.
AdvertisementsResponding to allegations from TechCrunch former editor Michael Arrington that Google had accessed his Gmail email address to trace a leak from inside the company, the search giant said this week that it didn’t do so, and that it doesn’t employ such practices, Re/code reports.
“Mike makes a serious allegation here — that Google opened email messages in his Gmail account to investigate a leak,” Kent Walker, Google general counsel Kent Walker said. “While our terms of service might legally permit such access, we have never done this and it’s hard for me to imagine circumstances where we would investigate a leak in that way.”
Following the recent Microsoft leak scandal, which revealed the company can – or at least could – read anyone’s Hotmail email in order to protect its products, it was revealed that other companies in addition to Microsoft have similar terms of service stipulations, including Google and Yahoo.
Arrington wrote on his blog that Google may have done the same thing Microsoft did to find a leaker – read someone’s email – which is how a source of his was identified for leaking details about a Google product and later fired.
“I have first-hand knowledge of this. A few years ago, I’m nearly certain that Google accessed my Gmail account after I broke a major story about Google,” Arrington said. “A couple of weeks after the story broke my source, a Google employee, approached me at a party in person in a very inebriated state and said that they (I’m being gender neutral here) had been asked by Google if they were the source. The source denied it, but was then shown an email that proved that they were the source.”
In the email correspondence between the two, only Arrington used a Gmail account. However, he did not present any actual evidence to back up the claim.
As for Google, the company has a different email snooping issue of its own, having been sued for allegedly data-mining student emails.FLORHAM PARK -- The conversation was brief, a passing moment in practice leading up to the Jets' Oct. 4 game against the Dolphins in London.
Coach Todd Bowles approached his prodigious rookie defensive end, Leonard Williams, and reminded Williams of a frequent teaching point: He needed to think less, and use his hands more when trying to shed blocks.
PLUS: Jets report card, as they leave London with impressive win over Miami Dolphins
The Jets' coaches liked how Williams used his hands during spring practices. But they saw him lag with this technique early in the regular season, as he played slowly and thought too much about his next move.
Williams is a conscientious young man, in addition to being a supremely talented athlete. So Bowles' one-minute conversation before the London trip stuck with Williams. He resolved to use his hands and play with technique, rather than simply trying to overpower offensive linemen.
The result: Williams enjoyed probably his best game in London, as the Jets beat the Dolphins and improved to 3-1. Williams had a tackle for loss and two quarterback hits. He continued to prove he belongs on the field, even as defensive end Sheldon Richardson is now back from a four-game marijuana suspension.
"The coaches have been telling me that I've been playing pretty solid so far," Williams said. "I think that last game in London solidified that. I think that was one of my best games so far. Coach Bowles was telling me that I look like I'm playing a lot more comfortable and [doing] less thinking now, and using my hands more and just getting off the ball more. That's what he's been wanting out of me, and I gave it to him in that last game."
Through four games, Williams has just half a sack. But he also has two tackles for loss and five quarterback hits -- all in the past three games, after he sputtered in the opener against the Browns. He has clearly shown his coaches he can play in the NFL.
"I do think I've shown them that," Williams said. "I think that they know that I'm just going to keep progressing each week, like I have been."
Williams -- who is fine after sustaining a non-serious ankle sprain in London -- has played both inside and outside on the defensive line. He's lined up on the edge in the Jets' 3-4 base alignment. In non-base looks, he has lined up inside. That versatility will help as Richardson returns, and Bowles tries to find places for Williams to contribute.
"He's getting better each and every week," said defensive end Muhammad Wilkerson. "That's what we need him to do. We just need performances like that [London game] each and every week.
"This is level is different. The league is all about technique. As a d-lineman, [hand placement] is a technique that you need to have down pat. That's why he had one of his best games. I'm sure he showed everybody already that he can play at this level. We need more performances like that."
Williams' teammates have raved about him since the moment he arrived in Florham Park. Through four games, the praise hasn't waned.
"He's beyond his time," said rush outside linebacker Quinton Coples. "Some cats, sometimes it takes time [for them] to develop. Sometimes, the scheme may not be built for them. But this is a scheme that allows him to be as explosive as he is. He's going to be great."
Defensive line coach Pepper Johnson is always hard on his players. He said Williams looked "young at times" during the first four games, and that he was "up and down," but mostly up.
"I expect a lot more and he expected a lot more from himself," Johnson said. "That's more important than what I expect from him. He has to graduate. He has to try to continue to progress and get better with his awareness. If I didn't think he could do it, then I would be highly upset right now. But I think he can [do it]. Now, [at] what pace?
"All defensive lineman are a lot better when they play with their hands. But he's kind of night and day, and he sees it. He sees that he gets pushed around by some people that shouldn't be pushing him around -- and he's making a lot of plays when he's playing with his hands. Now, he just has to do it more often.
Bowles hopes his conversation with Williams before the London trip was a turning point for the rookie.
"The talk we had, he was thinking too much," Bowles said. "You get to a point as a rookie where you start thinking too much and absorbing too much. I just told him to stop thinking and just go ahead and play and be himself. And we'll work around everything else. He did a good job of that."
Darryl Slater may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @DarrylSlater. Find NJ.com Jets on Facebook.The remaster phenomenon that began last generation has been a crucial strategy for platform holders and publishers on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. A few companies haven't yet dipped a toe in those waters, among them Activision.
We asked Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg whether he and his team had considered revisiting past Call of Duty games or other titles from the company's back catalog. For those hoping for a Call of Duty 4 remake, you can keep a flicker of hope alive.
"If done well, I think [remasters] can be great," Hirshberg says. "You talk about nostalgia, and people have such connection to the games they love from the last cycle. They want to see what it would look like if someone did it right for this cycle. It's always the opportunity cost, meaning we need every body we can get to make the content we're already committed to for our new games. It's always a matter of finding great people to do that work. I would love to play Modern Warfare 1 or the original Black Ops. There's certainly a deep well there. No announcements, but it's something we talk about and think about a lot."
We also asked Hirshberg about the change in the Call of Duty DLC relationship. For years, map packs got a one month lead time on Xbox systems. This year marks a change, with PlayStation consoles getting the new content first.
Competitive Call of Duty is played primarily on Xbox consoles. With maps coming first to PlayStation, there is potential for a drastic change in the eSports landscape.
"Obviously, that matters. The muscle memory is a deep, physical connection to the controller that you're used to," Hirsberg says. But it's been a cross-platform game the entire time. We've had great players on both platforms the entire time. The partnership with Sony was the right decision at this time. They've been a great partner on Destiny, and they have a ton of momentum with the PS4 and really got behind this thing. They wanted to see that deal on their platform. We're going to make it work."Maguire writes: "In all our hearts we know War is not the answer for Syria (Nor for Iran). Intervention in Syria would only make things worse. I believe all sides are committing war crimes and the provision of arms will only results in further death. The US/UK/NATO and all foreign governments should stay out of Syria and keep their funding and troops out of Syria."
Mairead Corrigan-Maguire. (photo: Haaretz)
No to War in Syria
By Mairead Maguire, Reader Supported News
eople around the world are deeply concerned about the ongoing crisis in Syria.
While we are being presented with some perspective of what is occurring on the ground to the people of Syria, the door seems closed to others. We search for voices we can trust, voices which point to a peaceful, lasting solution to the conflict. We search for truth because it is truth which will set the Syrian people free. Truth is difficult to find, so through the haze of conflicting narratives we must inevitably hear the voices and wisdom of men and women of peace in Syria.
Many may believe that there is a fight going on in Syria for ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. We can be seduced into thinking there is a magic wand or instant formula to mix that will create a democratic country, but there are none. If it is a democracy a people want they must strive for it in their own way. It is said the greek idea of democracy was that people would be equally valued. This is something every society has to strive for at every point in its history; it itself is a ‘revolutionary’ concept and a nonviolent revolutionary action. Strive to value everyone equally. It is an idea, a motivation for a better world that doesn’t require blood; it requires the hard work of people and the nurturing of a community spirit; a constant growing of peace and it starts within each human heart.
Who are the voices of peace in regard to the crisis in Syria? Many of them we cannot hear from where we are standing. They are the mothers and fathers and children who want to leave their homes to walk to market or to school without fear. They are the people, who have been working hard for Syria, for the idea of Syria as a secular and modern country.
There are some Syrian voices that have been heard consistently since the beginning of the crisis. Many of them are anonymous and they speak to us about injustices and atrocities. Numbers are given and fingers are pointed. The blame may be apportioned correctly or it may not. Everything is happening too quickly; commentators and politicians are making decisions with haste and looking only in one corner for support for their certainty. But in the heat of the madness of violent ethnic/political conflict we must listen and ask questions and hear and speak with some uncertainty because it is certainty that can take a people and a country in a rush to war.
The face of the Mufti of Syria is hardly known in the western world, but if we have learned anything from past conflict, it is the importance of all inclusive dialogue. He and many other Syrians who have peace in their hearts should be invited to sit with a council of elders from other countries, to tell of their stories and proposals for ways forward for the Syrian people. The United Nations was not set up to provide an arena for the voices and games of the powerful; rather it should be a forum for such Syrian voices to be heard. We need to put ourselves in the shoes of the Syrian people and find peaceful ways forward in order to stop this mad rush towards a war the mothers and fathers and children of Syria do not want and do not deserve.
We all know there are imams, priests and nuns, fathers, mother, young people all over Syria crying out for peace and when the women in hijabs shout to the world after a bombing or a massacre in Syria ‘haram, haram’ let us hear and listen to them.
We are sure there are many heroes in Syria among them, christian patriarchs, bishops, priests, and religious. A modern hero of peace, one whose name we do know and whose voice we have heard is Mother Agnes Mariam. In her community her voice has been clear, pure and loud. And it should be so in the West. Like many people in Syria she has been placed in life threatening situations, but for the sake of peace she has chosen to risk her own existence for the safety and security of others. She has spoken out against the lack of truth in our media regarding Syria and about the terror and chaos which a ‘third force’ seems to be spreading across the country. Her words confront and challenge us because they do not mirror the picture of events in Syria we have built up in our minds over many months of reading our newspapers and watching the news on our televisions. Much of the terror has been imported, we learn from her. She can tell us about the thousands of christian refugees, forced to flee their homes by an imported Islamist extreme. But Mother Agnes Mariam’s concerns, irrespective of religion, are for all the victims of the terror and conflict, as ours must be.
In all our hearts we know War is not the answer for Syria (Nor for Iran). Intervention in Syria would only make things worse. I believe all sides are committing war crimes and the provision of arms will only results in further death. The US/UK/NATO and all foreign governments should stay out of Syria and keep their funding and troops out of Syria.
We should support those Syrians who work for peace in Syria and who seek a way of helping the 22 million or so people of Syria to resolve their own conflict without furthering the chaos or violence.
Mairead Maguire is a Nobel Peace Laureate with The Peace People. Read other articles by Mairead.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand lower court rulings allowing Pennsylvania and Maryland to keep tens of millions of dollars in a dispute with tobacco companies involving the massive 1998 settlement over deceptive marketing and advertising of cigarettes.
The justices declined to hear appeals, filed by Reynolds America Inc, Altria Group Inc and other companies that were part of the settlement, of rulings that had favored Pennsylvania and Maryland regarding the amount of the annual payment that those states should receive under the deal.
The dispute centered on the 2003 annual payment that companies that participated in the settlement were required to make to the various states as part of the deal.
An arbitration panel found that six states, including Pennsylvania and Maryland, had not met their side of the bargain to ensure, as required, that companies that were part of the settlement did not disproportionately lose market share as a result of the terms of the deal to competitors that shunned it.
The arbitration panel reduced the amount of money the six states would receive for that year, but state courts in Maryland and Pennsylvania subsequently ruled in favor of those states when they objected. As a result of those rulings, Pennsylvania was able to keep $125 million and Maryland was able to retain $50 million that the companies had demanded be given back.
Under the landmark settlement reached with 46 states, the largest U.S. tobacco companies promised to pay nearly $200 billion over 25 years to states to settle lawsuits over cigarette-related public health costs. Among other provisions, the deal imposed restrictions on the sale and marketing of cigarettes including barring ads targeting youths.
The major tobacco companies worried that they would have to raise prices on their brands in order to fund the settlement. So the 1998 agreement required states to pass laws that prevented cigarette companies that did not sign the agreement from gaining an unfair economic advantage over those that did sign it.In a previous discussion, Tim Newsham said
“I would like to see someone reverse engineer some small Haskell programs. The compilation techniques are totally foreign to anyone familiar with standard imperative languages and there are no tools designed specifically for the task.”
He then provided a link to some examples to analyze. Another commenter brought up Standard ML, another functional language. (I assume he means the NJ Standard ML implementation, but it could also be OCaml or Moscow ML as Dan Moniz pointed out.) Tim responded:
“I don’t know entirely. I’m not familiar with ML compiler implementation. They could use similar compilation techniques, but might not. ML is not ‘pure’ (and additionally is strict) so the compilation techniques might be different.”
He also provided links to a couple papers on implementing compilers for functional language. One commenter took a brief look at Tim’s examples:
“I took a look. The compiled Haskell is definitely different from the compiled ML I looked at. Roughly the same order of magnitude as to how terrible it was, though. Mine actually used Peano arithmetic on lists for simple arithmetic operations. What was funny was the authors of that program bragging about how algorithmically fast their technology was. I couldn’t help but think, after examining some entire functions and finding that all of the code was dead except for a tiny fraction of the instructions, how much a decent back-end (something with constant propagation and dead-code elimination) could have improved the runtime performance.”
Since one common obfuscation technique is to implement a VM and then write your protection code in that enviroment, how obfuscated is compiled object code from standard functional programming languages?Comcast is giving users a very good reason to demand an HTTPS connection on every site they visit. The Internet service provider has started injecting ads for its services on websites where you wouldn't normally see them when you're using an Xfinity public Wi-Fi hotspot.
Imagine, for example, you were browsing your favorite news site when suddenly a pop-up from Comcast appears at the bottom of your display—a behavior you'd never experienced on that site before. That's exactly what happened to former Wired editor Ryan Singel when he connected to a Comcast Xfinity hotspot earlier in September.
It appears Comcast has actually been doing this for months, but the program only recently came to light after a report by Ars Technica.
The injections can either be an alert to let users know they are connected to a Comcast hotspot, or inserted ads to promote Comcast's Xfinity mobile apps, a Comcast spokesperson told Ars. Comcast was not available for comment at this writing.
Comcast says it is doing this in part as a way to reassure users that they are connecting to an authentic Comcast hotspot. Security at public Wi-Fi hotspots is certainly an issue as hackers could make a hostile Wi-Fi router look like an authentic Xfinity hotspot.
Unfortunately, injecting JavaScript into a website where the code doesn't normally show up isn't the way to do it. Comcast's intentions may be sincere, but injecting JavaScript into a browser could create unintended security vulnerabilities for a malicious actor to exploit.
JavaScript is one of the building blocks of the modern web and you really can't experience numerous websites without it. But it can also be designed to behave maliciously—and your browser can often have a hard time distinguishing between good and bad code.
Comcast is far from the only ISP out there doing this. Many public Wi-Fi hotspot locations also inject ads into your browsing experience. The DSLReports forums, for example, show examples of BrightHouse Networks doing something similar.
So what's a user to do when even ISPs are trying to mess with your browser? Try forcing your browser to connect to websites using HTTPS via a browser extension such as The Electronic Frontier Foundation's HTTPS Everywhere for Chrome and Firefox. This removes the opportunity for Comcast to slip its ads into the web content you're viewing midstream, though not all websites support encrypted connections.
And, as always, you should use a virtual private network (VPN) when connecting over public Wi-Fi.Roll over, Tom Ford. And listen, Sam Mendes. Because there's a new name on the table when the deals are next struck to dress cinema's most unreconstructed male fable. "This is the first time I tried a very tight suit on the body," said Yohji Yamamoto after this show. "Very interesting and challenging. Because if you do not do it seriously, it can only look businessman. But these are not businessmen … 007." To underline the point, team Yamamoto played the 1962 James Bond theme as these looks came out—and the editor of an edgy British style mag was actually heard asking, "What's this song again?" (Shows how much they know.)
The Fleming flimflam was a diverting aside in the entertaining but attention-demanding narrative of the show. Yellow-and-black stripes on combat-pocketed, mega-drop, uber-crotched shorts—pretty much culottes, really—aligned themselves against those on double-vented jackets underslung by nonfunctional braces. These were indications of the overarching theme of the show. "I was playing with caution stripes," said Yamamoto. "Like the caution signs in Army places. The stripe is always strong because it means 'dangerous.'" Also dangerous were the powerfully paintbrushed prints that appeared before the silk/linen Bond aside. Then back to volume, in slate linen, a rich green suit, and a black suit with reduced caution stripes insinuated narrowly and disjointedly at the seams. "I'm for rent," read the cri de coeur on a few illustrated pieces that followed a cameo of crumple. So when he sees a caution line, is Yamamoto moved to cross it regardless—or to turn cautiously back? "I do both," said Yamamoto. Yes he does.Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak in favour of Bill C-230, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding a firearm definition of “variant”, introduced by the great member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. I would like to applaud that hard-working member for his great work to clarify this difficult and arcane issue and for his continued support for law-abiding firearms owners across Canada. I consider the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound a mentor, and I have benefited greatly from his wisdom.
The previous Conservative government also implemented the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, which enhanced the safety of our communities while ensuring safe and sensible firearms policy and cutting red tape for law-abiding firearms owners.
The Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act made common-sense changes to protect public safety, such as making firearms safety courses mandatory for all first-time licence applicants and strengthening provisions to prohibit the possession of firearms for those convicted of domestic assault.
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shares.
According to a press release from ColorOfChange, the president of DSM North America, Hugh Welsh, spoke to the corporation’s decision, explaining that the move was made, in part, to comply with the UN Global Compact.
“The DSM Netherlands pension fund is committed to a strict socially responsible and sustainable investment policy. In accordance with the principles of the UN Global Compact, with respect to the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights, the pension fund has divested from the for-profit prison industry. Investment in private prisons and support for the industry is financially unsound, and divestment was the right thing to do for our clients, shareholders, and the country as a whole,” he said in a statement released by ColorOfChange.
The divestment of shares comes as the Justice Department launches a clemency initiative that will likely mean sentence commutations for hundreds, or even thousands, of people incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses. On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced the guidelines it will use to consider clemency requests, indicating that many federal prisoners who have served more than 10 years of long sentences for nonviolent crimes may be released. The guideline changes, part of an ongoing effort by the Obama administration to address harsh sentencing standards, could cut into the private prison industry’s bottom line.
“It’s a fundamentally failed business practice in an industry that profits from suffering, profits from mass incarceration, essentially profits from locking people up for longer, harsher sentences,” said Matt Nelson, who is organizing director with ColorOfChange. “The industry is especially focused on profits from locking up black and brown folks and youth.”
And Nelson is right on that point. According to a new study by a UC-Berkeley graduate student, private prisons are overwhelmingly crowded with young people of color.
Nelson sees the divestment strategy as a growing movement and is hopeful that more large corporations will follow suit, as the organization is still in conversation with dozens of companies about divestment. He emphasized that private prison companies are responding to increased pressure from activist groups by lobbying harder for things like lockup quotas and other harsh sentencing policies.
“Today marks something of a turning point,” he said.
Alex Friedmann, managing editor of Prison Legal News, a project of the Human Rights Defense Center, called the victory by civil rights activists significant. Friedmann was incarcerated for six years at CCA’s South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton, Tennessee, and since his release in 1999, has worked to reform the criminal justice system and advocate for prisoner’s rights. Friedmann is also a shareholder activist, holding shares in both CCA and GEO stock and attending annual shareholding meetings to introduce resolutions that highlight rampant abuse within privatized facilities.
In 2012, Friedmann introduced a resolution at the CCA annual shareholder meeting in which CCA’s board would have had to submit biannual reports to shareholders documenting company efforts to curb rape and sexual abuse in CCA facilities – if it had passed. Friedmann explained how difficult the process of getting a resolution both introduced and passed is because resolutions must be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which then has to verify the resolution is relevant before it can be sent for a vote. This year, he plans to introduce a resolution that focuses on executive compensation, because he believes it could stand more of a chance.
He pointed out that the vast majority of shareholders in CCA and GEO Group are not average citizens, but rather, they are large institutional investors, such as other companies, investment firms, private equity firms and endowment funds.
“It’s hard to warp their thinking and working to get these very large corporations to divest their holdings,” Friedmann told Truthout. “The fact that ColorOfChange has affected companies and gotten them to divest their private prison holdings is significant. It shows that they have the clout and the ability to take their message to these companies and have them actually take action, and it’s good that it is painting private prison stock as a toxic stock, as an undesirable, socially detrimental stock like tobacco companies or arms manufacturers.”
Friedmann believes divestment campaigns are beneficial from an educational and organizing perspective, but called the campaign tactic limited because it represents what he called “only a lateral movement of stock,” pointing out that when a company divests its stock, it simply sells it to another investor, who then owns the same amount of stock in the private prison industry.
Private prison divestment campaigns have a history stretching back at least to the early 2000s, when the “Not With Our Money” campaign successfully targeted the company formerly called Sodexho Marriott Services, now Sodexo, which outsources food services, housekeeping, groundskeeping and facilities management for corporations. The company was one of the largest holders in private prison companies, and the campaign was heavily driven by students on college campuses to which Sodexho provided food service. More recent actions have been led by the United Methodist Church and Enlace, targeting Wells Fargo holdings, and student divestment campaigns run through the Responsible Endowments Coalition, targeting university endowments invested in private prison stock.
“A lot of organizations and companies take an ethical view that they will not invest in certain companies, because they find their business practices unethical and the main targets of that... are tobacco companies or arms manufacturers, companies whose products actually kill people. But the prison industry has a similar model; the product they have, prison privatization, does kill people,” Friedmann said.
Friedman has begun conducting preliminary research on deaths within private prison facilities by compiling a list of incidents through news stories and anecdotes. He plans to file extensive open records requests in the states with private prison facilities, but so far, he has compiled more than 200 deaths, three of them infants from incarcerated mothers.
Meanwhile ColorOfChange plans to continue to encourage corporations, board members and politicians to cut ties with prison profiteers as part of its ongoing national campaign.
“One of our goals is to point out that black and brown bodies are not for sale,” Nelson said.Auersperg/SIPA/REX/Shutterstock
It’s toolmaking with intent. Goffin’s cockatoos in the lab use their beaks to carefully cut out a tool from a sheet of cardboard before using it to retrieve an out-of-reach nut.
In 2012, a male Goffin’s cockatoo named Figaro proved to be smarter than the average bird: he worked out that he could get to a nut just beyond his reach by tearing a long splinter off a chunk of wood and using it to rake the food.
The behaviour – which some other cockatoos also picked up later – seemed to suggest the intentional creation of tools with a specific design for reaching food. But there were some doubters.
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“There were questions on whether the elongated shape of the tool was intentional,” says Alice Auersperg at the University of Vienna in Austria, who described Figaro’s behaviour in 2012. “He could just have bitten the material out of frustration and ended up with a functional tool due to the age lines of the wood.”
In other words, wood naturally tears into the shape of a nut-retrieving tool, making it unclear whether the birds set out deliberately to fashion tools of the right shape for the task, or whether they just stumbled upon one that works well.
Auersperg and her colleagues have now performed some follow-up investigations to make a stronger case for cockatoos having a specific intention in their toolmaking.
They worked with four male cockatoos, including Figaro. In the test runs, each bird had 10 minutes to work out how to fashion a long, thin tool from a particular object and then use the tool to retrieve a tasty cashew nut. The object they were given in different test runs consisted of a leafy twig, chunk of wood or sheet of cardboard.
All four birds quickly worked out how to strip the leaves off the twig and turn it into an effective tool. Three of the four had previously worked out how to tear long splinters off the block of wood for nut retrieval and were able to do it in this trial too. But both of these materials naturally lend themselves to forming long and thin tools perfect for nut retrieval.
Cardboard cutters
In contrast, cardboard doesn’t naturally tear into long, thin shapes. Surprisingly, though, Figaro and one other male cockatoo could still fashion a perfect nut-retrieving tool using the material.
Instead of simply pulling off chunks of cardboard at random, both birds used their sharp beaks to make a series of perforations in the cardboard sheet that created the shape of a long and thin prodding tool. They could then easily detach it from the sheet and use it to retrieve the nut.
Auersperg says the test with the cardboard makes a stronger case that the birds can “see” a useful tool in a piece of material and then set about making it.
The fact that Goffin’s cockatoos are not known to use tools in the wild makes this behaviour even more impressive.
In 2002, a New Caledonian crow called Betty became a worldwide sensation for her ability to bend a piece of wire into a hook to retrieve an inaccessible reward. This seemed to make her some sort of animal genius. Earlier this year, though, a team led by Christian Rutz at the University of St Andrews, UK, found evidence that New Caledonian crows do, in fact, occasionally fashion similar bent tools in the wild.
Rutz says careful study of birds in the wild might show that Goffin’s cockatoos are natural toolmakers too – although Figaro and his friends may have worked out how to make tools spontaneously. “Both of the options remain a possibility,” he says.
Journal reference: Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0689
Read more: Bonobo genius makes stone tools like early humans did;
Parrots use pebble tools to grind up own mineral supplementsAs the nation begins cleaning its cash hoard, its banks are still struggling with the hygiene of their loan books. State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, was no different.
Against hopes of a better asset quality, the lender saw its fresh slippages increase again, the stock of gross non-performing assets (NPAs) double from a year ago and its net profit drop by 34% in the September quarter.
Slippages during the quarter were Rs10,341 crore and the tally of slippages for the first six months of this fiscal year is at Rs19,131 crore.
Its gross NPA stock got the distinction of crossing the Rs1 trillion-mark in the June quarter and it inched up a little more in the September quarter as well.
To be fair, investors should have seen this coming especially after the disappointing results of other corporate lenders such as ICICI Bank Ltd and Axis Bank Ltd.
Perhaps there was a thread of doubt that had investors playing safe as the SBI stock has hardly moved over the last two months. But the stock was rightly punished on Friday, with the disappointing results driving down its shares by over 3% to Rs272.90 apiece.
But there is more bad news.
Out of SBI’s Rs19,131 crore loans that slipped during the six months ended September, 40% was from its declared watch list. The management had put out a corporate loan watch list of Rs34,776 crore in March and at that time, analysts were comforted by the quantum given the lender’s huge loan book size. But 60% of SBI’s slippages have come from outside its watch list. While the list is now down to Rs25,951 crore, it is not sufficient to look at it excluding the larger book. A quarter of the watch list has already slipped, much of it stemming from the weak sectors like construction, roads, and iron and steel. Asset quality of its mid-corporate segment and small and medium enterprises hasn’t stabilized for over a year now.
Given that SBI would soon be a bigger behemoth after the merger of its associates, a look at the consolidated balance sheet is a must. The picture gets worse as the bad loan ratios of its associates are massive and their combined gross NPA ratio was 13.77% for the quarter and that of SBI was 7.41%. All of its five associates were loss-making for the six months ended September.
By the very nature of its vast franchise and size, SBI would command a premium to its other peers. Further, the management has given a positive outlook on asset quality in the quarters ahead. The lender is betting on the recent leeway allowed by the Reserve Bank of India that effectively reduces the need for provisioning towards stressed assets.
With leveraged corporate groups in the throes of selling off their assets to pay back the lenders, SBI is hoping that resolution would be fast. For the stock to trade at a price-to-book value multiple of 1.04 its projected fiscal year 2017 earnings, this hope is the saving grace.After 12 years, Joel McHale is bidding farewell to The Soup.
The news comes after a lengthy run, during which the affable actor-comedian has balanced the E! series with a busy schedule that’s included film work and several seasons on Community. In recent years, he’s also hosted both the ESPYs and the White House Correspondents Dinner, raising his profile along with questions about his future with the cable clip show.
McHale's final show, which will also mark the series' last, will air Dec. 18. In the weeks leading up to it, the host is expected to reflect on the franchise's most memorable moments. E!'s prior iteration, Talk Soup, premiered in 1991 with Greg Kinnear as its then frontman. Other emcees followed, including Hal Sparks in the late '90s and Aisha Tyler in the early aughts, before McHale took over a rebooted version in 2004.
"We are incredibly proud of the long-running success of The Soup. [The show] has delivered countless laughs and unforgettable episodes, and we are grateful to the talented team’s fearless wit and clever approach week after week," E!'s exec vp programming and development Jeff Olde said in a statement Wednesday, adding of its host: "Joel took the show to new heights for more than a decade, and his irreverent humor and unique brand of comedy as captured so perfectly on The Soup will be missed.”
To be sure, The Soup has long had a complicated relationship with its host network, which often serves as the butt of its jokes. (Hello, Kardashians.) Though never a Keeping Up with the Kardashians-sized juggernaut, the KP Anderson-run clip show has long generated enviable buzz and proved largely consistent, even as it bounced around the schedule.
Over the years, the NBCUniversal-owned cable network has also dabbled with extensions, including short-lived The Soup Investigates. McHale and Anderson also served as executive producers on recent E! series, The Comment Section.
The news opens WME-repped McHale up for other acting opportunities this pilot season, and he’s likely to be in heavy demand. Already, he's set appear in an arc on Fox’s forthcoming X-Files reboot.
"I loved doing The Soup for all of these years (86 to be exact) but am excited to solely focus on my acting career now," McHale said. "Thanks to all who watched and thanks to Kim Kardashian's ass for all that it's done for me and my family."
Nov. 18, 4:20 p.m. Updated with McHale's statement.In the span of two seasons, Minnesota Timberwolves forward Anthony Bennett went from promising No. 1 overall pick to a mere afterthought.
Bennett looked terrible in his rookie campaign as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers and was traded to Minnesota along with Andrew Wiggins in exchange for Kevin Love.
The change of scenery didn't help. Bennett's woes continued in Minnesota, where he struggled to find playing time and establish consistency.
After two seasons, the Canadian averages 4.7 points and 3.4 rebounds in 14.3 minutes per game on 39.3 percent shooting from the field. Injuries have also taken their toll, forcing him to miss roughly a third of his games over the past two years.
Suffice to say, Bennett's production has been underwhelming and his name is once again floating around on the trading block.
The 22-year-old Bennett, however, is determined to improve his game and he's getting a shot to showcase himself with the Canadian men's national team this summer.
Bennett was a key contributor in Team Canada's second-place finish at the Pan Am Games, averaging 15.6 points and 10.4 rebounds per game.
All that promise of Bennett as a mobile, aggressive, floor-stretching forward was on full display. In fact, he looked the part of a high lottery pick.
Bennett's focus now turns toward helping Canada in their hopes to secure a 2016 Olympic berth during this year's FIBA Americas tournament. He looked strong in tuneups leading up to the tournament and will figure prominently into Canada's fortunes.
Bennett's rejuvenated and improved play hasn't been lost on his coaches.
"It looks like he's loving basketball again," Canada head coach Jay Triano told TSN's Josh Lewenberg. "And I think that was the big thing for us. We try to make it fun for him, try to simplify it. He's so talented in a variety of areas that we needed to just simplify what we expect of him. If he does that, the rest of it is (going to) fall into place."
Bennett's performance and drive have also caught the attention of Team Canada general manager Steve Nash.
"Anthony has been exemplary this summer," Nash said. "He's had a tough first two years in the league but his attitude's been amazing."
For Bennett, simplifying his game has helped fuel his resurgence.
"All (Triano) told me to do was just rebound and run," Bennett said. "And when I think of it now, that's pretty much all I did at UNLV and before that in high school too. So I'm just trying to get back to all that."
There's no guarantee Bennett's improvements will translate to the NBA. It's a long way to go from dominating in Toronto at the Pam Ams, to excelling in Mexico City at the FIBA Americas, to flourishing in Minneapolis.
It takes one step at a time, and at long last, Bennett seems to have found his footing.The fifteenth century was littered with Edwards. It had always been a popular royal name and the London associations with Edward the Confessor, whose tomb was located within Westminster Abbey, made it a favourite choice for royal mothers giving birth there. It was also traditional to name sons after their fathers or after the King. The succession of the Yorkist Edward IV provided an obvious precedent, but the majority of key players in the Wars of the Roses shared a common ancestor in Edward III. Confusingly though, a relatively short period of time witnessed the arrival of four young men, all of whom were high up the line of succession. Their shared name indicates their proximity to the English throne and the dangers of being born royal.
The first was the son of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou. Theirs was a mismatched alliance, with the King’s ascetic character more suited to a life of retired piety while his teenaged Queen was passionate, driven and brave. After nine years of childlessness, she eventually gave birth to a son during her husband’s first mental breakdown. Born at Westminster in October 1452 and traditionally named after the Confessor, the little boy finally provided the Lancastrian line with an heir that should have silenced the opposition of powerful Yorkists. Henry was unable to recognise the boy though, and could not acknowledge him until his recovery the following year. Unsurprisingly rumours circulated regarding his paternity, which gossip reputed to the Queen’s favourite, Edmund Beaufort.
Young Edward’s life was one of constant turmoil and uncertainty. Invested early as Prince of Wales, there is little evidence to suggest he was the unsympathetic bloodthirsty figure of popular fiction. He did witness the deposition of his father and was at his mother’s side during her campaigns to restore the family to power. At the age of seventeen, he was married to Anne Neville, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, who had turned against his former allies in the York dynasty. They spent most of their brief married life in France before Warwick succeeded in replacing Henry VI on the throne. Hoping to join his father-in-law on the battlefield and secure his inheritance, Edward returned to England to find the Earl had been killed in battle. The teenager bravely chose to lead his armies against the Yorkists in spite of this but was defeated and killed at Tewkesbury in 1471.
The three sons of York who defeated Edward of Westminster on that day were all to father a boy named Edward. Three years after taking the throne, Edward IV had conducted a secret marriage to the beautiful widow Elizabeth Wydeville, who had gone on to bear him three daughters. During Warwick’s turbulent readeption of Henry VI in 1470, Edward had fled to Burgundy, leaving his wife and their girls in sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. There, barely a month later, Elizabeth went into labour and delivered a son, whom she named after his father. It must have been a difficult and traumatic event but fortunately, mother and baby survived. When the King was restored again in 1471, after Tewkesbury, he was reunited with his family and met his baby boy for the first time. This infant son, arriving amidst such adversity, would go on to become the elder of the Princes in the Tower, disappearing in the summer of 1483 as he awaited his own coronation.
The fate of Edward V still invites speculation. Some assert that the bones found at the foot of a staircase in the Tower in 1674, now in an urn in Westminster Abbey, represent their final resting place. Others though, continue to hope that one or both boys escaped and may have resurfaced later as pretenders to the throne, in particular the Perkin Warbeck who challenged Henry VII. However, his removal from the line of succession placed another young Edward firmly in line to the throne. This was his cousin, son of the new King, Richard III.
In 1472, Richard had married Anne Neville, a widow since the death of Edward of Lancaster at Tewkesbury. A son, their only surviving child, had been born to them around 1473, making him ten when his father became King. He had spent his first decade living quietly at his parents’ Yorkshire seat of Middleham Castle, and little surviving documentation remains to imply the nature of his life or the state of his health. He did not attend his parents’ coronation but soon afterwards, was invested as Prince of Wales in a gorgeous ceremony in York, as first in line to the throne. Sadly though, he was not to enjoy his position for long and in early April the following year, his parents received the sad news of his early demise. It was another Yorkist cousin, a final Edward, who would outlive them all.
The second son of York, George, Duke of Clarence, had also been eager to produce a male heir. He had married Warwick’s elder daughter Isabel against the King’s wishes in 1469 but the couple’s first child was lost at birth and the second had proved to be a girl. Finally, in February 1475, Isabel delivered a boy, on whom they bestowed the regal name. Three years later, though, the family’s fortunes had been overturned and young Edward was orphaned following the death of his mother in childbed and the execution of his father for treason. Little Edward was given the title Earl of Warwick, which had been forfeited by his rebellious grandfather and made a ward of Thomas Grey, his brother’s step-son. When the King died and Richard III took the throne, Edward was knighted and lived in the household of his aunt, Queen Anne Neville.
Following the battle of Bosworth and death of Richard III, this son of York’s fortunes never fully recovered. Edward of Warwick was the last of the surviving direct heirs, having seen the disappearance and death of his namesake cousins. At the age of eight, he was technically barred from inheriting his father’s titles because of Clarence’s attainder as a traitor but this could have been overturned by an act of Parliament. Some sources suggest he was “feeble-minded” although this is so widely open to interpretation as to be completely unhelpful. As a potential figurehead for discontentment with the Tudor regime, the boy was confined to the Tower. He would spend the rest of his life in prison there.
Edward of Warwick was conveniently out of sight and may have remained there for much longer, until the appearance of the pretender Perkin Warbeck. Then in his mid-twenties, the pair were was drawn into a plot to escape from the Tower, which may have been genuine, or else encouraged by their gaolers as the entrapment needed to convict them. He was beheaded in November 1499 along with Warbeck. His story concludes the sad fate of the four Edwards, promising young men who occupied a central place in the history of the period but through politics, misadventure and premature death, never fulfilled the destiny that their birth promised.
Photo credits: BBC/Company Pictures & ALL3MEDIA/Giles Keyte/Ed MillerLONDON, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Sterling steadied on Tuesday after the launch proper of Britain’s debate on leaving the European Union drove its biggest one-day fall in David Cameron’s six-year premiership.
The pound sank by almost 2 percent on Monday after the defection of a handful of senior ruling Conservatives to the “Brexit” campaign, raising expectations that June’s vote would at the least be very close.
After a minimal recovery in U.S. time overnight, the currency was 0.2 percent lower against the dollar but up against the euro after the single currency was weakened by some poor business sentiment numbers out of Germany.
“Where sterling goes from here is the $64,000 question,” said Tobias Davis, head of corporate treasury sales at Western Union in London.
“In the immediate term, I cannot see it retracing back towards the $1.4250-$1.4300 level. But no-one wants to have to buy the dollar at these levels.”
Sterling traded at $1.4130, off Monday’s 7-year low of $1.4057.
Derivatives markets now show the largest bias towards sterling weakness over the next six months since at least the parliamentary elections of 2010. Options hedging allowing companies and investment funds to hedge against volatility also continued to rise, traders said.
Commerzbank’s technical analyst Karen Jones said that there was only minor psychological support for the pound at $1.40.
“Currently we suspect that intraday rallies will remain capped by 1.4230 for losses towards initially 1.3800,” she said. “The 1.3502 January 2009 low remains our primary target medium term.” (Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)Woman charged with murdering husband, attempting to kill children sent to Perth psychiatric hospital
Updated
A 36-year-old woman accused of murdering her husband and attempting to kill two children has been remanded to a psychiatric hospital by a Perth magistrate.
Cara Lee Hall was arrested after police were called to a house in the southern Perth suburb of Leda yesterday where they found the body of a 33-year-old man.
Two children were also found with injuries.
Hall was not required to plead to the charges and she was remanded to the Frankland Centre at the Graylands psychiatric hospital.
She appeared shocked and distressed when magistrate Richard Bayly put to her the charges of attempting to kill the two children.
Hall is due to appear in court again next week.
A church pastor who married the couple, James McNee, was in court for Hall's appearance.
He said he was shocked by what had happened, saying they appeared to him to be a happy family.
Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, courts-and-trials, leda-6170
First postedA glass of Amontillado sherry.
The history of Sherry is closely linked with that of Spanish wine production, particularly the political fortunes of the Cádiz region, where it originated with the early Phoenician settlement of the Iberian Peninsula. The triangular region between the towns of Jerez de la Frontera, El Puerto de Santa María, and Sanlúcar de Barrameda still marks the limits of the modern denominación. One of the world's oldest wines, its considerable evolution has been marked by the influence of many of the world's greatest empires and civilizations: the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Moors, Spanish and British. Today, while Sherry does not enjoy the level of popularity it once did, it remains one of the wine world's most unusual and historical expressions.[1]
Early history and Roman times [ edit ]
Roman statue of the god Bacchus crowned with grapes found in Spain.
The city of Cádiz was first founded sometime between 1104 BC and the 9th century BC as a trading post by the Canaanite tribe of the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians shared in the winemaking traditions of the Ancient Middle East and likely brought grapevines with them as they established their settlement.[2] The Greeks soon followed and brought with them the tradition of making arrope, a dark colored sweet syrup made from unfermented grape juice that could be used to sweeten wine.[3]
The area was thoroughly entrenched in winemaking by the time the Romans conquered the area in 206 BC after more than three centuries of rule by Carthage. Under the Carthaginians, the work of the early viticulturist Mago was widely followed in the area. The early Roman agriculturalist Columella was a native of Cádiz and was similarly influenced by the area's winemaking tradition. Soon wine from the region was being spread throughout the Roman Empire where it came to be known as Ceretanum or "wine from Ceret" which was an early name for the Sherry namesake of Jerez. The Roman poet Martial was one of the earliest writers to describe this primitive Sherry, which he said was highly regarded in Roman circles.[4] During the Roman times, the practice of boiling grape must in order to concentrate the sugar as another means of sweetening the wine was starting to become widely used in the area.[5]
Moors [ edit ]
Following the decline of the Roman Empire, the area came under the rule of the Moors from North Africa who were in power until their expulsion during the Reconquista-from Jerez in 1231 and Cádiz in 1262 AD. Under the Islamic rule of the Moors, the consumption of alcohol was forbidden but some winemaking continued to exist in the region as part of trade and commerce with the non-Muslim neighbors.[6] The Moors also introduced the process of distillation known as alembic to the region which created a crude form of grape liqueur and would be a precursor to the technique of adding brandy to Sherry.[3] Under Moorish rule the Roman town of "Ceret" was renamed to Sherish which later evolved to Jerez de la Frontera as it became the frontier town between Christian Spain and the Moorish kingdom in the 13th century.[1]
Age of Exploration [ edit ]
During the "Age of Exploration" the ports of Sanlúcar de Barrameda and Cádiz were the starting points for many of the voyages to the New World and the East Indies, including some of the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan. On many of these voyages, stocking up on ample supplies of the area's wine was considered a necessity. Christopher Columbus almost certainly had Sherry with him when he made some of his voyages to America which makes Sherry, in all likelihood, the first wine brought to the New World.[1] For Magellan's voyage 594,790 maravedis were spent on wine compared to 566,684 maravedis on all the ships's armaments and men's weapons.[5]
At the turn of the 15th century, several factors came into play that had a major impact on the global wine market. The Venetian traders were losing their supply of sweet wine from the lands of Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Hungary to the emerging dominance of the Ottoman Empire. War with France had lost the English their access to the wines of Bordeaux. Seeing an opportunity to capitalize on this, the Spanish Duke of Medina Sidonia made several moves to put Sherry into the forefront of the world's wine market. In 1491, the export tax on wine was abolished for both Spanish and foreign vessels coming into Sanlúcar. In 1517, English merchants were given preferential merchant status-including the right to bear arms in the region.[5]
Shakespeare's Falstaff and his affection for Sherry "sack" did much to spread the reputation of the drink.
For a period of time, English sales of Sherry (or "Sherris sack" or just "sack", as it was sometimes known) were large and they continued to grow till the foreign relations between England and Spain declined with Henry VIII's divorce from the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon. In addition to triggering the English Reformation and the break from the Roman Catholic Church, it also brought every English merchant in Spain under the watch of the Spanish Inquisition. Many merchants closed up shop and fled while others were jailed for failing to repent or denounce their King. Some merchant ships forwent the sale and transport of wine to become privateers.[5]
In the 1580s, King Philip II of Spain ordered an invasion of England and set about building what would become the Spanish Armada at the naval shipyards of Cádiz. In 1587, Sir Francis Drake captured the harbor and set fire to many of the ships, delaying the launch of the Armada by a year. He also captured 2,900 butts of Sherry that was at the docks waiting to be loaded for ships to South America. The wine that Drake brought back to England only increased the English esteem and thirst for Sherry. William Shakespeare characterized the English's love for "sack" with his character of Sir John Falstaff who most famously noted in Henry IV, Part 2 that "If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack."[5]
Development of modern Sherry [ edit ]
A solera system storing Sherry.
However the Sherry in Falstaff's day was not as strong as it is today because it had not yet become a fortified wine. The natural strength of the wine rarely topped 16% ABV and the wines were closer in character to the modern day wine still being made in Montilla. At this point, the makers of Sherry were still experimenting with the various grapes available including Torrontes, Malmsey and some minor but growing plantings of the modern day Sherry grapes of Palomino, Pedro Ximénez, and Muscatel. Towards the turn of the 17th century, Sherry makers were starting to discover that the white chalk albariza soil of the area produced some of the freshest wine and there was some understanding of the strange but powerful effect of the yeast flor. They began calling these wines Fino or "fine wine" because of the delicate light style that was produced.[5]
The War of the Spanish Succession and later Napoleonic Wars allowed politics to once again influence the fortune of Sherry and its producers. Sales to England and the Netherlands were dramatically reduced as hostilities increased. European tastes also started to change as the emergence of the more accessible port wine hit the world's wine market-being particularly encouraged by the favorable Methuen Treaty. This left many Sherry merchants with excess stock that could do little more than sit and age in oak barrels. Unlike during the boom market when Sherry makers were selling their stocks as fast as they could produce it, these aging stocks began to slightly oxidize and develop more concentrated and nutty flavors.[7]
As a few orders of Sherry would trickle in, the Sherry merchants would bottle a small quantity and then top up the rest of the barrel with wine from some of their newer inventory. This began to develop into a system of "fractional blending" which was soon to become the modern concept of solera. This system was not unique to Sherry or even to Spain: it had been practiced for centuries in the Rhineland. However nowhere else in the world had such a system had such a dramatic effect on the wine. Through this process of aging, the wine developed distinct characters at various age points. The introduction of new wine into the barrel also stimulated the flor yeast in the wine which then imparted new flavors and fragrances. Through the use of fractional blending, the merchants realized they could also maintain a more consistent profile in their wines across the years.[7]
Fortification [ edit ]
Manzanilla
The taste of most of the wine world was still geared towards sweet and strong wines, and the Portuguese were seeing great success in adding brandy to make their port wines stronger. The Jerezanos began to experiment with adding brandy to Sherry and discovered that the increased alcohol content also had the effect of killing off the flor, which then made the wine oxidize more and develop into another style of wine. The merchants began to call this wine oloroso meaning "pungent". The Sherry makers in Sanlúcar were a little more restrained in the use of their brandy, finding that the unique aspect of flor took on new distinction amid the salty sea breezes that cooled most of the area's bodegas. The finos produced here were even lighter and more delicate with a freshness reminiscent of apples. They began to call these wines manzanilla or "little apple".[7]
The bodegas also found that if they limited the number of times that fresh wine was added to the solera they could develop a wine style between fino and oloroso that would have some of the fragrant qualities that flor added, but with a little more oxidation and concentration of flavors. This style was reminiscent of the wines from nearby Montilla and they picked up the name amontillado meaning "in the style of Montilla". There was more experimentation in making the wines sweeter. They found that the must from Pedro Ximénez (PX) grape oxidized more slowly and added its own dimension of strength and sweetness to wine that it was blended with. Wines with significant proportions of PX added started to be called "Cream" or "Sweet" Sherry.[7]
Modern day [ edit ]
Throughout the course of the 19th century, Sherry competed with Rioja for the distinction of being Spain's most recognizable wine and would be considered by many wine critics as one of the great expressions of white wine in the world. Sherry also had to compete with the new wave of "Sherry-like" wines being produced in South Africa, the United States, Australia, France and even Germany (which was producing a potato-based spirit and labeling it "Sherry
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it is stronger, but a little clumsy and may not be as versatile as the "younger brother" :) But he has his strengths if needed... http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=Letux%203704 The L3704 units we offer from stock are sample units to evaluate customization options, and we are looking for more such customization projects. A Replicant 4.2 image is running on it very well, so that you can easily develop (or have developed) and deploy applications to such devices. And since it doesn't have UMTS built in, the incomplete Hayes-RIL for GTA04-Replicant is not a problem. To stimulate your ideas, we make a special summer holidays offer: * please submit a project idea what you want to accomplish with such a device * and suggest a price for a (single) sample unit until 15th August. Then, we will choose the most interesting projects from the submissions and you get the device at the price (plus shipment) you have suggested. Submissions must go to: sales at goldelico.com to be considered. Please spread the word and invite interested people to this mailing list. BR and have a nice summer, NikolausKristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in "Breaking Dawn Part II."
Once again, the "Twilight" saga has been deemed so much swill by Razzie voters. "Breaking Dawn -- Part 2" leads the field heading into the 33rd Golden Raspberry Awards with a whopping 11 nominations, meaning it's up for dishonor in every category, including Worst Picture, Actor, Actress, Ensemble and Director.
They even doubled up on Kristen Stewart, making her Worst Actress nod a twofer, for "Breaking Dawn -- Part 2" and "Snow White and the Huntsman." (Think she'll show up like Halle Berry and Sandra Bullock have good-naturedly done in the past?)
The "Twilight" bean counters probably aren't losing any sleep over the Razzie noms
Alas, because it's nominated twice in the Worst Screen Couple category, "Breaking Dawn -- Part 2" will only be able to tie last year's all-time best (er, worst) showing by "Jack and Jill," which swept all 10 categories.
Adam Sandler has plenty of chances to keep his streak alive, his father-son "comedy" "That's My Boy" next up with nine nominations.
On the flip side, see what's in the running for the 2013 Golden Globes
"Battleship" sunk further into the bowels of cinema history by collecting seven nods, with both Rihanna and Brooklyn Decker getting dinged in the Worst Supporting Actress category.
The Razzies will be handed out Feb. 23, the day before the Academy Awards.
20 movies to see before Oscar night (hint: not the ones mentioned in this story)
Here's the complete list of nominees for the 2013 Golden Raspberry Awards:
Worst Picture
"Battleship"
"The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure"
"That's My Boy"
"A Thousand Words"
"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"
Worst Director
Sean Anders, "That's My Boy"
Peter Berg, "Battleship"
Bill Condon, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"
Tyler Perry, "Good Deeds/Madea's Witness Protection"
John Putch, "Atlas Shrugged: Part 2"
Worst Actress
Katherine Heigl, "One for the Money"
Milla Jovovich, "Resident Evil: Retribution"
Tyler Perry, "Madea's Witness Protection"
Kristen Stewart, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2," "Snow White and the Huntsman"
Barbra Streisand, "The Guilt Trip"
Worst Actor
Nicolas Cage, "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance," "Seeking Justice"
Eddie Murphy, "A Thousand Words"
Robert Pattinson, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"
Tyler Perry, "Alex Cross," "Good Deeds"
Adam Sandler, "That's My Boy"
Worst Supporting Actress
Jessica Biel, "Playing for Keeps," "Total Recall"
Brooklyn Decker, "Battleship," "What to Expect When You're Expecting"
Ashley Greene, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"
Jennifer Lopez, "What to Expect When You're Expecting"
Rihanna, "Battleship"
Worst Supporting Actor
David Hasselhoff, "Piranha 3D"
Taylor Lautner, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"
Liam Neeson, "Battleship," "Wrath of the Titans"
Nick Swardson, "That's My Boy"
Vanilla Ice, "That's My Boy"
Worst Screen Ensemble
"Battleship"
"The Oogieloves in the Balloon Adventure"
"That's My Boy"
"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"
"Madea's Witness Protection"
Worst Screenplay
"Atlas Shrugged: Part 2"
"Battleship"
"That's My Boy"
"A Thousand Words"
"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"
Worst Remapke, Rip-off or Sequel
"Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance"
"Piranha 3D"
"Red Dawn"
"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"
"Madea's Witness Protection"
Worst Screen Couple
Any two cast members from "The Jersey Shore" in "The Three Stooges"
Mackenzie Foy and Taylor Lautner in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"
Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2"
Tyler Perry and his drag in "Madea's Witness Protection"
Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg, Leighton Meester or Susan Sarandon in "That's My Boy"
Related content:BY: Follow @mchalfant16
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) slammed "gruesome" abortion practices Wednesday after video surfaced of taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood’s top doctor discussing the sale of body parts of aborted babies.
Boehner in a statement called on President Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell to "denounce" such practices, demanding hearings be held on the issue.
"Nothing is more precious than life, especially an unborn child. When anyone diminishes an unborn child, we are all hurt, irreversibly so," Boehner declared. "When an organization monetizes an unborn child — and with the cavalier attitude portrayed in this horrific video — we must all act."
"I have asked our relevant committees to look into this matter. I am also calling on President Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell to denounce, and stop, these gruesome practices," he added.
On Tuesday, video surfaced of Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, discussing the sale of heart, liver and other body parts of aborted babies.
Planned Parenthood has defended Nucatola, claiming that "patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs." Stem Express has since taken down its website for "maintenance."
While Republicans like GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry have slammed Planned Parenthood in the aftermath of the video, 2016 Democratic hopefuls have remained silent on the controversy.
Planned Parenthood has received $27.8 million from taxpayers this year, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.In this essay originally delivered as a lecture at the Nicos Poulantzas insitute in Athens on the eve of Syriza's historic victory in the Greek general elections, Enzo Traverso, author of the recently published Fire and Blood: The European Civil War 1914-1945 and one of Europe's premier historians of the twentieth century, reflects on the legacy of the historic left. In it, Traverso reflects on the legacy of the twentieth century and it's "memorial landscape".
There is something paradoxical in delivering a lecture on left memory, in Athens, in this particular moment. But I am very happy for this paradox, or this dialectical contrast. We are on the edge of a possible victory of Syriza at the next elections, an event that would represent a historical turn in this country and also, because of its inevitable consequences, in Europe. This could start a process of rebuilding the European left and open new perspectives for the future of the continent. After decades of defeats and regressions, a left alternative to neoliberalism and the domination of financial capitalism finally becomes visible, and this change is beginning here, in Greece (at the margins of Europe, if we think in geopolitical terms; at its heart, if we think in terms of civilization).
My lecture, nevertheless, will not be devoted to the future, rather to the past. I will describe the memorial landscape—at the same time political, cultural and even mental—that has prevailed within the left over the last decades, and which we could call a culture of defeat. What is happening today in Greece (to a less extent in Spain) is the first serious, consistent attempt to find an exit to such a culture of defeat and mourning, which has been a necessary step but now risks to turn into a one-way street, not to say a labyrinth. In order to know where we are going, it is important to know where we come, and where we still are. This is precisely the task of the historian committed to the history of the left.
The year 1989 stresses a break, a momentum that closes an epoch and opens a new one. For its unexpected and disruptive character, the fall of the Berlin Wall immediately took the dimension of an event, an epochal turn exceeding its causes, opening new scenarios, suddenly projecting the world into an unpredictable constellation. As every great political event, it modified the perception of the past and engendered a new historical imagination. The collapse of State Socialism aroused a wave of enthusiasm and, for a short moment, great expectations of a possible democratic socialism. Very quickly, however, people realized that it was an entire representation of the twentieth century that had fallen apart. People on the Left—a multitude of currents including many anti-Stalinist tendencies—quickly felt uncomfortable. Christa Wolf, the most famous dissident writer of the former GDR, described this strange feeling in her autobiographical account City of Angels: she had become spiritually homeless, an exile from a country that no longer existed. Instead of liberating new revolutionary energies, the downfall of State Socialism seemed to have exhausted the historical trajectory of socialism itself. The entire history of communism was reduced to its totalitarian dimension, which appeared as a collective, transmissible memory. Of course, this narrative was not invented in 1989; it had existed since decades, but now it became a shared historical consciousness, a dominant representation of the past. In fact, it was much more than a simple revival of the old anticommunist rhetoric. During the last thirty years, concepts like market and competition—the cornerstones of the neoliberal lexicon—became the “natural” foundations of post-totalitarian societies. They colonized the Western imagination and shaped a new anthropological habitus, as the dominant values of a new “life conduct” (Lebensführung) in front of which the old Protestant asceticism of a bourgeois class ethically oriented—according to Max Weber classical portrait—appears the archeological vestige of a submerged continent. The extremities of such Sattelzeit, of this transition age, are utopia and memory. This is the political and epistemic framework of the new century opened by the end of Cold War.
In 1989, the “velvet revolutions” seemed to go back to 1789, short-circuiting two centuries of struggle for socialism. Freedom and political representation appeared as their only horizon, according to a model of classical liberalism: 1789 opposed to 1917, or even the American Revolution opposed to the French Revolution (freedom against equality). Historically, revolutions have been factories of utopias; they have forged new imaginaries, new ideas, and have aroused expectancies and hopes. But that did not occur with the so-called “velvet revolutions.” On the contrary, they frustrated any previous dream and paralyzed cultural production. A brilliant essayist and playwright like Vaclav Havel became a pale, sad copy of a Western statesman once elected President of the Czech Republic. The literature of Eastern Germany was extraordinarily fruitful and imaginative when, submitted to the suffocating control of the STASI, created allegorical novels stimulating the art of reading between the lines. Nothing comparable appeared after the Wende. Instead of projecting themselves into the future, these revolutions created societies obsessed by the past. Museums and patrimonial institutions devoted to recovering national pasts kidnapped by Soviet communism simultaneously appeared all over the countries of Central Europe.
More recently, the Arab revolutions of 2011 have quickly reached a similar deadlock. Before being stopped by bloody civil wars in Libya and Syria, they destroyed two hated dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt but did not know how to replace them. Their memory was made of defeats: socialism, pan-Arabism, Third-Worldism and also Islamic fundamentalism (which did not inspire the revolutionary youth). Admirably self-organized, these revolutions and mass movements showed an astonishing lack of leadership and appeared strategically disoriented, but their limits did not lie in their leaders or in their social forces: they are the limits of our epoch. Such revolutions and mass movements are burdened with the defeats of the revolutions of the twentieth century, which are an overwhelming heaviness paralyzing the utopic imagination.
Thus, the twentieth-first century is born as a time shaped by a general eclipse of utopias. This is a major difference that distinguishes it from the two previous centuries. Opening the nineteenth century, the French Revolution defined the horizon of a new age. 1789 created a new concept of revolution—no more a rotation, according to its original astronomical meaning, but a rupture and a radical innovation—and laid the basis for the birth of socialism, which developed with the growth of industrial society. Demolishing the European dynastic order, the Great War birthed the twentieth century, but this cataclysm also engendered the Russian Revolution. And October 1917 created both an authoritarian regime and a hope of emancipation that mobilized millions of men and women throughout the world. The twenty-first century, on the contrary, opens with the collapse of this utopia.
At the end of The Passing of an Illusion (1995), a conservative historian like François Furet drew this conclusion: “The idea of another society has become almost impossible to conceive of, and no one in the world today is offering any advice on the subject or even trying to formulate a new concept. Here we are, condemned to live in the world as it is.” Without sharing the enthusiasm of the French historian, a Marxist philosopher like Frederic Jameson formulated a similar diagnostic, observing that the end of the world is easier to imagine nowadays than the end of capitalism. The utopia of a new, different model of society appears as a dangerous, potentially totalitarian desire. In short, the turn of the twenty-first century coincided with the transition from the “principle of hope” to the “principle of responsibility”. The “principle of hope” inspired the battles of the passed century, the “principle of responsibility” appeared when the future darkened, when we discovered that revolutions had generated totalitarian monsters, when ecology made us aware of the dangers menacing the planet and we began to think about the kind of world we will give to future generations. Using the famous conceptual couple elaborated by Reinhart Koselleck, we could formulate this diagnostic in the following way: communism is no more a point of intersection between a “space of experience” (Erfahrungsfeld) and a “horizon of expectation” (Erwartunghorizon). The expectation disappeared, whereas experience has taken the form of a field of ruins. According to Koselleck, past and future interact, related by a symbiotic link. Instead of being two rigorously separated continents, they are connected by a dynamic, creative relationship. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, nevertheless, this dialectic of historical time seems exhausted.
The German philosopher Ernst Bloch distinguished between the chimeric, Promethean dreams haunting the imagination of a society historically unable to realize them (the abstract, naïve utopias, such as the aircrafts imagined in the technologically primitive societies), and the “concrete” utopias inspiring a possible revolutionary transformation of the present (like socialism in the twentieth century). Today, we could observe the vanishing of the Promethean dreams and the metamorphosis of the emancipatory hopes. On the one hand, taking varied forms, the dystopias of a future nightmare made of ecological and social catastrophes replaced the dream of a liberated humanity and confined the social imagination into the narrow boundaries of the present. On the other hand, the concrete utopias of collective emancipation turned into individualized drives for the inexhaustible consumption of commodities. Dismissing the “warm stream” of collective emancipation, neoliberalism introduced the “cold stream” of economic reason. Thus, utopias are destroyed by their privatization into a reified world of commodities.
Some historians, such as François Hartog, characterize the regime of historicity that emerged in the 1990s as “presentism:” a diluted and expanded present absorbing and dissolving in itself both past and future. “Presentism” has a double dimension. On the one hand, it is the past reified by culture industry, which destroys all transmitted experience; on the other hand, it is the future abolished by the time of neo-liberalism: the time of a permanent acceleration without a “prognostic structure.” On the one hand, the fall of State socialism paralyzed and prohibited the utopian imagination; on the other hand, the past appears as a traumatic, catastrophic landscape made of wars, totalitarianism and genocide. Thus, “presentism” becomes a suspended time between an unmasterable past and a denied future, between a “past that won’t go away” and a future that cannot be invented or predicted (except in terms of catastrophe).
The twenty-first century engendered a new kind of “disenchantment of the world.” After the Entzeuberung der Welt announced by Max Weber one century ago, when he defined modernity as the dehumanized age of instrumental rationality, we have experienced a second disenchantment brought by the failure of its alternatives. Of course, the failure of real socialism is not the only source of this historical change. Socialist utopia was deeply linked to a workers’ memory that almost disappeared during the last decades. The fall of communism coincided with the end of Fordism, i.e. the model of industrial capitalism that had dominated the twentieth century. The introduction of flexible, mobile and precarious work as well as the penetration of individualist models of competition among laboring classes eroded traditional forms of sociability and solidarity. The advent of new forms of production and the dislocation of the old system of big factories with enormous concentration of labor forces disarticulated the social frameworks of the left’s memory, whose continuity was irremediably broken. The European workers movement lost both its social basis and its material culture.
Simultaneously, the decade of the 1990s was marked by the crisis of the traditional “party model.” Mass political parties—which had been the dominant form of political life in the twentieth century and whose paradigm were the left parties (both communist and social-democratic)—disappeared or declined. Composed of hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of members, and deeply rooted in civil societies, they had been a major vector of the formation and transmission of a collective political memory. The new “catch all” parties that replaced them are electoral apparatus without strong social and political identities. They do not believe in self-emancipation, neither encourage civic participation. In Italy, Matteo Renzi is proud of his demolition of the Democratic Party as a mass party, which he perceives as an archaism, an obstacle to his conception of politics: he only needs an electoral machine. Socially decomposed, class memory remains without political representation in a context where laboring men and women have lost any visibility in public space. Today, class memory is become a “Marrano” memory, i.e. a hidden memory and the European left has lost both its social bases and its shared culture.
The reactivation of the past that is shaping our time is probably the result of this eclipse of utopias: a world without utopias inevitably looks towards the past. The emergence of memory in the public space of Western societies is a consequence of this change. We entered the twenty-first century without revolutions, without Bastilles or Winter Palace assaults, but we got a shocking, hideous ersatz on September Eleventh with the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, which spread terror instead of hope. Deprived of its horizon of expectation, the twentieth century appears to our retrospective gaze as an age of wars and genocides. A previously discreet and modest figure installs itself on the center of the stage: the victim. Mostly anonymous and silent, victims invade the podium and dominate our vision of history. Capturing this Zeitgeist, Tony Judt concludes his fresco of postwar Europe with a chapter devoted to the memory of the continent emblematically titled: “From the house of the dead.”
This sensibility with respect to the victim illuminates the twentieth century with a new light, introducing in history a figure that, in spite of his omnipresence, always remained in the shadow. At the same time, the emergence of the victims corresponds with the eclipse of the vanquished, the actors of the lost battles of the twentieth century. Humanitarianism seems incompatible with the class struggle. The memory of the Gulag erased that of revolution, the memory of the Holocaust replaced that of antifascism, and the memory of slavery eclipsed that of anti-colonialism.
In this context, we can distinguish between three different memorial spaces. In Western Europe, the memory of the Holocaust plays the role of a unifying narrative. It is a relatively recent phenomenon—we could date it at the beginning of the 1980s—concluding a process of remembering that passed through different steps. At first, there was the silence of the postwar years, then the anamnesis of the 1960s and 1970s—provoked by the awakening of Jewish memory and a generational change—and finally the memory obsession of the last twenty years. After a long period of oblivion, the Holocaust returned to the surface in a European culture finally liberated from anti-Semitism (one of its major elements until the 1940s). In a rather paradoxical way, the place of the Holocaust in our representations of the history of twentieth century seems to be growing as the event becomes more and more remote. In Europe and the United States, the memory of the Holocaust has become a kind of “civil religion” (i.e. a secular belief, according to Rousseau, useful for unifying a community). Covered and ritualized by the media and the official institutions, its commemoration sacralizes the foundational values of liberal democracies: pluralism and Rights of Man. The defense and the transmission of such values take the form of a secular liturgy of remembering.
It would be wrong to confuse collective memory and the civil religion of the Holocaust: the first is the presence of the past in today’s world; the second is a politics of representation, education and commemoration. The civil religion of the Holocaust has virtues but also ambiguities. As the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz’s camp, on January 2005, clearly reveals, it is an attempt to create a consensual memory of compassion. The presence of the architects of the war against Iraq (Dick Cheney, Jack Straw, Silvio Berlusconi, Fig. 1) at the heart of this celebration roughly showed its apologetic aim: remembering the victims in order to justify a new imperial war. Within the European Union, the civil religion of the Holocaust tries to show a supranational, ethical community. And this virtuous appearance conveniently conceals the enormous democratic vacuum of a European construction founded on an oligarchic power and, according to the rhetoric of its leaders, on a “highly competitive” market economy.
Like every civil religion, I said, the memory of the Holocaust has its virtues and ambiguities. In Germany, the creation of a Memorial devoted to the murdered Jews (Holocaust Mahnmal, Fig. 2) in the heart of Berlin fulfilled an identity change of historical dimension. The crimes of Nazism definitely belong to the German identity in the same way as the Reformation or Aufklärung. Germany ceased considering itself as an ethnical community and became a political community where the myth of blood and soil was replaced by a modern vision of citizenship. At the same time, the “duty to remember” the Holocaust was followed by a systematic destruction of the traces of the German Democratic Republic. Germany’s efforts for recovering the memory of Nazism and the Holocaust are only matched by its efforts for erasing the memory of the GDR and antifascism. A solitary statue of Marx and Engels remains in Berlin, between the museum island and the Nikolaiviertel, exhibiting an ironic graffiti on its base: Wir sind unschuldig (“we are innocent”, Fig. 3).
In the age of the victims, the Holocaust becomes the paradigm of Western memory, the foundation upon which the remembrance of other ancient or recent forms of violence and crimes was built, from slavery to colonial massacres, from the Gulag to Latin American desaparecidos, from the Armenian to Rwanda’s genocides. Historiography itself was deeply shaped by this tendency, with the consequence of transforming the analytical categories elaborated by the Holocaust Studies into a kind of normative framework. The propensity emerges, in the public debates, to reduce history to a binary confrontation between executors and victims. This temptation does not concern exclusively the remembrance of genocides but also that of other historical experiences as, for instance, the Spanish Civil War. According to this approach, the conflict between democracy and fascism—the way the Spanish Civil War was perceived in Europe during the 1930s—becomes a sequence of crimes against humanity. Some historians consider this historical event to be “genocide”, in other words, an eruption of violence in which there were only persecutors and victims.
Central Europe is a different realm of memory. There, the end of the Second World War coincided with the beginning of the long night of Soviet hibernation. In the wake of Milan Kundera, many intellectuals denounced a “kidnapping” through which Central Europe had been separated from the West. The true “Liberation”, for Eastern Europeans, did not come until 1989. This explains the violent confrontations in Tallinn in the summer of 2007, in which Estonians came to grips with Russians around a monument devoted to the memory of the soldiers of the Red Army [Fig. 4]. For the Russians, this statue celebrates the Great Patriotic War; for the majority of Estonians, on the contrary, it is the symbol of many decades of Soviet oppression. Today, in Eastern Europe, the past is revisited almost exclusively through the prism of nationalism and the new members of the European Union are shaped by a deep re-nationalization of collective memories. Postulating a substantial continuity between Nazi occupation and Soviet domination, they outline the history of twentieth century as a long national martyrdom and totalitarian night. Inevitably, this approach leaves a marginal place to the memory of the Holocaust, which is reduced to an object of diplomatic mourning, the price to pay for getting respectability. This is paradoxical because the extermination of the Jews did take place in Eastern Europe: it was there that the great majority of the victims lived and the Nazis created ghettos and death camps.
Finally, there is a third European memorial space, which is both transnational and postcolonial. In Northern Africa, the anniversary of 8 May 1945—the end of the Second World War—evokes the massacre of Setif: between 15,000 and 45,000 victims, according to French or Algerian sources [Fig. 5-6]. Setif was the starting point for a wave of violence and military repression in French colonies, notably in Madagascar, where an insurrection was bloodily sedated in 1947. In Europe, the crimes of colonialism never achieved wide public recognition, only discreet, diplomatic apologies. In February 2005, the French Parliament welcomed the “positive role” of colonialism in Northern Africa and the Antilles. In Western Europe, the denial of the crimes of colonialism coexists with the rejection of immigrants and postcolonial minorities that are the privileged targets of xenophobia, racism and islamophobia (carried on by the governments themselves). The universal, pedagogical and paradigmatic character of the Holocaust becomes very debatable when it is claimed by a political power that, at the same time, rehabilitates colonialism. In this context, postcolonial memory puts into question old inherited identities and claims a redefinition of citizenship, recognizing cultural, ethnic and religious pluralism that exists inside every EU national segment.
*
But let me return to the memory of the left. I would like to synthetize it starting from Marx. As the famous eleventh thesis on Feuerbach (1844) indicates, Marxism was born and developed as both an interpretation and a project of the revolutionary transformation of the world. The collapse of communism annihilated its utopic hopes and, consequently, erased its memory. In other words, it ceased to transmit the memory of the struggles for a better world. According to Marx, the modern revolutions directed against capitalism “cannot take their poetry from the past but only from the future.” Without a future, however, communist remembrance vanishes. Communism was postulated as a telos, as an end of history and, consequently, the cleavages of historical periodization were fixed by revolutions. A straight line linked 1789 to 1917, passing through the revolutions of 1848 and the Paris Commune. From October onward, the process became global and the ascending curve split in different lines crossing Europe (1968 in France, 1974 in Portugal), Latin America (1958 in Cuba) and Asia (1949 in China, 1975 in Vietnam). Revolutions seemed to sketch an ascending line. Eric Hobsbawm vividly summarized this vision of historical memory quoting a British union activist who, in the 1930s, used to speak to the Tories in the following terms: “your class represents the past, my class represents the future.” In other words, memory was a memory for the future, insofar as it announced the battles to come. The remembrance of the past revolutions was not circumscribed to the exciting moment of emancipation experienced as a collective action; actually, it bore the tragedies of their defeats, but they were glorious defeats—the Paris Commune, the Spartakist uprising, the Spanish Civil War, the Greek Resistance—that prepared new struggles, hopefully victorious.
For a century, socialist communist iconography has illustrated this teleological vision of history. Its images “etched” themselves in the memory of several generations of activists—from workers to intellectuals—and shaped their imagination. The interpretation of these “subliminal points of reference” can be as interesting as textual exegesis.
The Fourth State by Pellizza da Volpedo (1900, Fig. 7), one of the most famous paintings inspired by the socialist idea before the Great War, describes the advance of the laboring classes from a dark background toward the light: their march is a metaphor of history as a path from oppression to emancipation, from a somber past to an enlightened, resplendent future.
After the October Revolution, utopia ceased to be the abstract representation and became the unchained imagination of a world to be built in the present. In 1919, in the middle of the Russian Civil War and the revolutionary upheavals of many countries of Central Europe, Vladimir Tatlin created his Monument to the Third International (Fig.8). Drawing inspiration from the myth of the Tower of Babel, he conceived this work of art in a constructivist style, as a building that had to be not only admired but also used, proving that art was a tool for constructing socialism. Much more than becoming a symbol, its ambition was to give material evidence to the construction of a new world as a fusion between aesthetics and politics. The spiral of the monument meant the “assault on the heavens” announced by Marx and launched by the Bolshevik revolution.
Other works of art were created in a similar spirit. In 1921, Lenin suggested to transform the Obelisk of Moscow, inaugurated by the Tsarist regime at the edge of the war in order to celebrate the Romanov dynasty, into a Memorial for the Great Socialist Thinkers, including utopian visionaries like Campanella, Thomas More, Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier (Fig. 9). In the same year, Kosntantin Yuon painted The New Planet, which interpreted the October Revolution like the discovery or the birth of a new planet (Fig. 10). The advent of socialism was much more than a simple historical turn; it was a sort of Copernican Revolution that modified our vision of the world, or even a new big bang that changed the cosmos itself. During the 1920s, the Soviet propaganda showed Lenin with his arm stretched toward the future, like an assured guide in the middle of a world made of industries, chemistries and machines, where a multitude of workers feverishly acted to build a new society (Fig. 11-12).
In 1933, the architect Boris Iofan won the competition for the Soviet Palace of Moscow (Fig. 13). His project will never be realized, but it was immediately publicized and shaped the soviet imagination of the time. A skyscraper—the communist response to the Empire State Building inaugurated in New York two years before—culminates in a gigantic statue of Lenin, once again his arm stretched toward the future, surrounded by clouds and planes.
These posters and statues of Lenin are the secular version of an older Biblical iconography showing Moses going down from the Mount Sinai, bringing the tables of the Law and stretching his finger toward the skies (Fig. 14). After the Second World War, the Soviet imagination remained projected into a future made of factories and space crafts, whose supersonic speed replaced the feverish, compressed time of revolutionary upheaval: the march toward socialism was measured by the tons of steel, tractors, aircrafts and missiles produced by the Soviet industry instead of the millions of votes won by the German social democracy at the elections, but history had not lost its telos.
Even in Latin America, where socialist utopias very often merged with the cyclical time of the indigenous communities, visual representations of history could not avoid the mythology of an ascending path toward the future: the conquest of the sky (el cielo por asalto). In a diachronic, sumptuous perspective, the linear movement describing the advance of the laboring classes from a past of oppression toward a liberated future is shown by the murals of Diego Rivera decorating the Palace of Government’s staircases and the court of the Department of Education in Mexico City (Fig. 15). The remembrance of both anticolonial struggles and peasant revolution naturally leads to the organization of the modern, multiracial and multinational workers movement, which is put under the sight of the tutelary figures of Marx.
These visual and textual documents prove that Marxist teleology implied remembrance as a key element of its utopian imagination. It was not a form of left futurism, i.e. an avant-garde movement that, fascinated by velocity, technology and modernity, pretended to conquer the future “abolishing history.” In the first years of soviet power, Leon Trotsky criticized the mnemonic nihilism exhibited by the Russian futurists and stressed the part of remembrance incorporated into revolutionary action. Revolution was not a tabula rasa; it had its own vision of the past, as a kind of counter-memory opposed to the official interpretations of history. At the end of the twentieth century, nevertheless, this counter-memory fell apart. It was no longer transmissible, insofar as it became a remembrance of lost battles without a future. This does not mean that memory is useless, but we have to learn to build a memory of resistance, not a memory for the conquest of the heavens. If we do not operate this memory change, the past we have inherited will become mythical.
*
The past can inhabit the present as a myth or as a hot, blasting memory waking up and acting upon today’s reality. Fascism is probably the most emblematic example of a modernity conceived and experienced as a timeless myth. The secret of the Conservative Revolution was precisely the fusion of technical and mechanical modernity with an ancestral, romantically idealized past made of traditional values and mythological heroes. It merged old and new, transforming the charismatic leaders into everlasting figures belonging to both the past and the future. The “Thousand Year Reich” celebrated its liturgies in the medieval city of Nuremberg and the fascist regime’s ambition was to transform Rome into a città eterna where the futurist cult of the machines incorporated the vestiges of Antiquity creating a single, harmonic unity. In 1936, after the colonization of Ethiopia, Mussolini presented himself as a Roman emperor (Fig. 16). The following year, the Mostra Augustea della Romanità was inaugurated in the Italian capital, celebrating the 2000th anniversary of the birth of emperor Augustus. Rather than a historical reconstruction of the Roman Empire, this exhibition was conceived as a “rebirth” of the past in the present, according to the vision of romanità defended by Mussolini, for whom Rome was “a symbol and a myth.” Mussolini’s profile dissolved into Augustus. The same year of the Roman exhibition, the Nazi painter Hubert Lanziger created a famous portrait of the Führer as a medieval knight in armor (Fig. 17). According to Johann Chapoutot, the Nazis had replaced “the realm of history with the realm of myth”; they had abolished historical time replacing it by the “eternity of the race, of its gesture and its combat.”
Just as the fascist historical imagination is a mythical construction, the revolutionary perception of time—its antipodal one—is shaped by memory, even if it is a “memory of the future,” charged with eschatological expectations. Walter Benjamin had grasped this feature when he wrote that revolutionary movements were “nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than that of liberated grandchildren.” This might explain the relationship with the past established in the last decades by the revolutions in Latin America, waking up the shadows of Cesar Augusto Sandino, Farabundo Marti, Emiliano Zapata, and, more recently, Simon Bolivar. In January 2006, at Tiwanaku, near Lake Titicaca, among the ruins of an old, pre-Inca town, Evo Morales was proclaimed President of Bolivia, a few days before his official investiture in La Paz. This Indian ceremony held in Aymara
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60 x 11.9 mm (4.7 x 2.36 x 0.47 inches)
Weight – 135 grams (4.76 ounces) with battery
Display – 3.7-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen with 480 X 800 WVGA resolution
Network – HSPA/WCDMA:
Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
Upload speed of up to 2 Mbps and download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps
Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz Upload speed of up to 2 Mbps and download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
850/900/1800/1900 MHz (Band frequency, HSPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.)
850/900/1800/1900 MHz (Band frequency, HSPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.) Onscreen navigation – Optical Trackball
GPS – Internal GPS antenna
Sensors: Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor, G-Sensor, Digital compass
Connectivity – Bluetooth® 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, and PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
Wi-Fi® – IEEE 802.11 b/g
3.5 mm stereo audio jack
Standard Micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
Camera – 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flashligh
Audio supported formats
Video supported formats: Playback:.3gp,.3g2,.mp4,.wmv
Recording:.3gp
Battery: 1400 mAh Lithium-ion
Talk time: Up to 390 minutes for WCDMA, Up to 400 minutes for GSM
Standby time: Up to 360 hours for WCDMA, Up to 340 hours for GSM
Expansion Slot – microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
AC Adapter Voltage range/frequency – 100 ~ 240 V AC, 50/60 Hz
DC output – 5 V and 1 A
Special Feature – Friend Stream
If you’re a fan of the HTC HD2 but want something a little more pocketable, check out the new HTC HD Mini with a 3.2 inch capacitive display, 5Mpix camera, WinMo 6.5.3, HTC Sense and a 3.5mm jack. We’re not sure sure on how fast the processor will be, but it doesn’t look like it will be sporting Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor. We hope we’re wrong.
We caught out first glimpses of the HTC Legend in the wild last week. The spec sheet for the HTC Legend isn’t going to blow you away, but it does set itself apart from HTC’s current Android lineup with a unique design and Android 2.1 with HTC Sense. The HTC Legend’s unibody aluminum body fits into HTC’s Design phone category quite nicely. We’re just hoping that the new internals are enough to give HTC Sense the power it really needs to run smoothly. Like the HTC Desire, the new version of HTC sense will include HTC’s Friend Stream
HTC Legend Specs
CPU speed – 600 MHz
Platform: Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC Sense
Memory ROM – 512 MB, RAM: 384 MB
Dimensions – (LxWxT) 112 x 56.3 x 11.5 mm (4.41 x 2.22 x 0.45 inches)
Weight – 126 grams (4.44 ounces) with battery
Display – 3.2-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen with 320 X 480 HVGA resolution
Network – HSPA/WCDMA: Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz, Upload speed of up to 2 Mbps and download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Onscreen navigation – Optical trackball
GPS – Internal GPS antenna
Sensors: G-Sensor, Digital compass, Proximity sensor, Ambient light sensor
Connectivity – Bluetooth® 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, and PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
Wi-Fi® – IEEE 802.11 b/g
3.5 mm stereo audio jack
Standard Micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
Camera – 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flash
Audio supported formats: Playback:.aac,.amr,.ogg,.m4a,.mid,.mp3,.wav,.wma
Recording:.amr
Video supported formats: Playback:.3gp,.3g2,.mp4,.wmv
Recording:.3gp
Battery – rechargeable 1300 mAh Lithium-ion polymer or Lithium-ion battery
Talk time: Up to 440 minutes for WCDMA, Up to 490 minutes for GSM
Standby time: Up to 560 hours for WCDMA, Up to 440 hours for GSM
Expansion slot – microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
AC adapter – Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
DC output – 5V and 1A
Special feature – Friend Stream
Source: MoDaCo0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
Walter Shaub, who specializes in government ethics and is a former Director of the US Office of Government Ethics, blasted Kellyanne Conway for violating the Hatch Act (again) by spending almost a quarter hour defending Roy Moore on Wednesday. At the end of his rant, he called on the adviser to President Trump to resign from federal office.
“Unbelievable. Spending almost a quarter hour defending Roy Moore and attacking Doug Jones is still a Hatch Act violation even if you play the word game of couching it as POTUS’s view, @KellyannePolls, and mocking those who try to hold you accountable,” Shaub wrote on Twitter.
Watch the full interview here in which Kellyanne Conway spends the entire time defending Roy Moore and desperately trying to conflate Roy Moore being accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl with the accusations by grown women against Senator Al Franken:
Shaub went on, “only shows the depths of your depraved disdain for the rule of law. If the Hatch Act Unit of the @US_OSC doesn’t find you’ve violated the law twice in the past month for this, we’ll know for sure that the recent Trump appointee is a purring lap cat installed by a corrupt Presidential administration to dismantle the last vestiges of ethics in the executive branch.
“Your mockery of Hatch Act enforcement today now proves that a written reprimand won’t be enough to deter future misconduct. It’s clear nothing short of your removal will stop the violations. On the up side, if that happens, you’ll be able tell everyone to ‘go buy Ivanka’s stuff’ all you like as a private citizen because the Standards of Conduct only apply to executive branch employees.
“But maybe you have some inside knowledge you’d care to share as to whether Special Counsel Henry Kerner is a loyal tabby who has given assurances that emboldened you to the commit this repeat offense today. I’ve been secretly hoping he’d rise to the challenge and do the right thing, but is there something I don’t know?
“Folks, this is the same Kellyanne Conway who reportedly said that having to comply with government ethics rules about disclosure is demoralizing. She is a product of the garbage ethics program (if you can call it an ethics program) run by
professional Ethics Preventers Stefan Passantino and his former assistant Jim Schultz.
“Both @RWPUSA and @NormEisen in the Bush and Obama White Houses would’ve fired these two cartoon villains after the first month—and, of course, Schultz only made it 10 months even in.
“this poor man’s imitation of Caligula’s palace. resign from federal service.”
Unbelievable. Spending almost a quarter hour defending Roy Moore and attacking Doug Jones is still a Hatch Act violation even if you play the word game of couching it as POTUS’s view, @KellyannePolls, and mocking those who try to hold you accountable /1 https://t.co/tAre91R9JS — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 6, 2017
only shows the depths of your depraved disdain for the rule of law. If the Hatch Act Unit of the @US_OSC doesn’t find you’ve violated the law twice in the past month for this, we’ll know for sure that the recent Trump appointee is a purring lap cat installed by a corrupt /2 — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 6, 2017
Presidential administration to dismantled the last vestiges of ethics in the executive branch. Your mockery of Hatch Act enforcement today now proves that a written reprimand won’t be enough to deter future misconduct. It’s clear nothing short of your removal will stop the /3 — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 6, 2017
violations. On the up side, if that happens, you’ll be able tell everyone to “go buy Ivanka’s stuff” all you like as a private citizen because the Standards of Conduct only apply to executive branch employees. But maybe you have some inside knowledge you’d care to share as to /4 — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 6, 2017
whether Special Counsel Henry Kerner is a loyal tabby who has given assurances that emboldened you to the commit this repeat offense today. I’ve been secretly hoping he’d rise to the challenge and do the right thing, but is there something I don’t know? /5 https://t.co/V4MUTylLe0 — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 6, 2017
Folks, this is the same Kellyanne Conway who reportedly said that having to comply with government ethics rules about disclosure is demoralizing. She is a product of the garbage ethics program (if you can call it an ethics program) run by /6 https://t.co/sZuuD5G6WZ — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 6, 2017
professional Ethics Preventers Stefan Passantino and his former assistant Jim Schultz. Both @RWPUSA and @NormEisen in the Bush and Obama White Houses would’ve fired these two cartoon villains after the first month—and, of course, Schultz only made it 10 months even in /7 — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 6, 2017
this poor man’s imitation of Caligula’s palace. https://t.co/O9yKXrWdlN — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 6, 2017
resign from federal service, @KellyannePolls — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 6, 2017
That’s Kellyanne Conway for you. She lies so much and with such ease that to suggest she follow basic ethics that all others in her position have easily upheld is quite simply asking an impossibility. Kellyanne Conway doesn’t even seem bothered or embarrassed when caught in a lie, she shamelessly plows on in a desperate bid for President Trump’s approval.
The real problem for Republicans is that it takes outright lying and violating the Hatch Act to please President Trump. This is the man they are standing by, when they’re not standing by accused child sexual assaulter Roy Moore.
The Republican party has become a grotesque parade of the worst in human kind. A never-ending mining of the most evil, depraved, and lawless among us.
If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:CARACAS (Reuters) - President Nicolas Maduro’s government won a majority of votes in Venezuela’s local elections on Sunday, disappointing the opposition and helping his quest to preserve the late Hugo Chavez’s socialist legacy.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro talks to supporters during a meeting at Plaza Bolivar in Caracas December 8, 2013. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
With votes in from three-quarters of the nation’s 337 mayoral races, the ruling party and allies had combined 49.2 percent support, compared with the opposition coalition and its partners’ 42.7 percent, the election board said.
Since taking power in April, Maduro, a 51-year-old former bus driver, has faced a plethora of economic problems including slowing growth, the highest inflation in the Americas, and shortages of basic goods including milk and toilet paper.
Yet an aggressive campaign launched last month to force businesses to slash prices proved popular with consumers, especially the poor, and helped Maduro’s candidates on Sunday.
“The father of the revolution has gone, but he left the son who continued helping the poor,” said government supporter and pensioner Freddy Navarro, 62, in Caracas.
Sunday’s election was the biggest political test for Maduro since he narrowly won the presidential election after Chavez’s death from cancer ended his 14-year rule of the OPEC nation.
Winning the overall vote share may help Maduro shake off perceptions of weakness, enabling him to exert more authority over the different factions in the ruling Socialist Party and perhaps take unpopular measures such as a currency devaluation.
“The Venezuelan people have said to the world that the Bolivarian revolution continues stronger than ever,” Maduro said in a late-night speech, referring to Chavez’s self-styled movement named for independence hero Simon Bolivar.
OPPOSITION’S URBAN WINS
The government took nearly 200 municipalities, with three-quarters counted, reflecting the traditional strength of “Chavismo” in rural and poorer areas.
As expected, the opposition performed well in urban centers, keeping the principal mayorship of the capital, Caracas, and that of Venezuela’s second city, Maracaibo. The opposition also won the capital of Barinas, Chavez’s home state
But their failure to win the overall vote share was a blow to opposition leader Henrique Capriles’ claim that he leads a majority. Capriles had repeatedly called for the vote to be seen as a referendum on Maduro’s performance.
“I did everything humanly possible,” Capriles said after the results were out. “Remember that Venezuela does not have a single owner. A divided country needs dialogue.”
Opponents portray Maduro as a buffoonish autocrat with none of his predecessor’s political savvy and say his continuation of statist economic policies - including the crackdown on retailers for alleged price-gouging - are disastrous.
In a triumphant speech in Bolivar Square in downtown Caracas, Maduro mocked Capriles and urged him to resign.
“They underestimate us. They call me a donkey, there is social racism,” he said. “They said that today was a plebiscite, that Maduro would have to leave the presidency after today.”
Despite the encouraging results for Maduro, he still faces a daunting task to right Venezuela’s economy. Inflation has hit 54 percent annually, the local bolivar currency has tanked on the black market, power cuts are frequent, and shortages have spawned queues and irritation around the country.
Opposition activists alleged some irregularities on Sunday, including intimidation of some observers and the use of state oil company PDVSA’s vehicles to ferry pro-government voters.
Capriles accused the government of intimidating local media to silence his voice and running the most unfair campaign in Venezuelan history. “I had to go round the country practically with a megaphone in my hand... This campaign saw a brutal waste of Venezuelans’ resources (by the government),” he said in a midnight speech.
But unlike April’s vote, there was no call by Capriles for the results to be appealed or opposed.
The opposition’s next chances to gain political ground are 2015 parliamentary elections and a possible signature drive for a recall referendum on Maduro in 2016.
WHAT NEXT FOR CAPRILES?
Some anti-government activists are pressing for more action, such as street protests, and Capriles may find his authority challenged within his coalition after Sunday’s results.
“They did not achieve their objective of a protest vote against Maduro,” local pollster Luis Vicente Leon said.
Since taking office, Maduro has maintained core support among “Chavistas” by keeping his popular welfare programs and repeating his rhetoric and politics.
Opponents and some economists say Maduro’s price-cutting measures smack of short-term populism that do nothing to fix what they consider the roots of Venezuela’s economic mess: persecution of the private sector, and rigid price and currency control systems.
“We’re not giving up, we’re going to keep fighting,” said Oskeiling Lopez, 25, a bank manager and opposition supporter.
Voting was largely peaceful, though one newspaper reported a woman was shot dead in a queue in a western state.Hamilton: Alonso is one of the best drivers F1 has ever seen
Lewis Hamilton has for some time made no secret of the fact that he regards Fernando Alonso as his biggest rival in Formula 1 and the one he respects the most, thus the Briton laments the fact that the Spaniard is currently enduring such a tough time in his career.
Writing in his column for the BBC, Hamilton said, “For Fernando’s sake, I hope he is back battling at the front where he belongs as soon as possible. I’ve said many times that I regard him as my fastest and most talented rival – I think he is one of the best drivers F1 has ever seen.”
Ironically Alonso is back at McLaren, the team which groomed Hamilton from karting to Formula 1. Also the team where Hamilton and Alonso went toe-to-toe for the title in 2007 – they both lost out and the split was acrimonious as Alonso departed, while Hamilton stayed on and in 2008 claimed his first F1 world title.
But that now is water under the bridge and Hamilton right now feels Alonso’s pain of toiling hard at the back of the field as the new McLaren Honda era gets off to a tedious and problem packed start.
Hamilton explained, “Fernando chose to leave Ferrari at the end of last season to go to McLaren, who are now at the back after a difficult start to their new engine partnership with Honda.”
“As an F1 driver, these choices are very tough. When you decide where to drive, you never really know how it is going to work out. I was relating Fernando’s situation to mine, when I decided to leave McLaren at the end of 2012 and come to Mercedes,” reflected Hamilton.
But pointed out, “That worked out well for me. Had I not done that, I would have had a terrible 2013 and I would not have won the title last year.”
“Fernando stuck with Ferrari for five years without getting a car in which he could win the title,” mused Hamilton. “I don’t know what happened between them, but he had obviously had enough and decided to go somewhere else. It’s unfortunate for him that the following year the Ferrari car is amazing.”
“If he was to finish his career without adding to his two world championships, it would be a tragedy, because it would certainly not be due to his driving,” declared Hamilton who leads the 2015 F1 drivers’ championship and is now firm favourite to win his third title at the pinnacle of the sport.One day last April, I met Mark and Sarah (not their real names) at a McDonald’s down the block from their apartment, in Glenbrooke North, a mixed-income neighbourhood in New Westminster, British Columbia. The restaurant is kitty-corner from a nondescript mini-mall. A government-subsidized seniors’ complex and a BC Housing project are nearby. Mark appeared in a black hoodie, riding an electric wheelchair. At thirty-nine, he has trouble walking, due to muscular dystrophy. His wife, Sarah, followed. Six years his junior, she does not outwardly show the ravages of fibromyalgia, which have forced her into experimental drug therapy. Both are on government disability. Sarah hasn’t had a job since the call centre where she used to work closed five years ago. Mark hasn’t worked since 2007.
Like 96 percent of Canadians, they have a bank account—a requirement for the automatic deposit of their monthly disability cheque, which totals just over $1,500. But for all other financial needs, their current lifeline is the Money Mart in the mall across the street. At this tiny payday-lending store wedged between an insurance broker and an M&M Meat Shops franchise, the couple regularly put money onto a reloadable debit card and take out small short-term loans at annual interest rates in the triple digits. In theory, such advances are designed to tide customers over until their next paycheque arrives, at which point the entire debt is settled. In exchange for a postdated cheque or pre-authorized debit for the principal, plus fees, customers in BC can walk away with up to 50 percent of their next payday in hand.
In practice, however, that’s not always how it works. For Mark and Sarah, the last five years have been defined by regular sprints on the payday-loan treadmill—a metaphor, widely used by critics of the industry, that conjures the image of a gerbil trapped on a wheel. (Although they don’t have jobs, their disability benefit qualifies as a paycheque.) Typically, each $200 to $300 they borrow triggers a crisis. They are able to pay the money back, plus fees—about $46 for a $200 loan, $69 for $300—at the end of the month, but to eat and pay rent in the following month, they must borrow more on the spot. Describing the couple’s payback strategy over coffee at McDonald’s, Mark sounded like an addict self-administering a reduction cure: they taper down the amount re-borrowed each month, pay it in full, and combine their GST cheque with money borrowed from their families eventually to pay off the debt entirely.
When I checked in with Mark again in December, he assured me they would pay off their latest loan by the end of January. “Two hundred dollars is not a lot of money, which is why banks won’t loan us that much,” he said. “But for us, it’s the difference between eating and not eating this month, or having a place to live and going to a shelter.”
The couple is among the more than 198,000 British Columbians who took out a combined 858,000 payday loans in 2014. Every year, 2 million Canadians turn to such businesses, drawn by convenience, anonymity, or the fact that there is simply nowhere else to go. Since payday lenders first appeared in Canada in the mid-1990s, at least 1,770 storefront operations have sprung up across the country. They differ from traditional banks in that they are regulated provincially rather than federally, do not take customer deposits, and draw revenue primarily from the extremely high interest they charge. The industry has emerged because a market exists for its services—particularly small loans ranging from $100 to $1,500 that can be turned around quickly and without a conventional credit check. But in serving this market, are payday lenders preying on vulnerable, low-income Canadians?
Using future paycheques as collateral for loans dates back at least to the American Civil War, when shady entrepreneurs followed Union armies from battlefield to battlefield, advancing funds to impoverished soldiers in exchange for a cut of their future earnings. Around this time, as industrialization drew more and more workers to urban centres, salary lenders began to appear in eastern US cities, providing advances at interest rates exceeding 500 percent a year. While these lenders never migrated as far north as Canada, pawnbrokers did, which allowed people who could pledge some form of security to access short-term loans. Meanwhile, beginning in 1906, the Canadian government passed a succession of usury laws to protect consumers. Banks began to lend small amounts, and consumer-finance companies soon appeared to grant modest loans, typically charging interest in the range of 28 to 35 percent per year on monthly payment plans designed to fit clients’ budgets.
The boom that followed World War II and the emergence of new technologies changed the way everyone, rich and poor, thought about borrowing. In the decades that followed, mainstream financial institutions began to offer credit cards, overdrafts, and lines of credit. Meanwhile, plentiful jobs and an increase in disposable income enabled the rebranding of debt—an age-old scourge—as credit. “Most of our grandparents grew up in a time when you had to be fiercely independent and look after yourself,” said Scott Hannah, president and CEO of the Credit Counselling Society, Canada’s biggest non-profit debt-counselling service. “With no pension plan or safety net, you had to save, and when something broke, you fixed it. These lessons were not passed on.” In the span of a generation, many Canadians went from relying on savings for emergencies to relying on credit.
In the 1980s, with the popularization of credit cards, which were much cheaper to administer, North American banks largely abandoned small loans. For those who could not access conventional credit—including new immigrants, young people without established credit ratings, and those who were bankrupt but still employed—something new emerged. James Eaton of Johnson City, Tennessee, was a veteran of the credit-bureau business, gathering consumer information and selling it to lenders. In 1991, he opened a retail store called Check Cashing Inc. While his principal business was cashing paycheques without the delay of a bank hold, charging 2 to 3 percent for the service, Eaton also started offering small loans and accepting future paycheques as collateral.
At first, this was simply considered another form of cheque cashing, according to economist and author John Caskey of Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania. He believes the concept likely emerged when a financially pressed customer came to his or her regular cheque casher and asked for an advance in exchange for a personal postdated cheque. With a payday just around the corner, the customer was good for it—and was willing to accept high interest to get out of a pinch. Then as now, the service was not geared toward the very poor. It always has been marketed to low- and moderate-income households—albeit those with few savings and limited access to credit. “In many cases, their customers have severely impaired credit histories, or they have reached their limit on lower-cost sources of credit, such as credit cards,” Caskey said.
Tapping this market—people with steady but low-paying jobs, bad credit, and a willingness to pay triple-digit annual interest—proved highly profitable. The relaxation of state usury laws in the 1980s allowed the industry to flourish across the South and the Midwest. In many states, the annual interest-rate cap, which was typically around 36 percent, was either raised or eliminated altogether. In the early 1990s, according to an article in Harper’s magazine, there were fewer than 200 storefronts in the US offering such loans; by 2005, there were more than 22,000.
Canada’s era of payday lending began in 1996, when the Pennsylvania-based Dollar Financial Group Inc. (now known as DFC Global Corp.) bought Money Mart, an Edmonton chain. Money Mart started in 1982 and had grown to more than 180 outlets across the country by the time Dollar Financial swooped in. Like similar companies in the US, it was initially a cheque casher before it embraced payday loans. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many new Canadian companies followed it into the business, including Instaloans, Cash Store, Cash Money, and hundreds of mom-and-pop operations. Between 1999 and 2005, the number of outlets increased by 149 percent in Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg, growing from six to forty-three branches in Winnipeg alone. In 2007, Profit magazine deemed Cash Store Financial the country’s fastest-growing company, with five-year revenue growth of 33,700 percent.
The industry thrived in a regulatory vacuum. Successive federal governments refused to enforce a 1980 usury law that made it a criminal offence for lenders to charge more than 60 percent annual interest. By law, credit cards must present interest in terms of an annual percentage rate, or APR—a single number that represents how much borrowers would owe if they didn’t pay their debts for an entire year. Interest rates on payday loans, however, can be confusing. A $23 fee on a $100 two-week loan—the current cap in BC—seems, at first glance, to indicate an interest rate of 23 percent. But expressed in credit-card terms, it is close to 600 percent APR.
Scott Hannah calls the period roughly between 1996 and 2007 the “Wild West” era for payday lending in Canada. “We saw that the interest rates charged, including certain fees, in many cases were at or near 1,000 percent,” he said. He told me the story of a BC man who borrowed $100, then paid $25 every two weeks to “roll over” the loan—that is, borrow the same funds again, with added fees—because he could never scrape together enough money to pay off the debt entirely. This went on for two years before the Credit Counselling Society stepped in and negotiated with his lenders.
According to Olena Kobzar, a social sciences professor at York University, in Toronto, who wrote her dissertation on the industry, payday loans arose as part of a wider group of “subprime” financial products. These included automobile title loans—in which a vehicle title serves as collateral—and, notably, the toxic mortgages that fed the 2008 financial crisis. The common thread through these products is that money was lent to ever-riskier groups of people, which justified charging much higher interest rates. In the case of payday loans, rates sometimes exceeded those offered by mafia syndicates. In her dissertation, Kobzar cites a study that compared the rates charged by US payday lenders at the turn of the twenty-first century with those charged by loan sharks throughout history. Typical payday-lending rates, at 450 percent, were much higher than the latter’s average of 250 percent. “Why is the larger rate deemed to be legally acceptable,” Kobzar writes, “while the lesser rate is designated as criminal? ”
When I met Desiree Wells on Granville Street in Vancouver, the November chill hadn’t stopped her from wearing a low-cut T-shirt that revealed a sweeping tattoo across her upper chest: giant bat wings surrounding a heart, flames, and the word disarray in blue India ink. (She explained that it’s a play on her name.) Wells lives in Langley, a distant suburb, but had come downtown for a marketing focus group—an easy $100 in cash just to talk about cider and coolers, with some free samples thrown in.
To a bank or credit union, Wells represents a high-risk case. That makes her a member of the captive financial underclass that payday lenders, depending on one’s point of view, either serve or exploit. She grew up in Kitchener, Ontario; after graduating from high school, she worked for a credit-card company, which provided her with easy access to many different cards. Before long, she had maxed them out. She took out her first payday loan in 2000 to make ends meet while working at a Subway. “I’ve used every single company, and they all suck,” she said. “It’s a trap, and once you’re in, it’s so hard to get out.”
After a succession of service jobs, Wells left Ontario for BC in 2012 and worked for two years as a nanny. About a year ago, she went to a payday lender to cash a cheque and learned that she owed more than $6,000 from unpaid loans. She now is applying to get on disability (she uses a prosthetic foot) and still is unemployed, relying on friends and her boyfriend’s family for help. She doesn’t know how she will get out of debt. “Unless I win a lottery, I won’t,” she shrugged. “Realistically, it’s not gonna happen.”
When regulations finally came to the payday-loan industry, they were prompted not by the federal government enforcing the Criminal Code but by disgruntled customers like Wells. One day in 2002, a courier named Kurt MacKinnon, who regularly made deliveries to the downtown Vancouver office of the boutique law firm Hordo & Bennett (now Hordo Bennett Mounteer), complained to a legal secretary about the fees charged at the lenders he used, including Money Mart. “Looking at it, we realized that if Money Mart’s practices were unlawful, as alleged, then it was likely that the practices of the entire industry were unlawful,” said HBM managing partner Mark Mounteer.
In January 2003, the firm launched an industry-wide class-action suit against Money Mart and every other payday lender in the province. The BC Supreme Court rejected this approach but allowed HBM to pursue class actions against individual companies. So in 2005, the firm shifted gears, dropping all defendants except for Money Mart, which, by that time, had become Canada’s biggest payday lender. This was the first of at least twenty-five class actions the firm brought against companies in BC, Alberta, and Manitoba—and the floodgates opened. Actions across the country targeted many of the largest companies, as well as a number of smaller chains and independents. The basis of these suits was always the same: all fees charged in excess of the Criminal Code interest limit of 60 percent were illegal.
The class actions revealed the lengths to which payday lenders would go to get around federal law. Mounteer said one company gave out loans at less than 60 percent interest but made it mandatory for a delivery service to drop off the money for a $20 fee. Another employed a brokerage model: a staffer would present himself to clients as a middleman whose job it was to locate a loan for a fee; once hired, the same employee donned a new hat as a lender, dispensing the funds with new costs attached.
The actions also forced the larger companies, which banded together in 2004 as the Canadian Payday Loan Association, to confront the fact that many of their dealings were unlawful. This threatened their very existence. They needed to convince the government to change the rules.
At the height of the Wild West era, Stan Keyes found himself out of a job. A former broadcast reporter for CHCH TV, in Hamilton, Ontario, Keyes was first elected as a Liberal member of Parliament in 1988 and later took on multiple ministerial portfolios, including National Revenue, under Prime Minister Paul Martin. He was stationed in Boston and enjoying a plum diplomatic position when Stephen Harper was elected in 2006. As Canada shifted from Liberal red to Tory blue, Keyes was dropped. He thought about taking a year off to relax, but a friend from FleishmanHillard, the US public-relations giant, called to say the CPLA wanted to hire him as its president. Keyes accepted. At the time, he said, the industry was entrenched in two camps: there were the shady, fly-by-night players and the more sophisticated members of the CPLA. The latter, initially made up of about fifty companies, understood that embracing some regulation was the only way the industry would survive. His job was to lobby on their behalf.
Regulating the industry meant convincing the federal government to change the section of the Criminal Code that made payday loans illegal. The CPLA and FleishmanHillard launched a nationwide media and government lobbying campaign. In October 2006, then justice minister and attorney general Vic Toews introduced Bill C-26, which received royal assent the following May. The bill changed the Criminal Code to exempt payday lenders from criminal sanctions, provided that provinces enacted their own regulations. “Overall Bill C-26 was a victory for the payday loan industry in Canada,” writes Nathan Irving in the Manitoba Law Journal. “It conferred legitimacy on the industry while allowing payday lenders to continue charging exceptionally high interest rates.”
In the years since, six provinces have enacted their own legislation and received Ottawa’s approval; Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick are taking steps to do so. At the low end, Manitoba now caps prices (including fees) at $17 for every $100 borrowed; at the high end, Nova Scotia’s cap is $25 per $100. Newfoundland, Quebec, and the territories have not created their own regulations. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the federal usury limit of 60 percent still applies, although this has not stopped the industry from operating there. Quebec has its own 35 percent annual-interest cap, which makes it uneconomical for lenders to offer payday loans. But Money Mart still operates a Quebec chain of cheque cashers, Insta-Cheques, which offers many of its other services.
The regulations have put a stop to many of the industry’s worst abuses. All provinces with regulations have established lending caps for individual customers and outlawed the kinds of rollovers that kept Scott Hannah’s client paying off his $100 in perpetuity. Under BC’s rules, established in 2009, if a customer cannot pay back a loan by his or her next payday, the company can thereafter charge only 30 percent annual interest on the outstanding principal and a one-time fee of $20 for a dishonoured cheque or pre-authorized debit. Lenders in BC and some other provinces are also now required to display the cost of an advance both as a flat fee and in APR. “When I started, in 2006, it was a Wild West for the industry,” said Keyes. “Now we are legal, licensed, and heavily regulated.” Still, customers continue to have difficulty escaping the treadmill. According to Consumer Protection BC, about a quarter of the loans given out in 2014 “initially defaulted,” meaning many borrowers were unable to come up with the money by their next payday and were forced to pay additional fees.
The industry still runs into legal trouble. In 2013, with Ontario regulators planning to revoke the Cash Store’s payday-lending licence due to alleged violations of the law, the company said that it would start offering lines of credit instead. But the following year, the Superior Court ruled that these were effectively payday loans, and in February 2014 provincial regulators said they would refuse to renew the Cash Store’s licence. Deprived of its biggest market, the company entered bankruptcy protection. Money Mart now is poised to take over an undisclosed number of Cash Store locations—meaning Canada’s biggest chain, with more than 500 stores, is about to become even bigger.
Numerous class-action lawsuits continue. Mark and Sarah were part of the first against Money Mart, which was settled in 2010 for $24.75 million, but the way they were reimbursed for the illegal fees they paid all those years ago remains a sore spot. Initially the couple was ecstatic to hear they would get more than $400 back. However, they soon learned that the settlement would be split into two tranches. The first would be paid out in cash, with an option to get the second half immediately—in the form of Money Mart vouchers for future services. If they wanted
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some signs of repentance before their death.”
“This is a direct quote from Canon 1184 of the Code of Canon Law, which is intended as a call to repentance,” Bishop Paprocki said.
He cited Christ’s public proclamation in the Gospel of Mark: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”
The bishop further explained the Church’s response to Church burial rites.
“This does not mean that unrepentant manifest sinners will simply be refused or turned away,” he said. “Even in those cases where a public Mass of Christian burial in church cannot be celebrated because the deceased person was unrepentant and there would be public scandal, the priest or deacon may conduct a private funeral service, for example, at the funeral home.”
Bishop Paprocki did find a point in the priest’s criticism.
“Father Martin’s tweets do raise an important point with regard to other situations of grave sin and the reception of Holy Communion. He is right that the Church’s teaching does not apply only to people in same-sex ‘marriages,’” he said.
Citing canon law, the bishop said everyone conscious of grave sin should not receive Holy Communion without first going to confession and receiving absolution. This is relevant to everyone who has committed a grave sin, whether it is sexual sin, missing Mass on Sundays and holy days of Obligation without grave cause, procuring an abortion, or having attempted remarriage after a divorce without obtaining a decree of nullity.
The bishop noted that a couple who agrees to live as brother and sister in an irregular union, if there is no public scandal, could receive Holy Communion after repenting, going to confession and amending their lives. This similarly would apply to two men or two women who live chastely with each other.
Bishop Paprocki’s decree drew significant media coverage.
“The fact that there would be such an outcry against this decree is quite astounding and shows how strong the ‘LGBT’ lobby is both in the secular world as well as within the Church,” he said.
Citing Pope Francis’ comments against judgementalism, the bishop noted that the Pope had warned against any form of lobbies, including a “gay lobby.”
Burial rites were only one part of the June 12 decree, which concerned topics including the use of Catholic facilities and diocesan personnel in same-sex ceremonies, as well as the response to people in same-sex unions and to any children who live with such couples and are presented for the sacraments or Catholic education.Restoration Work
Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve | Lake Forest
Invasive Plant Removal Project
Through 2017, crews will be removing invasive woody and herbaceous plants throughout the preserve. This project is the implementation of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Great Lakes Fish and Ecosystem Restoration program.
Questions, comments, updates? Call or email Army Corps Public Affairs Office, 312-846-5330.
Countywide
Woody Invasive Species Clearing Project
Through winter 2016–17, our well-trained crews will remove invasive woody species, primarily buckthorn, autumn olive, sandbar willow and honeysuckle, from the preserves throughout the county. Clearing will be completed through the use of hand tools and mechanical equipment. Brush and small trees will be burned in brush piles under carefully controlled conditions. The majority of the clearing work will occur during the winter months when the frozen ground conditions prevent disturbance to the soil, native plants and wildlife. Learn more »
Trail Work
Captain Daniel Wright Woods | Mettawa
Everett Road Trail Connection
Approximately 0.85-miles of paved hiking and biking trail is being added to Wright Wood’s northeast trail loop, connecting the trail to Everett Road. While no trails will be closed during the construction, please use caution, slow down, and look for signs and work crews along the way. Construction is scheduled to be complete by fall of 2017. View map »
Questions, comments, updates? Call or email Michael Haug, Landscape Architect, 847-968-3275.HAMILTON — With the Hamilton Tiger-Cats thriving on and off the field, President Scott Mitchell says the corner was turned a few years ago.
A new stadium, 17 consecutive sellouts, two appearances in Grey Cup Championships and confidence in the on-field product are among what the Ticats have brought to the table over the last few years, emerging successful in all facets of the organization.
The transformation, Mitchell says, started with the vision of Kent Austin and a brand new stadium in Tim Hortons Field.
“I think we turned that corner a few years back,” said Mitchell. “The reality is you can only do so much when you don’t have a great facility and you also can only do so much when you don’t have a great product on the field.
“While we had some success previous to Coach Austin arriving,” he added, “the reality is it’s no coincidence that both Tim Hortons Field and Kent Austin arrived a few years ago and really changed the whole dynamic of the organization.”
“It’s no coincidence that both Tim Hortons Field and Kent Austin arrived a few years ago and really changed the whole dynamic of the organization.”
The Ticats have sold out every game at their new stadium so far and expect another sold out season in 2016. Demand for tickets is so high that there’s talk of capping season ticket sales. Meanwhile the team is putting another $1 million into stadium renovations.
The discussion around the team shifted drastically in short order, something Mitchell traces back to Austin’s hiring in 2013.
It wasn’t always the case that the number one question in Hamilton is whether the team will win the Grey Cup this year. It hasn’t happened yet under Austin, but these days Ticats fans go into every season knowing their team is in the discussion.
Austin is working hard to find out what, if anything, that missing ingredient could be.
“We evaluate and analyze every area of the football team,” said Austin, asked ‘what’s missing’ during a season preview teleconference. “Down to the individual players and schemes to the impact of injuries, how we can prevent injuries and get more man games and man hours on the football field — especially with key players.
“Just about every area including analytics, self-scout, opponent scout — all those things are evaluated in the off-season to see where we can make improvements, test those improvements and measure the efficacy of what we’re doing and see if we’re on the right trajectory for success.
“It’s typically multi-faceted, it’s not just one area that you put your finger on.”
True, there’s no one answer as to why Hamilton’s recent on-field success hasn’t translated to a championship. At least part of it, Austin also pointed out, has to do with luck. The Ticats were a last-minute penalty flag away from winning the 102nd Grey Cup in Vancouver in 2014, while last year they were the likely Grey Cup favourites until quarterback Zach Collaros suffered a season-ending knee injury in the fall.
They’ll be without Collaros to start 2016 but his progress remains positive as he works towards a return to the field. And outside of that, despite some losses on both sides of the ball, there’s no reason to believe this team can’t return just as dominant this season as it was through the first half of 2015.
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It starts on defence, where Austin believes the Ticats can be even better than they were a year ago.
“I think the chemistry can always be created because it stems from the leader on that side of the ball, and that’s [Defensive Coordinator Orlondo Steinauer],” said Austin. “The way they coach the guys to prepare them and I think our overall philosophy on what overall leadership looks like should carry the day regardless of any personnel changes.
“We still have a really good core group of guys that are coming back,” he added. “They’re outstanding leaders that have been in the system. We actually think we can be better defensively, but every coach is going to say that at this stage.”
While Jeff Reinebold continues to mold special teams with his expertise, one newcomer on the coaching staff will be Stefan Ptaszek, now the offensive coordinator following the sudden departure of Tommy Condell.
Austin speaks highly of Ptaszek, a former McMaster head coach who has won three Yates Cups and a Vanier Cup at the helm of the Marauders.
“I’ve known Stef, I’ve known his body of work, his success,” said Austin. “He’s been a winner, he knows the game. He knows talent.”
While coaching stability is huge, the team has also been busy looking to improve off the field.
The Ticats have added an All-Access program, a points system that allows fans to access and consume content and win prizes as well as opportunities to engage with Ticats. They’ll also launch a retail store on the southeast corner of Tim Hortons Field along with an alumni clubhouse for 2016.
Most recently the team announced the addition of the Coors Banquet Bar, a 4,000 square foot weather-protected bar where fans can gather on the second level.
“Obviously we’ve had goals in Hamilton to be a very successful and sustainable organization,” said Mitchell. “And we’re thrilled to be able to say we’ve surpassed that sustainability and are really reveling in the opportunity to be a successful and viable franchise.
“We want our experience at Tim Hortons Field to be the best live sporting experience in North America, and I think clearly we’ve done a great job with that.”
With Austin in the fold and a dominant home field advantage, the Ticats have the confidence in the on-field product to compete for a Grey Cup every season. The next step is to turn that into a championship.
“Without that great success on the field and the great confidence that we have an organization that can compete week in and week out and particularly compete for championships, you’re never going to be able to achieve everything you want to off the field,” said Mitchell.
While the Ticats begin their quest for a Grey Cup on June 23 in what should be a heated road battle with the Toronto Argonauts in the first game at BMO Field, their fans can look forward to seeing it all in person at the home opener on July 1 when the BC Lions come to town.Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Reports have named Ali David Sonboly as the 18-year-old gunman who killed 9 people in a shooting spree at a McDonalds and shopping centre in Munich last night.
The taxi driver's son had both German and Iranian citizenship and had been born and raised in the city before last night's rampage after which he shot himself dead.
He used an illegal Glock 9mm pistol and had 300 rounds of ammunition when he went on what police have called a "classic shooting rampage".
The weapon had the serial number removed and police are now trying to trace how Sonboly got hold of it.
(Image: Bild)
His body was been found 1km from the scene of the massacre at the Munich Olympia Shopping Centre (OEZ).
A robot was used by cops to search his body for explosives after he apparently shot himself.
Sonboly has been linked to a Facebook account that was set up a day before the shooting with messages luring them to the McDonalds with the offer of gifts.
His father is currently helping police with inquiries while his home is being searched.
(Image: Twitter)
Who was he?
Ali David Sonboly was an 18-year-old of who had both German and Iranian citizenship and lived locally.
He had been living in Munich for more than two years. His flat and personal belongings are being examined.
At a police press conference this morning they said there were indications the gunman had been in psychiatric care and treated for depression.
There is no evidence that he had any links to Islamic State or refugees, they said.
He was born and raised in the German city, and acted alone when he went on a rampage at a shopping centre and fast-food restaurant on Friday.
They also revealed he used a 9mm pistol and had 300 rounds of ammunition when he went on what they called a "classic shooting rampage".
(Image: Getty)
(Image: Getty)
(Image: Sky News)
In his backpack was a book called "Amok im Kopf: Warum Schüler töten".
This translates roughly as: "Amok in the head: Why students kill"
It is written by Dr Peter Langman, a psychologist expert who has written about shootings in the United States.
There were also reports police found violent computer games at the teenager's home.
In footage he was seen bursting from a McDonald's restaurant toilet before opening fire on children he reportedly screamed 'Allahu Akbar' before shooting them at close range.
He then pushed through the front doors into the street and carried on shooting, killing at least one pedestrian whose body was later pictured covered on the ground.
Witnesses reportedly heard the man, who appeared in the footage to be carrying a red Pokemon rucksack, screaming: “Ich bin Deutsch, scheiss Ausländer” – “I’m German, f*** foreigners” before opening fire.
(Image: Getty)
(Image: Getty)
(Image: Getty)
The stockily built man appeared to be carrying ammunition around his waist and was seen staggering as he fires.
He was later filmed on the roof of the shopping centre exchanging verbal abuse with someone who filmed the confrontation.
During the slanging match with a man hiding on a balcony, the gunman was heard to say 'because of you I was bullied for 7 years' and made a point of saying he was 'German.'
A translation of the slanging match with a man who was taking cover on a balcony was later being shared on social media.
A neighbour on Dachauer Strasse that was searched by police on Saturday morning described the alleged gunman as "very quiet".
Wishing to only give his first name, Stephan, an owner of a coffee shop, said: "He only ever said 'hi'.
"His whole body language was of somebody who was very shy."
He added: "He never came into the cafe - he was just a neighbour and took out the trash but never talked."
Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now
He set up fake Facebook account offering free McDonalds to lure more victims to the restaurant
He posted up a Facebook post the day before the shooting to lure people to the McDonald's in Munich where yesterday's shooting began.
Police have said they are investigating whether a message shared on the popular social media site was relevant to the massacre in Germany which left 10 people dead including the 18-year-old gunman.
A rough translation of the post identified by local media is: "come today to the Maccy's at 16 o'clock at OEZ I 'll buy you something but nothing too expensive"
The OEZ is the name of the shopping mall where the shooting took place.
The account where the invite was posted was disabled while the shooting was ongoing on Friday evening.
It has also been suggested the account, featuring an attractive woman of Middle Eastern appearance, was only created a short time before the 'free McDonald's' posts.
At a press conference in Munich earlier today, a reporter asked: "On Facebook there is a type game whereby at 4 o'clock in the afternoon you should be meeting in McDonald's because something... I believe this is a fake game where people are asked to congregate at McDonald's because McDonald's might be offering free meals."
What gunman was filmed saying on roof of shopping centre:
Balcony man: 'You f***ing a*****e you...'
Gunman: 'Because of you I was bullied for 7 years...'
Balcony man: 'You w****r you. you're a w****r'
Gunman: '...and now I have to buy a gun to shoot you'
Balcony man: 'A gun! F**k off! Your head should be cut off you a*****e'
An unidentified voice is heard to say: 'F*****g Turks!' before the balcony man says 'f*****g foreigner'
The man filming is then heard to say: "He's got a gun! He has loaded his gun. Get the cops here. He's walking around here the w****r."
The gunman the says "I am German", to which the man filming replies with "You're a w****r is what you are. What the f**k are you doing?"
The gunman is then heard to say "I was born here."
"I grew up here in the Hartz 4 (unemployment benefits in Germany) area."
He pleads with the onlooker "please shut your mouth."
Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now
What happened to him?
After what appeared to be a two hour information blackout, police revealed that the gunman's body had been found 1km away from the shopping centre.
How he managed to escape the scene given that 100 police were in and around the shopping centre has not been revealed.
A robot was reportedly used by police to check his body for explosives before his ID could be ascertained.
It is believed he shot himself, but this has yet to be confirmed.
Why did he do it?
Information, again, is yet to fully emerge about the reasons behind the teenager's gun attack, but pro-ISIS Twitter accounts have been widely celebrating the attack with some suggestions that the group has taken credit for it.
Germany has been on high alert since Afghan refugee Muhammad Riyad went on an axe rampage on a train in Bavaria before being shot dead by police.
Racial tensions in the country have increased since the arrival of an estimated 1.2m refugees over the past 12 months with far right parties gaining in support.Patel
New Delhi, May 4: Sonia Gandhi's political secretary Ahmed Patel today created a flutter in Parliament by obliquely pointing to conspiracies within the government, even against the Prime Minister.
Participating in the debate on the AgustaWestland helicopter deal in the Rajya Sabha, Patel said: "The danger is not on our side, it is there in the government. All kinds of discussions are on, we hear something in the Central Hall about somebody already in control of 140 MPs. They are threatening to get the finance minister changed by May 20... and as 2019 nears, even the Prime Minister could be changed."
Many senior politicians were surprised that Patel, who knows the machinations in the power corridors better than most and is not known to indulge in loose talk, chose to mention this in his formal speech on the floor of the House.
He even suggested a remedy: "Set things in order within your own party, control those who make frivolous, wild allegations."
Patel did not take names but the statement, especially the reference to the finance minister, triggered furious speculation in political circles.
It is not a secret that some lobbies in the RSS and the BJP are opposed to Arun Jaitley and feel he has bungled in managing the economy. While some ministers and BJP leaders have been privately blaming Jaitley for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's political woes in the first two years, many party sympathisers have publicly vented their ire against him through social media.
Patel was obviously livid with BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who has been repeatedly naming him and Sonia in the helicopter scam.
In an emotionally surcharged intervention, Patel said: "If there is an iota of truth, I will resign from Parliament and quit politics. But don't malign people by making baseless allegations. What punishment will you give to those who destroy reputations by levelling wild allegations?"
The powerful Congress leader, who mostly avoids the public glare, said: "Instead of finding the truth and acting against the guilty, an attempt is being made to create suspicions about certain people. An impression is being created that the Congress is corrupt."
Tyagi quizzed
The CBI today questioned former IAF chief S.P. Tyagi for the third day in the Rs 3,600-crore helicopter deal, in which some Indians are believed to have received kickbacks.
A CBI official claimed the agency had zeroed in on the money trail, but did not give details.
In 2013, the CBI had registered a case against Tyagi and 13 others, including his three cousins and European middlemen.
The allegation against Tyagi was that he brought down the flying ceiling from 6,000m to 4,500m, which made AgustaWestland copters eligible to participate in the bids.
Tyagi has said the change of specifications was a collective decision in which officials of different departments were involved.
The CBI will soon question another retired air force officer, who was an air vice-marshal at the time, sources said.How private companies are profiting from Texas public schools.
It’s not hard to imagine Pearson’s vision of utopia.
Pearson is a London-based mega-corporation that owns everything from the Financial Times to Penguin Books, and also dominates the business of educating American children. The company promotes its many education-related products on a website that features an idyllic, make-believe town. It’s called Pearsonville, and it looks like the international conglomerate version of SimCity. In this virtual town, school buses whizz through tree-lined streets, and the city center features skyscrapers and a tram. Tabs pop up to show you just how many Pearson products are available. A red schoolhouse features young kids using Pearson products to learn math (with Pearson’s enVision Math) and take standardized tests online. Nearby, at the Pearsonville high school, students use the company’s online instructional materials to study science. The high school also features online testing. Pearson online courses are available at the town library. At the model home, parents can use Pearson’s student information system to track their children’s grades. The “test centre,” not shockingly, provides even more testing options. It’s a beautiful little town. A Las Vegas-style sign welcomes you, while a biplane flies through the sky trailing a Pearson banner behind it.
It’s a computer-generated reality. But when it comes to Texas education, it’s not far from the truth.
Pearson, one of the giants of the for-profit industry that looms over public education, produces just about every product a student, teacher or school administrator in Texas might need. From textbooks to data management, professional development programs to testing systems, Pearson has it all—and all of it has a price. For statewide testing in Texas alone, the company holds a five-year contract worth nearly $500 million to create and administer exams. If students should fail those tests, Pearson offers a series of remedial-learning products to help them pass. Meanwhile, kids are likely to use textbooks from Pearson-owned publishing houses like Prentice Hall and Pearson Longman. Students who want to take virtual classes may well find themselves in a course subcontracted to Pearson. And if the student drops out, Pearson partners with the American Council on Education to offer the GED exam for a profit.
“Pearson basically becomes a complete service provider to the education system,” says David Anderson, an Austin education lobbyist whose clients include some of Pearson’s competitors.
With the prevalence of companies like Pearson operating in Texas and many other states, the U.S. education system has become increasingly privatized. In some cases, the only part of education that remains public is the school itself. Nearly every other aspect of educating children—exams, textbooks, online classes, even teacher certification—is now provided by for-profit companies.
Public education has always offered big contracts to for-profit companies in areas like construction and textbooks. But in the past two decades, an education-reform movement has swept the country, pushing for more standardized testing and accountability and for more alternatives to the traditional classroom—most of it supplied by private companies. The movement has been supported by business communities and non-profits like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and often takes a free market approach to public education. Reformers litter their arguments about education policy with corporate rhetoric and business-school buzzwords. They talk of the need for “efficiency,” “innovation” and “assessment” in the classroom.
The mingling of business and education blurs the line between learning and profit-making. Some education reformers advocating for increased reliance on testing also lobby for the large testing companies. It’s often difficult to tell if lawmakers stick with education policies because they’re effective, or because they’re attached to high-dollar contracts.
Take Anderson, who works for HillCo Partners, the high-powered Austin lobbying firm, and who represents many of the industry’s heavy hitters, like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. After a career in teaching and another at the Texas Education Agency, Anderson has been a part of the industry for years. One of his clients, Educational Testing Services, administers the test Texas teachers must take to get certified—which amounts to a coveted $70 million contract from the state. Anderson explains that the privatization of education has developed organically. As lawmakers demand more from school districts—more testing, more data management, more data analysis—the districts have often turned to corporations to handle these complex components. Those relationships quickly become inextricable.
“You have companies that have grown up either by expanding business or adding new business to sort of fill that void,” Anderson says. “Well, once something is established, if a program has a set life, the company that is now doing that work wants to figure out a way to extend that beyond the life of that project. And as a result you get this burgeoning business-education complex that includes companies that once upon a time might have been textbook companies, or test companies, that now do so many more things.”
Educating kids has become big business—an immensely profitable industry. As governments cut funding for schools and seek more “efficiencies,” the privatization of education is growing more ubiquitous. Think Pearsonville.
In 1998, Pearson hired a new CEO from Texas, Marjorie Scardino. She joined a company with a diverse and haphazard set of interests; in addition to the Financial Times and Penguin Books, the mega-company owned everything from Madame Tussauds wax museums to a stake in investment bank Lazard. Scardino sought to focus the company on one broad industry—education. Soon after Scardino’s arrival, Pearson bought Simon & Schuster’s education businesses and opened a new, overarching company—Pearson Education. Two years later, in a controversial move, Pearson acquired the Minnesota-based testing company National Computer Systems for $2.5 billion and began expanding into assessments. By 2004, Scardino ranked 59th on Forbes’ list of the “100 Most Powerful Women in the World.” By 2009, she was 19th.
Her timing was excellent. The education field was facing new and vehement demand for more testing and accountability in schools. Texas had been leading the way in state-mandated standardized testing, and by the time Pearson acquired National Computer Systems in 2000, the company had already signed a $233 million contract with the Lone Star State. With the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001, all states were required to use a standard test to determine how students were learning. Pearson continued buying testing companies, including the testing services division of Harcourt. Last year, Pearson signed yet another contract with Texas to create the latest iterations of the state’s testing system, the new and more rigorous “end-of-course” and State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exams.
Pearson now creates the tools to grade the tests and the software to analyze student performance. That’s in addition to textbooks, remedial learning resources, GED courses and online classes. (Pearson officials refused comment for this story.)
But despite Pearson’s prevalence in nearly every sector of public education, state officials say they maintain oversight. The Texas Education Agency monitors Pearson’s test development and often works side-by-side with the company. Gloria Zyskowski, the deputy associate commissioner, says the agency communicates with Pearson almost daily. She says that TEA uses a transparent bidding process to contract the work and follows a strict series of steps to build and score the tests. In creating test questions, the agency recruits teachers and former teachers to sit on an advisory committee. Pearson employees facilitate advisory committees, but the company isn’t writing the test questions by itself.
But when the company—like many for-profits—wants to get its way in education policy, Pearson isn’t shy about deploying high-powered lobbyists. Pearson pays six lobbyists to advocate for the company’s legislative agenda at the Texas Capitol—often successfully. This legislative session, lawmakers cut an unprecedented $5 billion from public education, including funding for a variety of programs to help struggling students improve their performance on state tests. Despite the cuts, Pearson’s funding streams remain largely intact. Bills that would have reduced the state’s reliance on tests didn’t pass. The Texas Senate refused to pass any bills that would have diminished the role of testing, a stance some Capitol sources attribute to Pearson’s lobbying, while others give the credit to pressure from reform advocates.
Who’s responsible may not matter. The interests of corporate lobbyists and reform advocates are often the same. It’s difficult to separate the businessmen from the believers.
In a narrow sense, Pearson’s lobbying efforts simply reflect a company protecting its profits. But in a wider view, Pearson is part of a larger education-reform effort that seeks to improve public education through free-market principles. Often that means non-traditional educational approaches like charter schools and online learning. The movement includes a lot of earnest folks, eager to improve public schools and do what’s best for kids. But their efforts have earned a fortune for companies like Pearson. It’s become difficult to determine where the educating ends and the profit-making begins.
“I’m going to stick my neck out, and don’t take it personally.” So began Houston state Rep. Scott Hochberg. It was close to midnight, and Hochberg was presiding over the ninth hour of a House Public Education Committee hearing late in the session. Hochberg, a Democrat, is widely seen as the Legislature’s education policy guru. One of the final witnesses of the night was about to testify—Sandy Kress, another well-known name in Texas education circles. But before Kress spoke, Hochberg went on the offensive. “Dr. Kress, a question was asked of me last time you testified here,” Hochberg said. “And that was whether you currently have any interests or any connections with any companies involved in the testing process.”
It was an awkward moment. Kress is a giant of the education reform movement. As board president of the Dallas Independent School District in the early 1990s, Kress became a vocal and controversial advocate for testing. He’s pushed for more standards and more assessment for decades and was a key architect of No Child Left Behind. He believes testing helps schools do a better job educating students. But he also lobbies professionally for the biggest testing company in Texas. Normally, he identifies himself as a representative of advocacy groups. This time, however, Hochberg wasn’t going to let him off easy. Kress was there to criticize House Bill 500, which would have significantly decreased the stakes on new tests the state will roll out this year.
“We do have a relationship with one company,” Kress said, “and you know, I’m not testifying on their behalf.”
“But just for full disclosure, who is that?” Hochberg pushed.
“Pearson.”
“So you, in your occupation as a lobbyist, represent Pearson Publishing, which, among other things, sells us these tests?”
“That’s correct,” Kress said.
“But you’re not testifying on behalf of Pearson tonight?”
“That’s correct,” Kress said again—before beginning his lengthy argument against the bill.
In a sense, it was a debate over wording. The interests of testing advocates and testing companies like Pearson are often one and the same. Kress is the most prominent example of how big business and education policy have intertwined.
Kress is part of the large and very powerful education reform movement. The movement began in the early 1980s, when some parents and businesses grew concerned about how American students compared to global competition. Many became concerned that public schools weren’t sufficiently educating poor and minority children. Kress, among many others, called for more standardized testing and pushed districts to show how children in different racial and economic categories were performing. The movement eventually yielded the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, requiring that schools not only test students every year, but that schools show progress in closing achievement gaps. The federal law required states to use standardized tests, but allowed states to decide which test to use—leaving testing companies to battle it out for state contracts. The testing hasn’t yet done much to close the achievement gaps, but it has given schools a tremendous amount of assessment data on each student.
“The bottom line is we have a heck of a lot more transparency than we did before,” Kress says. “It’s worth all the gold in the world to know how your child is doing year by year.”
The broad movement goes beyond testing. Many reform advocates see themselves as pushing against the educational status quo, and contrast their “innovations” with traditional public schools. Challenges to the old system are necessary, many reformers argue, because school districts aren’t going to change of their own accord—and many schools have been failing to educate too many kids.
The movement advocates for charter schools and letting parents pick which schools their children attend. But most of these new directions stem from testing and student data. The data is generally required to prove both problems and solutions. Philanthropies like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation give out multi-million-dollar grants to help school districts gather and track information about students. The tests, reformers say, are key to understanding what works and what doesn’t.
The emphasis on testing opened the door to more for-profit companies. In addition to the big testing contracts, No Child Left Behind requires schools that fail to meet requirements three years in a row to offer free tutoring. Companies soon rushed in to fill the need. By 2008, according to a PBS documentary, tutoring for standardized tests amounted to a $4 billion industry. Charter schools can subcontract their entire operations to for-profit companies.
Kress doesn’t understand why people are so worried about the role of for-profit companies in areas like testing. “School districts have for a long, long time relied in a good substantial part on the private sector,” he points out. “The private sector has always made things for the school and sold them to them, whether it’s school desks or built their schools.” In the education world, whether it’s testing or other products, Kress says, “the companies are there to serve their customers. And their customers are a combination of the agency and school districts out there.”
Andrew Erben, who serves as president of the Texas Institute for Education Reform, says the more private companies take an active role in public education, the better. “I think it’s a great idea for businesses to get involved in the advocacy and maybe in the delivery of some of the education products,” he says.
Without pressure from outside advocates, Erben worries, school districts wouldn’t do nearly as much to improve. “I think the education establishment wants to protect the structure and function of the current system,” he says. “Any innovation or deregulation is met with some resistance.”
This market-based approach to education has become increasingly controversial. Teachers groups never liked the reliance on high-stakes testing. But recent opposition to testing and other “innovations” has come from all quarters, including advocates who once were reformers but who now wonder what the changes have accomplished.
“We may have kicked over the canoe when it came to testing,” says former state Commissioner of Education Mike Moses. He is hardly anti-test—as commissioner in the late 1990s, he sought to gradually expand testing to every grade between third and 11th, and he still believes testing is an important tool for evaluating and diagnosing schools. But he also concedes that the emphasis on testing may have gone too far. “I used to be called a reformer,” he says. “I don’t know that I’m called a reformer anymore.” Moses, now an advocate at the education advocacy group Raise Your Hand Texas, worries that the increasingly high stakes of the tests has made them too powerful. “I think that the testing programs have grown to a level that they get their own momentum,” he says. “They kind of perpetuate themselves.”
Others are more strident in their criticism of testing. The problem, opponents say, is that from testing to charter schools, the reform movement has begun to pick apart public schools as we know them in favor of the private sector. “The current movement distrusts educators,” says Ed Fuller, an education researcher and vocal critic of standardized tests who just left the University of Texas for the Pennsylvania State University. “They’re trying to create a system that’s educator-proof. The way you do that is to have testing and accountability, more and more and more of it. Because we don’t trust educators to do what’s right, to make good judgments about what kids know and what they can do.”
Fuller points to the book Measuring Up by Harvard professor Daniel Koretz, which argues that students learn test-taking strategies that pollute testers’ ability to see what the students actually know. “The whole issue is that any test at the kind of level that it’s at, especially with it being multiple choice—you can sit down and teach a kid how to pass it without them understanding the concepts behind the test,” Fuller argues. He’s particularly critical of the number of multiple-choice questions that Texas state assessments feature, but says few in the Legislature want to hear about the drawbacks of such exams. The combination of Pearson’s power and reformers’ influence, he says, makes it difficult for legislators to assess testing’s efficacy.
But as Texas prepares to phase in an entirely new testing regime, designed by Pearson, many in the reform camp argue that the new tests will address some of Fuller’s concerns. Unlike the old tests, called the TAKS, the new tests will align with specific courses in high school and put a heavy emphasis on testing kids to determine if they’re ready for pursuits in the work force or higher education. TEA official Zyskowski says the new tests will include several essays and written responses and fewer multiple-choice answers, especially in math. “We’ll also look at data about how students at varying levels of performance on those tests do in their first year in college,” she says. The agency is also going to compare students’ performances on the state tests to performances on the ACT, SAT and AP tests.
For Kress, the new tests are a victory. “That didn’t come from Pearson. That didn’t come from Harcourt,” he says. “That came because colleges and businesses and parents are saying we want our children to get good-paying jobs.”
Kress argues that despite budget cuts, testing shouldn’t be reduced because it’s the best way to tell where the problems are. “The assessment is what gives you the knowledge, the tools,” he says, comparing the process to diagnostic medical work like blood testing. That sounds convincing, but what do we make of the fact that Kress is also paid to further the financial interests of the nation’s leading testing
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